Movies

The World’s End (2013)

8/10

Let’s just get it out of the way and say it; Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were both better. Alright, alright, but The World’s End is still pretty funny and more than worth the time spent sitting in front of a computer, television, or movie screen to watch it.

The film did cause me to start skipping down one of my mind’s back corridors in search of an imagined future where I will reunite with my friends for an End All Drinking Expedition similar to the one undertaken by the group pictured on the poster above. We’re going to have to go with my college group of friends here, because, (and you would know if you’ve been following my writing) I didn’t have many friends in high school, and those friends and I certainly never had any drinking experiences. I didn’t have any drinking experiences until I got to college (with the exception of a few beers pilfered from my father and drank in our basement bathroom in the middle of the night; a shining moment in the history of my young life right there…).

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Certified Copy (2010)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Turkish auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s first film outside of Turkey is a pleasant commentary on the changing state of relationships over time. When I watch one of these films (and by “these” I mean films with middle aged actors trying to figure out why their relationships went wrong or how to spend the rest of their lives or any number of other midlife crisis problems) I can’t help but wondering how my reaction to them will change over time.

I am currently young and able and as experienced in love and sex and relationships as one normally is at 25, so I look at these “midlife crisis” films from the far off perspective of an outsider. I can identify with the feelings and the situations, sure, but I will never truly understand the content until I have lived through it and have made similar mistakes and have had similar successes and conquests.

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Animal Kingdom (2010)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Oh yes. Oh Hell Yes.

David Michod is a director on the rise and this is a very, very good film.

Hey, you know me by now, right? I make some jokes, I talk a lot of bullshit, I generally speak in terribly grammatically incorrect circles and tangents, but I’m not going to do that for Animal Kingdom. I’m not going to do it. I want to do it, but I can’t and I won’t. The movie is just too good to do anything except give it a proper standing ovation. The film is sort of like going to a monster truck rally when you are eight and being all excited to both see giant machines crushing and crashing into each other and waves upon waves of mullets and then, to top it all off, the lights drop off the earth, the engines become machine guns of explosion, and the trucks fly off their jumps and into the stratosphere,

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The Descendants (2012)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I’m going to paraphrase something George Clooney says in The Descendants. He’s talking about the perception of life in Hawaii from the perspective of those on the mainland. Life in Hawaii is a never ending beach vacation filled with Mai Tais, jet skis, and blissfully warm weather year round. Or so the mainlanders imagine. It’s a fantasy, and the reality is that Hawaiians have all of the normal problems in their lives, and the additional grip of living in the most expensive state in America. Though, of course, to that the mainlanders just shrug and say it’s the price of doing business in such a beautiful place. Everything always looks greener on the other side, right?

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13 Assassins (2010)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Ah yes, the classic “Let’s get a bunch of guys together to go kill some other guys.” Never fails to be an entertaining plot.

One of my all time favorite films is The Street Fighter, with the sequel, Return of the Street Fighter, following close behind. The Street Fighter movies have nothing to do with 13 Assassins with the single exception that they are all Japanese productions, but I’m going to talk about The Street Fighter anyway because I don’t give a fuck.

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Moon (2009)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Moon is the story of Sam Rockwell on the moon. Replace the moon with the New Jersey countryside. Replace Sam Rockwell with Dom (yours truly for our new readers).

Nope, the story doesn’t change much. We’re still watching a character toil fruitlessly in the center of a great big vat of nothingness. I did spend a good portion of my time while watching Moon thinking about if I would choose to go to the Moon for a three year solo work commitment. Give me a steady supply of films, a desk, a chair, a laptop to type on, all the music I want, and I think I’ll be plenty happy. I may be bored from time to time, and, sure, I’ll miss human interaction, but I have existed inside my own head for most of my minutes and hours and days and weeks and years so I don’t think I’ll face much trouble.

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Closer (2004)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I like Closer a bit more than I probably should. Not that there’s any problem with liking the film or anything, but I happen to think it’s maaaybe not worth it’s 8.5 score. It’s teetering on the cusp, but this scene puts it over the edge into Grilled Seal of Approval territory. What a great scene!

I watched Closer for the second time because I had been looking for Anti-Valentine’s Day movies or The 10 Movies Not to Watch on Valentine’s Day. Closer, with its near-continuous stream of lies and infidelity, certainly fits the bill.

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Rush (2013)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Some of my greatest memories from Asia are from my motorbike trips. Whenever I visited a new town I rented a motorbike and tried to get as lost as possible. One of the best trips was riding from Da Nang, the biggest city in Central Vietnam, to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam.

As you ride north up and down and up and down the brilliantly green mountains, the ocean stretches out wonderfully to your right. The sun cooks your skin, but there’s a cool wind billowing around the mountain and you feel fine. You’re getting a little concerned about running out of petrol, so at the top of every mountain you turn off the engine and allow yourself to glide down at the speed of gravity.

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Shame (2011)

8/10

Michael Fassbender and Micahel Fassbender’s Penis star in Steve McQueen’s grim tale of a man haunted by sexual addiction. Michael Fassbender’s Penis finds its way into all sorts of places – mostly vaginas – and leads Michael Fassbender like a Michael Fassbender penis leading a Michael Fassbender.

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Pink Flamingos (1972)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I left Pink Flamingos sitting unwatched on my computer for at least six months before I finally let it roll. I had heard a few rumors, a few tremors of delight, a few murmurs of disgust, but really I knew nothing about the film. All I knew was it would take a very special occasion to watch it. I needed to be in exactly the right mood. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. I’ve seen many (too many) movies over the past six months, but Pink Flamingosremained sitting, waiting, and untouched.

Then, it happened. Maybe there was a strange breeze that blew down from the North, or maybe I was just feeling a little mentally ill, but whatever it was, the feeling smacked me in the face like a bushel of rotten oranges.

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