The Other Guys

***WARNING***

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS THEREFOR MAYBE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME FUCKS. IT ALSO CONTAINS MEAT, DAIRY, NUTS AND SHATTERED DREAMS

***YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***

'The Other Guys' could have gone either way for me. My track record with Ferrell and McKay has been somewhat mixed. I enjoyed Anchorman despite its flaws, of which it had many most of which saved by Steve Carell. I Tried to enjoy Talladega Nights but it lingered on to many unfunny jokes and was obscured by John C.Reilly's totally unlikable and unenjoyable presence. So it came as no shock when I really couldn't get on with Step Brothers which I found funny for all of five minutes then became so angry that I wanted to stab a HIV positive hobo, hunt down Reilly, anally violate him with the infected blade and force him to work at any Harvester for a decade before ripping out his spine and proceeding to batter the projected image of himself on the screen until the return of christ. 

'The Other Guys' however does not feature John C.Reilly and instead swaps out the part he would have played with the ever watchable and always fantastic (even in his shit movies, of which there are many) Mark Wahlberg. Simply fantastic casting as Marky Mark who even amongst the surrealism and over the top comedy action manages to bring a strong level of believability to the proceedings. Even Ferrell manages to tone it down for the most part be it by actually managing subtlety and on the odd occasion playing the straight man. Other notable cast members are Samuel L Jackson and Dwayne (I'm not The Rock anymore) Johnson who are simply hilarious as a pair of all action American cop heroes. 

Its nice to see that McKay is trying to branch out a little more with his directing style. 'Step Brothers' was just a string of ad-libs with no story and even less focus than an anti ford focus convention being filmed in Low-def by a cameraman teamed with absolutely no focus pullers racking focus for him. 'The Other Guys' on the other hand is surprisingly plot driven at times which is fantastic but fails to pull you in because there is a crucial part of the plot missing, the plot part of the plot to be precise. But in all honesty it doesn't matter all that much because its masked by a never ending stream of pop culture references, running gags (The best of which being a character who can't seem to stop quoting TLC songs) and deliberately over the top melodramatic moments coupled with sleazy cop music akin to the buddy cop films of the early 80's upon which this film is clearly based.

My biggest gripe with 'The Other Guys' is its rating, it should never have been released as a PG-13 movie. Now thats not to say that I think the film as is deserves an R rating, it doesn't. But the film should have been aloud to be released as an R rated movie simply because it clearly wants to be one and I feel may have been shot as if it was one. It happens too much these days with good films being released PG-13 when they clearly would have benefited from an R. The audience for this movie is the same as McKays previous who are not a young audience. Its so daring to release an R rated movie these days and that sickens me. Some of the best franchises have been revamped with a watered down PG-13 release, Die Hard 4, Terminator 3/Salivation and Rocky Bla Bla Bla to name a few. For the studio to take this film and insist it be a PG-13 is like putting your life savings on a bet for a marathon runner to win the hundred meters then shooting him in the foot five seconds before the starting pistol. 

To sum all this up is very difficult, I do like this film but it has a lot of problems. Its like having a best friend who would take a bullet for you, make you tea in the mornings and gladly take you in should you find yourself homeless but he smells like dried piss, wears Umbro and is a bonk-eyed ginger drug dealer from Scotland. My parting words I guess are to see it but don't expect too much. If you go in with low expectations you'll be pleasantly surprised. It truly is one of this years funniest films. 

The Other Guys gets...

                                                                                                                                     2.5 out of 5

Avatar

I know this isn't a very "current" movie to review but quite frankly it pissed me off so much that it needs re-addressing. In the year that was 2009, good movies were a little hard to find. Here is a list of that years top grossing movies...

1.Avatar with $2,760,751,139

2.Specky Twat and the Half Blood Prince with $933,959,197

3.Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with $886,686,280

4.Transformers: Revenge of Micheal Bay with $836,297,228

5.2012 with $769,679,128

6.Up with $731,342,724

7.The Twiglet Saga: The New Arse with $709,826,790

8.Sherlock Holmes with $523,028,679

9.Angels and Dribbles with $485,930,816

10.The Hangover with $467,483,912

That's a list so depressing that it would make Ockar Schindler put a shotgun in his own mouth. Of all of those films I saw eight in the cinema and I enjoyed three of them (for the curious amongst you I liked The Hangover, I loved Up, and kinda enjoyed Sherlock Holmes despite it being kinda shit). But as much as I detest Twiglets and Speky Twats I understand that there is a rather stupid gabble of dribbling crack babies that serve as an audience for them. Avatar on the other hand has absolutely no right to be considered a 'good film'.

Now before I get knee deep into the Na'vi shit pile, I do wish to say that Avatar looked good in 3D, but I was still more impressed with Step Up 3D's trailer and its integration of the format than I was by Avatars. As for the rest of the film its shockingly flimsy. 

The plot is good and has huge potential, in fact I loved it first time round in 1990's Dances With Wolves which handled it very well and left a relevant mark in cinema history. What Cameron has done here is simply copy and paste that film and stuck it into a future setting which quite frankly makes no sense. Added into the stew pot is the Na'vi, a race spawned by cross breeding a Smurf with Panthro from Thundercats and given a name stolen from a fairy found in The Ledgend of Zelda. Now I can understand why Cameron would think he's being original here, basically since creating the Terminator franchise he started living a penthouse located deep within his colon where he has been sheltered from the outside world like some kind of Big Brother housemate. The characterization is terrible too, nobody in it with the exception of the always captivating Sigourney Weaver has any depth. This became obvious to me when watching the epic battles and realizing that I really couldn't give a fuck if anyone died. Credit to Cameron though, he did notice this, so in an effort to force the audience into feeling something for his main character he stuck him in a wheelchair and played the sympathy card, classy move!

Despite all of this the audience lapped it up and actually mistook its visuals for a good film which it is not. Take away the 3D and what you have is a collage of other peoples good ideas and nothing more, it wont stand the test of time. Look at Titanic, the world went ape shit over that and ask most people today the only thing they remember is Kate Winslet getting her golden globes out for the umpteenth time but this time getting away with it in a family movie.

To sum up then, Avatar is not my favorite film ever to say the least. It annoys me that people are so obsessed with this film, I even heard a guy say about how he wanted to live on Pandora. Now I don't know about you but this this guy is saying he wants to live on a moon where you insert parts of your body into animals in order to couple up with them...that says bestiality to me.

I dunno, everybody has seen this film already so I can hardly advise you not too, and those of you who have yet to see it will no matter what at some point. All I ask is that it be treated for what it is, a very expensive rip off and a display of James Cameron's evil genius. One day he will kill us all, mark my words.

Avatar gets...

                                                                                               1 out of 5

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World

When I sat down to watch this movie I was pretty clear on what to expect. Loud noises, big action, intentionally cheesy dialogue and the odd bit of writing flashing up on the screen Batman style. I got all of this and more from Scott Pilgrim.

The movie opens with a rather slow paced introduction to Scott Pilgrim and friends. Well i say its slow paced, it makes 'Fear and Loathing' look like your granny on weed trying to dodge a steam roller climbing Everest driven by a dead Bison. By slow paced I am referring to the pace of the story when compared to the fast cutting hard edge editing style that could only be achieved by an editor and director both suffering a serious case of Attention Deficit Disorder. Still this slightly lengthy introduction is pretty much warranted in order to set up the actual story which kicks off around fifteen minutes in, when the picture sets off like a marathon runner in the hundred meter sprint leaving the audience scrambling to keep up as if they were an asthmatic obese wheelchair user with bread rolls for arms.

Yes its true, Scott Pilgrim moves pretty damn quickly. One second your watching a typical romantic scene then suddenly its a battle of epic proportions as an evil 'ex' bursts through the rooftop without so much as a "hey look over there!". This sounds horrifically annoying but trust me it kinda works, the story never gets bogged down by the typical character development scenes and instead glances briefly at them giving you the gist and moves on to the next big set piece safe in the knowledge that you can fill in the rest for yourself, which you can, if you cant then go watch Piranha 3D which will be more at your level.

The films visual style is very striking also. OK so this is a comic book movie in case you didn't know and its approach is to quite literally copy and paste typical comic book frames and insert them into the film in a totally original way. Now before you say "Watchmen already did it", no it didn't. What Watchmen did was to take the frames from the comic book and copy and paste the entire frame and call it being faithful when really it was just a cover up for a lack of creativity. What Scott Pilgrim does is take elements such as written sound effects (SWOOSH, THWAP) and display them on screen, for example when a character bangs his head against a lamp post not only do you hear an audible 'thud' but you also see the words THUD dance across the screen in big bold comic book fashion text making you feel like your in the same comic book world as the characters. I am glad that this doesn't happen in real life though, just imagine how off putting sex would become when you are mid coitus and surrounded by SQUELCH! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

On the negative side there are a few characters (well ok, most of them really) that lack any depth or believability. I found the character of Scott's chinese ex girlfriend to be pretty annoying, always popping up when not necessary like an erection at the dinner table. The film also has a rather important 'rock band' element which I find makes me cringe in any movie that tries to pull it off, at least this time the actors look like they know how to play the instruments their supposed to be playing thus avoiding what I have come to know as the "Bill and Ted" factor. 

I think its pretty clear at this point that I quite like Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. I'm not going to say its the best film I've ever seen, nor even the best of this year, but it was entertaining and engrossing enough for me not to notice how harsh the Oxford Odeon seating is on my sweet, Sweet arse. The acting was good enough, the direction fine and the writing a perfect mixture of good and cheesy. Its not may favorite movie ever by any means, nor is it really in my top three of the year but is well worth a poke.

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World gets...

                                                                                                                                   3 out of 5

Welcome

Hello friends, family and loved ones and welcome to 'Fucking Movies' a new film review page that will bring you a no bull-shit approach to movie reviews.

I know the idea of basing a blog on movie reviews is far from an original concept, sadly though I couldn't give ten tons of fuck so quit your bitching and just accept that although this may have been done before I am far more superior than the other bitchy little emo fucks who do this.

At this point I'm assuming that some of you are in no doubt of the opinion that I am a complete cunt. You would be correct, thats what I am and I'm damn proud and if you don't believe me please read my old yet completely wonderful retired blog at:-
http://thethingsi-h-a-t-e.blogspot.com/, its worth a read if your not boned up on my writing style. 

SO, after all of this, why have I decided to write about the movies? Well in all honesty its one of only two things which I actually feel positively passionate about, and although I would very much enjoy writing a Blog about Branston Pickle and Cheese sandwiches I feel the audience for such a wonderful concept may be somewhat limited.

Like many of you I have grown very VERY tired of the typical movie reviewer/critic out there. Its all a pretentious point here about actors and a pretentious point there about directors when to be honest all we wanna know is weather or not its our cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the most pretentious twattycakes ever when it comes to the medium of film and no doubt there will be times where this shows through but I will never ever cream over a movie just because Scorsese had a hand or left nut in it (lets face it, he's made like two and a half good movies).

Anyway thats enough about me and Scorsese, we're both of absolutely no interest to anyone so lets get down to the nitty gritty....