"Underdog”2007
*** out of ****
Director: Frederik Du Chau
Cast: Jason Lee, James Belushi, Peter Dinklage
You guys remember when I reviewed “I Know Who Killed Me,” and said that I had a whole line of Lindsay Lohan jokes lined up for a rant, right? Well, “Underdog” was another one of those films that I thought was going to suck more than a Thai hooker, and I was going to be the one that was going to slap it with a purple dildo. But, of course, something happened. It may have been my love for superhero films… or my love for films in general… or maybe Tony DeFrancisco’s heart is turning from black to red.
But whatever the hell it was, I liked “Underdog.” And that’s not it… I actually feel bad for making fun of Jason Lee for this film.
“Underdog” isn’t much, but I learned that a film like this doesn’t need to be. It’s directed towards little kids, and works as a family movie. There are many people who are going to hate it just because it’s a kid movie, but that might be the reason why I thought it was going to suck. And maybe it does suck, but put it next to dog films that were released within the past few years like “Good Boy,” “The Shaggy Dog,” “Firehouse Dog,” and my personal “favorite,” “See Spot Run,” it’s almost a classic in the dog genre.
A beagle is brought to the home of the Ungers, and is given the name Shoeshine (voiced by Jason Lee). Cop-turned-into-security-guard Dan (James Belushi, brother of the greatest fucking comedian known to man) and his son Jack (Alex Neuberger) have been dealing over the death of Dan’s wife and Jack’s mom. Dan figures that the dog would do Jack some good, but Jack doesn’t really seem to want this dog for some reason.
But there’s a story behind this beagle named Shoeshine. A mad scientist (Peter Dinklage) transforms Shoeshine into a dog with superpowers, kind of like the Man of Steel. He can fly, blast through walls, and lift up objects that weigh more than Tyra Banks. When Jack finds out that his dog can talk and do all of that, he keeps a secret from his dad (typical dog movie cliché) and plays along with the dog, developing a relationship with the dog that would never be broken. However, that mad scientist wants the dog back after Shoeshine begins to kick some major ass around town, and he will do anything to get him back.
“Underdog” begins slowly, and it started the way that I expected it to be – stupid and just for kids. But then it matures a little bit. You know those movies where daughters fight with their moms and start crying like little bitches? Well, we get them, only it’s between Neuberger and Belushi… only they don’t cry and they prove that they are men! Now I have to admit, the act doesn’t keep up for too long. They change their tone and the mom subplot is forgotten. However, we still have the two male characters fighting throughout the movie about giving up and his dad changing oppucations. Typical Disney film, but what can you do about it?
The film is corny, VERY corny. There is a full ten minutes when we watch Shoeshine adapt to his powers. He tries to make up some catchy slogan for himself but all of the ones that he comes up with don’t sound too right. Then there is that one quote that you guys know from that original television show, and yeah, you know it from there. Throughout the film, there are fart and piss jokes that Adam Sandler never even thought of, and they even throw some dog jokes for good taste and laughs. It’s pretty funny once you can get adjusted to the humor of the film, but it’ll work.
Jason Lee even brings a decent voice. Of course, he’s behind a microphone being the mammal instead of being the one that is in front of the camera and talking to the mammals, but he throws a good performance here that you can easily recognize his voice. There are even a few other performances. Peter Dinklage is pretty damn funny as a villain. I like to think of his character more of Lex Luthor when it’s too hard taking him seriously. Belushi is better than what everyone would have thought he was.
I think that out of the entire movie, I had one problem… and, oh boy, is it a biggie. I couldn’t give a shit whether or not the film is live-action, but it’s based off of the cartoon, and it may have been better, and would have been understood better if it was an animated film. And even though that “Underdog” works just the way that it does, we should always think of ways to improve a movie, and that would be a great place to start with.
“Underdog” is a surprising gem. I expected more of a piece of shit rolled up into tin-foil, but I think that it was decent. It’s not much, but lets remember about that one time where we watched movies like these back in our childhood days. You may respect a movie like this even more if you look at it through a child’s eyes.
“Once”2007
**** out of ****
Director: John Carney
Cast: Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova
Want to know something about me that I have never told anyone? I have a soft spot in my heart for love songs. Yes, I admit it. A guy who hates romantic movies more than the next guy likes love songs. Of course, I hate the sappy ones just as much as an Emo kid, but I still like the other ones a lot. Apparently, I’m not the only one. I’ve seen many romantic movies this year and I only liked two or three of them. It would be easier to make a list of romantic movies that I like rather than the ones that I don’t like.
However, someone really does like romantic music and romantic movies to the point that they had to make a film featuring both romantic music and romantic movie clichés. John Carney has given us a movie called “Once,” a romantic musical that was overlooked while it was released around the same time “Hairspray” and the “Across the Universe” trailer were. “Once” is excellent, filled with catchy love songs that you and your girlfriend will be singing to. Times like this make me wish that there would be a little chance that I could get a girlfriend, just so we could attempt and fail at recreating a musical like this.
A guy (Glen Hansard) meets a girl (Marketa Irglova) while making a living playing his acoustic guitar for people to listen to on the streets of Dublin, Ireland. Rarely do people listen to what he plays, but it turns out that this girl has listened. The girl is a piano player, but like the guy, she can’t afford a piano. She does odd jobs around town and is a mother. They get to know each other’s tastes in music and find out that they are much alike, other than the sex.
Deciding how to spend a week of each other, they decide to create a demo tape filled with songs together. The guy hopes that when he moves back to London, he can show this to a producer so he could get his own contract and hopefully get his music out there into the world. We watch these two characters meet each other, and find out their old relationships, while describing their love for each other in music.
I wouldn’t consider “Once” a musical, just like how I wouldn’t call “August Rush” a musical. This is simply a drama that has music in it. The characters of the guy and the girl are basically just your average day people who need music just to get through the day. They open up their ears and take in all of the sounds on the street. It’s precious to hear some of their thoughts when they don’t spell it out for us. John Carney’s amazing direction lets us remember why we like music in the first place.
As I should mention, “Once” works just because of the characters themselves. Look back when I state the premise, but also take note that I never mention these characters’ names. That’s because that Carney decides not to give them names. He knows that somewhere right now, a story like this is unfolding and it’s one that people can relate to. It’s whether or not that they are musicians or if they are just dating, or both. This story could happen to anyone, and instead of giving these characters a name, Carney decides to let us use or own imagination and give them a name based on our own love lives.
Maybe I missed the point of “Once.” The music itself is not as much of a musical as it is watching the two extraordinary aspiring musicians. You dream for success, and hope that success can come to you, but you know that success will not come to you unless if you make it come. This is a story of more than love for a girl, more than a love for music, more than a love for anything in the world. It’s a story about success. We all want to hit it big in the world. Some of us critics on MySpace may want to start being critics in real-life, and the only way to do that is to chase our dreams. It won’t go chasing after us. “Once” leaves that up to us at the end of the movie. How do we describe someone’s dream when it’s not our own? Giving the circumstances, “Once” should be one of those movies that we long for. Do they achieve success? Do they get what they want? Questions like that aren’t answered within the final moments of “Once,” but the one thing is for sure – don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t make it in the world.
And while the movie is still about music and chasing your dreams, the one subplot surrounding it all is love. If you noticed, I never gave the people’s names. That’s because Carney decides not to let us know the names of the characters. He decides to let us name these characters. He wants up to come up with a story for these two. That would explain why he doesn’t want us to know whether or not he got a contract, or if they ended up together in the end. These characters know better than to believe in true-love. The guy’s first true love walked out on him, and he knows that no matter how many times he tells her to go fuck herself, he knows he doesn’t mean it. Her husband lives away from her just because they don’t think it would work if they were together. They understand that they both loved their old boy/girlfriend and they know that it would never work between them, no matter how much they wished.
And the actors… well… I kind of forgot that they were acting as the movie progressed. It’s always good when the acting seems like actual real-life talk.
You may think that I’m giving away the ending to “Once,” but there is no ending. You make up your own ending. You can either decide that they all live happily-ever-after or they fail at everything. “Once” is not only one of the best musicals that I’ve seen, but it ranks up as one of the best movies that I’ve seen this year.
“The Simpsons Movie”2007
Original Rating: *** out of ****
New Rating: **** out of ****
Director: David Silverman
Cast: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright
“I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on TV for free! If you ask me, everybody in this theater is a giant sucker! Especially you!” – Dan Castellaneta, “The Simpsons Movie”
Before watching this movie in theaters, I didn’t know a single thing about “The Simpsons,” an animated TV show that… well… I don’t think I have to explain to you about who they are. I never did watch the show just because I don’t like watching things that have already started. And no matter how much everyone talks about how funny the show is, I can never seem to answer just why I never did watch it. It’s always that two word answer… “just because”.
So that being said, you wouldn’t expect a guy like me, who never saw a single episode of “The Simpsons,” to actually watch a movie entitled “The Simpsons Movie.” Truth is, I wasn’t planning to, but I later realized that if I decide to see every summer blockbuster while they are in the theater, I best see this one. It’s good to know that for someone who has never seen an episode likes the movie. I can at least admit that while it is a ninety minute long episode with no plot, its packed with jokes that you are guaranteed to watch over and over just so you make sure that you catch every single bit of laughter that the movie contains.
The movie follows the lies of the quirky family – the father, Homer (Dan Castellaneta), the mother, Marge (Julie Kavner), the son, Bart (Nancy Cartwright), the daughter, Lisa (Yeardley Smith), and the baby, Maggie (also by Cartwright). In church one day, Grampa (Castellanetta) goes cuckoo. Could it be a warning, or is the old man just acting up again? Marge is on the case and will not stop at any cost. At the same time, Lisa is helping to get the word of global warming out into the open, while dreaming over this new Irish kid Colin (Tress MacNeille). Bart feels like Homer isn’t a good enough father, as Homer pays more attention to Spider-Pig rather than spending time with his son.
The town of Springfield is under code red for dumping in the lake, and everyone is prepared to take action… except for Homer, who apparently missed the memo. He dumps the pig shit in the lake and the whole town of Springfield is locked in a giant dome. The Simpsons are run out of Springfield by an angry mob, and they make their way as a wanted family to Alaska. When the United States government and Tom Hanks plan on blowing up the small town, they all come back to the dome, helping Springfield stay alive.
I know that all of the fans of the show all agree on one thing. After the eighth or ninth season, the jokes aren’t as funny, and the show started to get boring. But we can finally take our shit that we have been holding in ever since the teaser trailer. The movie has some really funny jokes. They throw in some political jokes, making fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger and “An Inconvenient Truth.” There are many jokes based on pop-culture, where it’s hard not to laugh at a joke directed towards FOX’s advertising in TV shows and now they are even advertising in movies now. And they even make a joke about you fellow viewers, watching something that you are paying for that you can watch on television for free.
You don’t have to watch the television show in order to “get” the movie. I don’t know a single thing about the family, and I laughed… hard. Gags like Bart skateboarding in the nude and Homer fucking something up are all around the movie. It’s kind of hard for fans who only like their old seasons not to get a kick out of the movie. I laughed so hard at times that I started to have cramps in my gut. One of my favorite gags is the one between President Arnold Schwarzenegger and the EPA president, when he fires off the line that I still can’t get out of my head since I have first seen it: “I was elected to lead! Not to read!” For some reason I think Bush thrown this out there one of those times when he didn’t know what he should have done in the War of Terror.
But I have to admit, that while “The Simpsons Movie” is definitely the funniest movie since “Borat,” there’s not a doubt in my stupid little mind that they didn’t take the PG-13 rating as far as it could’ve gone. You know that when “South Park” was rated R, you kind of figured that they would go all of the way with it. They filled my vocabulary with words like donkey-raping shit-eater and Barbara Streisand, and that had almost the same amount of heart that this movie has. It has so much heart that there is actually a reason why the show has been on for almost twenty years. But since it’s PG-13, why not try and get away with more than what you could get away with if the film was aired on television? I think the raunchiest word I heard in this movie was ass. We could have at least gotten a dirtier word like shit or even get that one fuck in. It’s still PG-13 if they have one fuck. It’s not THAT big of a problem, but take chances.
But “The Simpsons” is about a family for the family. Die hard fans will hate it if they say the f-word, the s-word, or the b-word, so maybe they made a better choice instead of saying those four letter words. Fans of the show won’t be disappointed with this. Fans of the first ten seasons will have a boner over the movie. People who never even watched the show will like it and probably go out and buy all of the seasons afterwards. But if the movie tells the viewer anything, it’s that FOX is letting us know that the never-aging family is here to stay for a little bit longer. And while I still won’t watch the television show just because I don’t want to ruin my opinions of the movie (which are much more valuable than some dinky show), maybe there will be a sequel for this film. Until then, you can keep watching pop-culture city.
“Bring It On: In It to Win It”2007
* out of ****
Director: Steve Rash
Cast: Ashley Benson, Michael Copon, Cassie Scerbo
I like the original “Bring It On.” I kinda like “Bring It on Again.” I surprisingly liked “Bring It On: All or Nothing.” And I fucking hate “Bring It On: In It to Win It.” We should just face it that Ashley Benson in a cheerleading outfit isn’t anywhere as awesome as Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Bree Turner, or Hayden Panettiere in one. These girls aren’t just annoying, but after watching this for fifteen minutes, I saw signs of herpes that one would never have received after watching a film like “In It to Win It.”
The West Coast Sharks and the East Coast Jets have been rivals for the past three or four years, but the Jets would always win the Cheer Camp Nationals in the end. But Carson (Ashley Benson) and the rest of the West Coast Sharks are convinced that they will take home the trophy. When given the Spirit Stick (which is said to hold a power that has good luck, and when you lose it, you receive bad luck), someone steals it while Carson is out flirting with a Jets’ cheerleader Penn (Michael Copon). The Sharks immediately blame the Jets for stealing it, and they get into a brawl. When both teams are suspended, they decide to come together as one, because they’re in it to win it.
And you’re probably asking me why I hate it. I actually have a good reason for this one. Not only is it terrible and steals from one of my all-time favorite musicals (and you can go ahead and guess which one that is), but they lack one thing that the other “Bring It On” movies had… cheerleading. Of course the rivalry is still here, but it looks like a rivalry between Homer Simpson and Flanders – harmless and just plain old comedic. The cheerleading scenes here, for the most part, are either there for comedic value or just to show off the moves of a cheerleader. It’s too bad that the moves are weak. I’ve seen better moves from a paraplegic cheerleader than these ones.
I should also mention how “gay” this movie is. They don’t try to hide it, and it has become clear to me that even a five year old can realize how gay it is. There’s a character on the Sharks that is gay, and brings up that he’s gay every three minutes. He goes down a pool slide and his trunks fly off. He sounds more like a girl than a preteen that has been waiting to go through puberty since he was seven. Later, he admits in a “confession scene” that he’s not really gay. He just joined cheerleading just because he feels like it, and people started to call him gay, so he went along with it. Wow. Did they really expect to get away with something like that? The movie is almost as homophobic than Bush…
These cheerleaders are the most diverse cheerleaders that have been featured in the “Bring It On” series. There is a Goth cheerleader who doesn’t act like she’s actually Goth. There are guys who look like that they are only here just because they think they can score chicks (not like the ones in the first film, mind you). Oh, and there are the biggest fucking stereotypes ever in any single cheerleading film… goddamn ditzy blondes. Not only is it misogynic and totally sexist, but that’s just what every man wants on his Christmas list – a blonde girl who doesn’t know the difference between a carrot and a stick of fucking celery.
Oh, and what else is there? The characters have littler depth than a kiddie pool. It’s not even good enough to have a hand-party with. I missed the days when cheerleaders were actually cheering instead of showing off their panties like Britney Spears coming out of a limo (umm… never mind…). I was more interested when this movie was called “Bring It On: Give Us Your Fucking Money.” But the MPAA only allows G-rated titles, so they couldn’t use the word “money.” It’s pretty bad when the best part of your movie is the credits.
And doesn’t the title sound a little bit familiar… you know… from a “High School Musical” song?! Well, Jennifer Tisdale, sister of Ashley Tisdale, star of “High School Musical,” stars in “Bring It On: In It to Win It,” and guess who slept with the producer and studio executives to get their little sister to sing for the movie… hey, don’t look at me. I don’t have a sister that could sing.
“Bring It On: In It to Win It” is stupid, unnecessary, and tiring. It’s the reason why direct-to-DVD films shouldn’t be made. It’s the reason why I should get a life instead of buying into shit like that. It’s the reason why I’m hated by Universal. But within the next week or so, another direct-to-DVD title will be arriving at my doorstep... sent by Universal. “American Pie Presents: Another Fucking Stifler,” of course. And I won’t be as nice as I was with that one as I was with this one… and yes, I’m saying that I was nice when I gave it one star.
“Stardust”2007
Original Rating: **½ out of ****
New Rating: *½ out of ****
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Robert De Niro, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer
I watched “Stardust” in the theaters just because I was bored, and just because I wanted to see Michelle Pfeiffer as a villain… and because I didn’t feel like going to the Phillies game that I was invited along. So a box of BottleCaps came with me and I just sat there eating them. I was a little bit too easy on the film. On some note, I liked SOME of the characters, and on a completely different note, I thought that it was too much of a chick-flick, and sometimes too boring and oh, so very complex. You would expect on DVD that I can figure out what I liked and what I didn’t like, and well, I kind of figured out. Though if you put what I liked and what I didn’t like on a scale, the heavier of the two would be what I didn’t like, and oh baby was there a lot.
On Saturday night, after watching films like “The Simpsons Movie,” “Once,” and “Underdog,” but watching “Bring It On” before that, you would think that I would be in an alright type of mood. Maybe I was just tired of all of the goddamn stupid dialogue, but I find it easy to believe that Matthew Vaughn never met a conversation that didn’t involve five extra pages of words. There’s so much dialogue in this thing that it makes the dialogue in “Death Proof” seem interesting to some people (of course, not me, just because I think its so darn interesting to begin with). With Neil Gaiman’s trust into Vaughn, he created a film that I wouldn’t even put an ounce of trust in the guy. It’s not a bad movie, but it just may be that I didn’t like it. Whatever it is, I just got bored by it.
18 years before our story takes place, Dunstan Thorn (the younger one being played by Ben Barnes, older one being played by Nathaniel Parker) snuck over "The Wall" past the old guard that can use his fists better than the oldest guy on "Ninja Warrior" (David Kelly). He goes to what is their village, and falls in love with this girl that we don't even know her name (Kate Magowan), and they go in the back of the caravan and yeah. You get it. Nine months later, a baby arrives to his doorstep with a note.
It is "The Wall" that separates England and Stormhold, where in Stormhold there are kings that are all in for themselves and butt-pirates (literally). Tristian Thorn (Charlie Cox), the new addition to the Thorn family only 18 years ago, is now grown up and has his own love: the beautiful but very bitchy Victoria (Sienna Miller). He makes her a deal that he will play doggy and go fetch that star that fell on the other side of the wall, and once he brings it to her before her birthday in a week's time, he will be granted custody of her vagine. Okay, not really, but let's pretend. Not everything has to be PG-13, right? This isn’t “The Simpsons Movie.”
It just so happens that this "star" is a hotter version of Victoria, Yvaine (Claire Danes). Well Tristian finds her before everyone else, so he gets keepsies right? No, it isn't that easy. We have a witch that wants to become young again (Michelle Pfeiffer), and the only way that she can become young is if they get this star's heart. We have a king on his deathbed (Peter O’Toole), and seven princes (four dead and three alive) are out to retrieve her heart. And we have Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro)… and about him… we’ll just stop right there for today.
The movie is cluttered with so much information that it would take a long time just to even explain the ending. It’s all for none and none for all with these characters, and being that all of them stay alone from themselves (except for Tristian and Yvaine), the movie goes back and forth with each and every scene. It follows the “Spider-Man 3” formula – we are introduced to a bunch of people, and they’re absent for a long period of time. It’s not like we miss any of them while they’re gone, since only two or three of them are only likeable characters, but even the characters that we don’t like we still want to see their fates.
The film tries to be too “Princess Bride” and not too original. The one thing that I didn’t seem to care about is the entire Shakespeare element. I know that Gaiman is a big Shakespeare fan, but it seems to me that the movie isn’t a big fan of him. Even the character that he names after his idol is portrayed as a gay guy for comedic effect. He dresses up like a lady and says things that would make the every-day homophobe scream in terror. If this is the way that the guy would like to display his hero, I say that the guy isn’t that big of a fan then.
In my earlier review for this film (where I did take the premise from, because that’s the easiest way that I could explain it), I said that “Stardust” was sexist and strongly against old people. It feels like that according to the film, everyone has to be either pretty and/or young. If you’re anything but one of the two, you shouldn’t even exist and crawl back into your mother’s ovaries, because the world doesn’t want you and would rather see you dead than see you with wrinkles all over your face. Sorry to break it to you chaps.
But I liked some of it. Michelle Pfeiffer, the villain of the film, is still unbelievably gorgeous for her age and it’s basically like “no shit I want to be young again.” She adds whatever the film lacks in the word ‘fun.’ Then there is the performance of Claire Danes, when she’s likeable, but awkward and sometimes she gets annoying when she becomes awkward. And I still can’t make up my mind over Charlie Cox, who plays the main character (or one of them) Tristan. He changes a lot throughout the movie. He can either be a pussy, badass, or likeable. But I’m glad that he just didn’t have a goatee and dress up in black outfits to support the people at Hot Topic.
“Stardust” could have been a much better movie. If it cut down on some of the plot and cut down on a whole lot of dialogue, “Stardust” could have been a much more entertaining movie. It had the potential, but it didn’t exceed what the film deserved. It’s the most interesting failure of 2007, but it’s definitely not the worst of 2007.
“Halloween”
2007
**½ out of ****
Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif
Rob Zombie is the Quentin Tarantino of horror films. He loves them, we know he loves them, and he’s not afraid to hide that he loves them. I was in awe with “House of 1000 Corpses” just because I loved how he threw in some great scenes going back to the days when he was watching the horror movies instead of making the horror movies. It wasn’t a “classic,” but it was a start. After “The Devil’s Rejects,” though, I gave him an ovation that I never gave any director before. He came a long way since “House of 1000 Corpses.” He matured, his movies matured, and his homages matured. Pretty much, I am basically saying that Rob Zombie is one of the best filmmakers to come out of this generation.
So when he was announced as the director of the remake of “Halloween,” the classic horror film directed by John Carpenter, people were either smiling or calling him a rip-off. I’m sure that Zombie got death threats sent to his mailbox and his answering machine. I thought it was a brilliant idea. If anyone should remake a movie like “Halloween,” it should be him. At least with Zombie, he lets us know right off the bat that he’s not going to throw an Asian kid off the stairs. Rob Zombie has an interest in the original film, and he knows all about it. He knows what will work, what won’t work, and what did work. Basically, it seemed like he was going to make one of the best remakes that Hollywood has ever laid hands on.
I’m not one to say that the original “Halloween” is a “classic.” I don’t like it as much as others, but if I was growing up back in those days, I think that I would have just as much love for it. It was Carpenter’s version that inspired so many horror films that we acclaim today, but it was “Halloween” that was inspired by Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas,” a film that was just remade last year. Both originals are considered classics to the horror genre, but I gave the remake of “Black Christmas” and this remake the same rating. Instead of them both being actual “remakes” they are more like reimagining the classic films that we all closed our eyes to back when we were younger.
The reason why Carpenter’s “Halloween” is considered a classic is because that part of the mystery was the masked villain that goes by the name Michael Myers never had a back-story. To the people that watched the original, he was simply a madman that escaped from an institution and kills teenagers. The original never explained Myers’s past, like how he got into the institution and how he got his mask. And yes, when we all heard that Zombie was adding Myers’s past into his remake of the film, everyone was outraged except for me. I think it’s better that way, just because that when we find out the history of the character, we can find out why he’s so creeping and demonic.
“Halloween” begins when we meet Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch), a ten year old boy who is fascinated with masks and death. This is that one time that we see Myers without a mask on… and holy shit, does he look like a walking abortion of the Fanning sisters or what? Anyway, his stripper mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) leaves him on Halloween night with his big sister (Hanna Hall), his drunken stepfather (William Forsythe), his sister’s boyfriend (I forget his name, and I’m too lazy to look it up, so I’m gonna put Annoying Bofo), and his infant sister Boo. He kills the first three, but leaves Boo alive, because she never done anything to torture him. Myers is then sent to an institution, under the wing of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). For fifteen years, he has never said a peep, and Halloween night fifteen years later, he escapes with the vengeance to go find his baby sister, who is now grown up (Scout Taylor-Compton).
And if you saw the original, I need no more explanation. Everything is the same. Myers hunts down teenagers and looks for his sister.
Now that I think about it, Rob Zombie should have never remade “Halloween.” It’s clear that his film would have worked better as a ninety-minute prequel to the original film. The first hour is truly classic, where I see everything that a movie like this should have. A guy like me has no complaints of something like the first hour of “Halloween.” It’s a prequel done completely right. There is a scene where Faerch confronts a bully in the woods played by Daryl Sabara of “Spy Kids” fame, and I think that scene worked best compared to every single scene that I’ve seen this year. If this hour was the entire movie, I think I could have given it a four star-review.
But that’s not the case. In the hour where you would think that Rob Zombie’s work would work best, it tends to fail horribly. He’s showing a much different range compared to his last two films, and it doesn’t suit the movie very well. Myers’s kills look almost silly, and some of the acting is almost as convincing as Britney Spears acting up a storm at the Comedy Store. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob Zombie disappointed Carpenter with this half, let alone Zombie disappointing himself.
It’s true what you heard though. Sheri Moon Zombie gives a *gulp* great performance. Yes, I said it. When she’s not getting on your fucking nerves in “House of 1000 Corpses,” we drop our jaws in awe and say… “She can act.” I’m still surprised that I can say that with a straight face, but when Sheri Moon Zombie gives one of the best performances of the year, something has to be going through your mind. What about the OTHER performance by that one girl in “Away From Her?” Yeah, she should pretty much win a goddamn Academy Award for this one.
And you’ll probably be surprised to find out that it’s not only Moon Zombie surprises. One of the better actors of the last generation, Malcolm McDowell, gives a decent performance as Dr. Loomis. It’s kind of a good performance, but while many people will compare McDowell to Donald Pleasence’s portrayal (and trust me, they have just begun), it’s pretty much no fucking contest. Donald Pleasence beats McDowell’s ass AND your ass around the corner, and through a cow’s scrotum. Also, Daeg Faerch does a decent job as a creepy young Michael Myers.
But who doesn’t do a decent job is Scout Taylor-Compton. It’s not like she’s a bad actress, but goddamnit she’s so fucking annoying to the point that makes you want to rip out her fucking vocal cords and stick them up her bean-shooter. She doesn’t look, sound, or act like Jamie Lee Curtis did back in the day. Who cares though? She’s only there for one half of the movie.
I have to admit, the biggest of “Halloween” fans will still like Rob Zombie’s version, but they will never LOVE it. It’s an alright film, but for Rob Zombie, it feels like a lost chance, a chance that could have had better results.
“Hatchet”
2006
*** out of ****
Director: Adam Green
Cast: Joel Moore, Kane Hodder, Tamara Feldman
Aside from Ugg boots, monkey poop, and Lindsay Lohan, the talk of the year has been a little indie film that could called “Hatchet.” No one knows why we’re talking about it, but everyone knows that it’s a subject that everyone can talk about without pointing a finger at someone for the success. With all of the annoying buzz, the damn Hatchet Army emails, and pink-slips delivered to students from my school to see the principal concerning the talk of the movie, did anyone else think other than me that “Hatchet” would suck donkey spooge?
Anyone?
And it’s a fact that if it wasn’t for that fan-base, “Hatchet” would suck. There would have been no effort put around it. Everyone and everything included Amy Winehouse’s vagina would hate the thing if it wasn’t fun. It’s fun, but it sucks. It has more holes than 50 Cent and SpongeBob combined and more annoying characters than “Bring It On 4.” Good thing is that we pretty much ignore all of the negative aspects on the film by focusing on the positive. We haven’t seen a film like “Hatchet” since “Scream,” and does anyone else agree that it’s about fucking time that we do see a slasher that knows how to slash the guts from your rectum?
Ben (Joel Moore) goes out to Mardi Gras with his best friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) after Ben’s girlfriend since the seventh grade dumps him. Instead of partying, they go on some “haunted” cruise ship, driven by some Asian guy that is kind of a weirdo and very suspicious man (Parry Shen). The other people riding on the boat are an older couple (Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo), a porn producer (Joel Murray), a ditzy blonde porno star (Mercedes McNab), a porno star with pubic lice (Joleigh Fioreavanti), and Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), a woman looking for her father (Robert Englund) and brother (Joshua Leonard).
Their boat crashes into a rock, when they get into that cliché horror confrontation when they spit the truth out to each other. The Asian guy admits that he only started the job last night and the porno star with pubic lice admits never going to NYU. Marybeth, however, admits that she’s here not to only look for her father and brother, but to discover the origins of HIS woods. A deformed kid Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) was killed by his father (also Hodder) by accident when some kids lit his house on fire, and since then, he haunts the people who come by his woods. So, you should pretty much mark it on your “Things Not To Do Plans” whenever you get a chance.
Okay, so yeah… it’s corny and silly and bloody and blah blah. Talking to anyone about that when they’ve already talked about it to guy number three is complete bullshit on my part. Instead, I feel like talking about why it’s so popular. “Hatchet” seemed to be that little movie that could. It had a cast and crew that were committed to the project, a brilliant looking fan-base, and for all of the people that didn’t hear about it at the time of release are sure to hear about it from fans, their children, or someone that they work with. Upon watching this movie, I never understood what was so big about this movie. The tagline read “It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's not based on a Japanese one.” So does that mean that it’s original?
Will Smith: Aww hell nawh.
“Hatchet,” when you put it next to remakes and sequel and Japanese films, will stand out as being that one movie that is so not original that it wouldn’t even fit the originality bill if it was released before “Psycho.” While you’re reading that plot, you could find traces of “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “Halloween” shoved into this flick, as you could find traces of “Dumbass,” “Look,” and “Here.” Maybe they did that so you would respect it a little bit more (the gullible ones that started Hatchet Army believed), but it doesn’t really matter after they released the new tagline that read “Old school American horror.” Now does that one sound any more original to you?
Will Smith: Five minutes later That’s that bullshit.
Nope, not really. But then you kind of figure out by now that “Hatchet” isn’t really supposed to be original. Even when they slap you across the face five fucking times and say, “You Dumb Shit,” you wouldn’t realize it until you actually saw the movie. You see that they are doing the same thing that those bastards did back in the 80s. You would have to be a fucking three year old to realize that the point is to relive the days when the slasher genre was at the top of its game. As we stood by and paid to see Freddy, Jason, and Michael, plus countless other slashers, maybe everyone was thinking that “Hatchet” could end the slump that the horror genre has been in for the past, oh I don’t know, ten years after “Scream.”
The good thing is that “Hatchet” is as good as an old school horror film will ever get. Everything’s right there for you. The setup, the annoying characters, the killer looking just to kill innocent victims, the plot-holes, the music, and best of all, the confrontations between the killers and the victims. “Hatchet” gets all of them right there: the setup sounds good, the annoying characters sound like a broken record, the killer is filled with no pity for his victims, the plot-holes are unlimited, the music is scary, and the confrontations and the end results aren’t pretty. No matter what you say about “Hatchet,” it knows what it’s doing.
And being that I’m a film reviewer, I can only recommend “Hatchet” to only the most die-hard horror fans. They know what “Hatchet” is trying to tell us without questioning its logic. If you put this on in front of the most cynical and most horror-hating son of a bitch on the planet, he’s going to fuck it in the ass until next Wednesday. Isn’t that why “Hatchet” was made? For the fans… you know? Will, HELP ME!
Will Smith: WHOOOOO! THAT one puckered up my butt-hole!
I guess that always works.
“Balls of Fury”
2007
Original Rating: BOMB out of ****
New Rating: **½ out of ****
Director: Robert Ben Garant
Cast: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez
Back in August when I originally wrote the review for a little movie called “Balls of Fury” for Geeks of Doom, I gave it the inevitable BOMB rating, in which I only give to the most poor of movies. I wrote: “Ever have a major case of diarrhea, and once you are all finished, you wiped your ass with a long and very strong piece of Marcal toilet paper? Then you find out that you have shit on your hand after you are done wiping, and that is after you are done rubbing your eyes, sticking your finger in your ears, and scratching your genitals, and then you ask yourself, why the hell did you use toilet paper for? Director Ben Garant’s “Balls of Fury” is just like that case of diarrhea. It is honestly the WORST piece of shit that came out in theaters, DVD, Robin Williams’ ass, and Leona Helmsley’s will this entire year, and that means A LOT.”
Well I revisited the worst of times on Saturday night, where I was planning to yawn, snore, and eventually, start drinking, but something happened. I fucking despised “Balls of Fury” when it came out in theaters, to the point that I put it at number three of the Worst of 2007 before I was ready to write it. And then I watched it again, and then I said…
What the fuck?
No seriously, what the fuck?
“Balls of Fury,” while it still wasn’t a great movie, grew an impression on me. I laughed quite a few times, and one of those times was a laugh that continued on for so long that I had to pause the movie so I could catch my breath. I still found the mistakes, the plot-holes, and the bullshit ending to disappoint, but I found “Balls of Fury” to be a vast improvement the second time around, whereas when I watched it the first time in the theaters, I hated it so much that I could have jumped off of the Ben Franklin Bridge if I was a wack-job… I mean more of a wack-job of course.
So that means that Dave3 and Eve are probably entering the New York turnpike to get on to the New Jersey turnpike to cut off my Johnson after the scathing review I sent them. Fans are going to be disappointed in me when they find out that I won’t be ripping this film a new ass. People are going to hate me to the point that they are going to ask every website that I write for to fire me. And if that’s the way it has to be, well then so be it. It takes a man to admit the truth, but it takes an even bigger man to face the consequences. But one thing is for certain, however, I’m not apologizing to one guy that goes by the initials of D.F. (And yes, D.F. does stand for Dick Fucker, but it stands for something else also.)
Twelve year old Randy Daytona (Brett DelBuono) was at the top of the world. He was one of the best ping-pong players that the world has ever opened up their eyes to see. His dad/coach (Robert Patrick) gambles on his wins every game, but when Randy loses a match against Karl Wolfschtagg (Thomas Lennon), his dad loses his bet, and therefore has to pay the price. He is killed by Master Feng (Christopher Walken), and Daytona has held that inside of his heart ever since that game.
Fifteen years later, Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) now works as an entertainer playing with a paddle and a ball (pun not intended). After killing a guy by accident, Daytona is approached by Agent Rodriquez (George Lopez), an FBI agent with an eye for crime. It appears that Feng is hosting a tournament of ping-pong ball champions, and he finds something fishy going on. He asks Daytona to train, long and hard, to get invited into the tournament. They go to Master Wong (James Hong), a blind man who knows how to train people. His daughter, Maggie (Maggie Q), is about as aggressive as aggressive can get. They help him train, and sure enough, he’s invited to Master Feng’s mansion to compete in the tournament.
“Balls of Fury” is a main parody of “Enter the Dragon.” I saw “Dragon” a few days after seeing “Fury” for the first time so maybe that was a mistake on my part. It seemed to be like a “Dodgeball” carbon-copy with only ping-pong thrown in, but it is completely different. Once you get over that part, you probably will take a liking to “Balls of Fury.” One thing that I caught during the second viewing was that they equally divided the jokes – fart jokes, gay jokes, dick jokes, blind jokes, and immature humor. Some of them are hits and some of them are misses. It’s silly, but let’s not forget who actually directed this film. The guys who did “Reno 911” created everything, and there are some instances where the humor could have been used on the show and probably would have been much funnier.
I still have a problem with the ending, though. Why show us all of that tension between Daytona and Wolfschtagg during the second half of the film when all that happens is that Wolfschtagg doesn’t play Daytona in the first place? Even Christopher Walken, who runs the movie when Hong and Maggie Q don’t, couldn’t save the movie’s ending. Sometimes he would try and be too comedic, resulting in a bad ending. The thing that I can say, however, is that Walken holds onto his end of the film for a good time until the ending, as does James Hong and Maggie Q.
I still hate Dan Fogler too. I’m not going to explain that one because I think that six word sentence explains it all.
Like I said at the beginning of my review, I didn’t care for “Balls of Fury” when it was released in theaters. I wanted to see the son of a bitch burn in hell for all I cared about. Even though that the film still isn’t perfect in my eyes, I have grown just a bit more respect for it. It’s amazing how you can go from a BOMB rating to a two and a half star rating in a matter of a few months. I know that you guys all wanted to see me rip it a new ass again, but they filed me for movie abuse last time.
The movie is cluttered with so much information that it would take a long time just to even explain the ending. It’s all for none and none for all with these characters, and being that all of them stay alone from themselves (except for Tristian and Yvaine), the movie goes back and forth with each and every scene. It follows the “Spider-Man 3” formula – we are introduced to a bunch of people, and they’re absent for a long period of time. It’s not like we miss any of them while they’re gone, since only two or three of them are only likeable characters, but even the characters that we don’t like we still want to see their fates.
The film tries to be too “Princess Bride” and not too original. The one thing that I didn’t seem to care about is the entire Shakespeare element. I know that Gaiman is a big Shakespeare fan, but it seems to me that the movie isn’t a big fan of him. Even the character that he names after his idol is portrayed as a gay guy for comedic effect. He dresses up like a lady and says things that would make the every-day homophobe scream in terror. If this is the way that the guy would like to display his hero, I say that the guy isn’t that big of a fan then.
In my earlier review for this film (where I did take the premise from, because that’s the easiest way that I could explain it), I said that “Stardust” was sexist and strongly against old people. It feels like that according to the film, everyone has to be either pretty and/or young. If you’re anything but one of the two, you shouldn’t even exist and crawl back into your mother’s ovaries, because the world doesn’t want you and would rather see you dead than see you with wrinkles all over your face. Sorry to break it to you chaps.
But I liked some of it. Michelle Pfeiffer, the villain of the film, is still unbelievably gorgeous for her age and it’s basically like “no shit I want to be young again.” She adds whatever the film lacks in the word ‘fun.’ Then there is the performance of Claire Danes, when she’s likeable, but awkward and sometimes she gets annoying when she becomes awkward. And I still can’t make up my mind over Charlie Cox, who plays the main character (or one of them) Tristan. He changes a lot throughout the movie. He can either be a pussy, badass, or likeable. But I’m glad that he just didn’t have a goatee and dress up in black outfits to support the people at Hot Topic.
“Stardust” could have been a much better movie. If it cut down on some of the plot and cut down on a whole lot of dialogue, “Stardust” could have been a much more entertaining movie. It had the potential, but it didn’t exceed what the film deserved. It’s the most interesting failure of 2007, but it’s definitely not the worst of 2007.
“Halloween”2007
**½ out of ****
Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif
Rob Zombie is the Quentin Tarantino of horror films. He loves them, we know he loves them, and he’s not afraid to hide that he loves them. I was in awe with “House of 1000 Corpses” just because I loved how he threw in some great scenes going back to the days when he was watching the horror movies instead of making the horror movies. It wasn’t a “classic,” but it was a start. After “The Devil’s Rejects,” though, I gave him an ovation that I never gave any director before. He came a long way since “House of 1000 Corpses.” He matured, his movies matured, and his homages matured. Pretty much, I am basically saying that Rob Zombie is one of the best filmmakers to come out of this generation.
So when he was announced as the director of the remake of “Halloween,” the classic horror film directed by John Carpenter, people were either smiling or calling him a rip-off. I’m sure that Zombie got death threats sent to his mailbox and his answering machine. I thought it was a brilliant idea. If anyone should remake a movie like “Halloween,” it should be him. At least with Zombie, he lets us know right off the bat that he’s not going to throw an Asian kid off the stairs. Rob Zombie has an interest in the original film, and he knows all about it. He knows what will work, what won’t work, and what did work. Basically, it seemed like he was going to make one of the best remakes that Hollywood has ever laid hands on.
I’m not one to say that the original “Halloween” is a “classic.” I don’t like it as much as others, but if I was growing up back in those days, I think that I would have just as much love for it. It was Carpenter’s version that inspired so many horror films that we acclaim today, but it was “Halloween” that was inspired by Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas,” a film that was just remade last year. Both originals are considered classics to the horror genre, but I gave the remake of “Black Christmas” and this remake the same rating. Instead of them both being actual “remakes” they are more like reimagining the classic films that we all closed our eyes to back when we were younger.
The reason why Carpenter’s “Halloween” is considered a classic is because that part of the mystery was the masked villain that goes by the name Michael Myers never had a back-story. To the people that watched the original, he was simply a madman that escaped from an institution and kills teenagers. The original never explained Myers’s past, like how he got into the institution and how he got his mask. And yes, when we all heard that Zombie was adding Myers’s past into his remake of the film, everyone was outraged except for me. I think it’s better that way, just because that when we find out the history of the character, we can find out why he’s so creeping and demonic.
“Halloween” begins when we meet Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch), a ten year old boy who is fascinated with masks and death. This is that one time that we see Myers without a mask on… and holy shit, does he look like a walking abortion of the Fanning sisters or what? Anyway, his stripper mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) leaves him on Halloween night with his big sister (Hanna Hall), his drunken stepfather (William Forsythe), his sister’s boyfriend (I forget his name, and I’m too lazy to look it up, so I’m gonna put Annoying Bofo), and his infant sister Boo. He kills the first three, but leaves Boo alive, because she never done anything to torture him. Myers is then sent to an institution, under the wing of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). For fifteen years, he has never said a peep, and Halloween night fifteen years later, he escapes with the vengeance to go find his baby sister, who is now grown up (Scout Taylor-Compton).
And if you saw the original, I need no more explanation. Everything is the same. Myers hunts down teenagers and looks for his sister.
Now that I think about it, Rob Zombie should have never remade “Halloween.” It’s clear that his film would have worked better as a ninety-minute prequel to the original film. The first hour is truly classic, where I see everything that a movie like this should have. A guy like me has no complaints of something like the first hour of “Halloween.” It’s a prequel done completely right. There is a scene where Faerch confronts a bully in the woods played by Daryl Sabara of “Spy Kids” fame, and I think that scene worked best compared to every single scene that I’ve seen this year. If this hour was the entire movie, I think I could have given it a four star-review.
But that’s not the case. In the hour where you would think that Rob Zombie’s work would work best, it tends to fail horribly. He’s showing a much different range compared to his last two films, and it doesn’t suit the movie very well. Myers’s kills look almost silly, and some of the acting is almost as convincing as Britney Spears acting up a storm at the Comedy Store. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob Zombie disappointed Carpenter with this half, let alone Zombie disappointing himself.
It’s true what you heard though. Sheri Moon Zombie gives a *gulp* great performance. Yes, I said it. When she’s not getting on your fucking nerves in “House of 1000 Corpses,” we drop our jaws in awe and say… “She can act.” I’m still surprised that I can say that with a straight face, but when Sheri Moon Zombie gives one of the best performances of the year, something has to be going through your mind. What about the OTHER performance by that one girl in “Away From Her?” Yeah, she should pretty much win a goddamn Academy Award for this one.
And you’ll probably be surprised to find out that it’s not only Moon Zombie surprises. One of the better actors of the last generation, Malcolm McDowell, gives a decent performance as Dr. Loomis. It’s kind of a good performance, but while many people will compare McDowell to Donald Pleasence’s portrayal (and trust me, they have just begun), it’s pretty much no fucking contest. Donald Pleasence beats McDowell’s ass AND your ass around the corner, and through a cow’s scrotum. Also, Daeg Faerch does a decent job as a creepy young Michael Myers.
But who doesn’t do a decent job is Scout Taylor-Compton. It’s not like she’s a bad actress, but goddamnit she’s so fucking annoying to the point that makes you want to rip out her fucking vocal cords and stick them up her bean-shooter. She doesn’t look, sound, or act like Jamie Lee Curtis did back in the day. Who cares though? She’s only there for one half of the movie.
I have to admit, the biggest of “Halloween” fans will still like Rob Zombie’s version, but they will never LOVE it. It’s an alright film, but for Rob Zombie, it feels like a lost chance, a chance that could have had better results.
“Hatchet”2006
*** out of ****
Director: Adam Green
Cast: Joel Moore, Kane Hodder, Tamara Feldman
Aside from Ugg boots, monkey poop, and Lindsay Lohan, the talk of the year has been a little indie film that could called “Hatchet.” No one knows why we’re talking about it, but everyone knows that it’s a subject that everyone can talk about without pointing a finger at someone for the success. With all of the annoying buzz, the damn Hatchet Army emails, and pink-slips delivered to students from my school to see the principal concerning the talk of the movie, did anyone else think other than me that “Hatchet” would suck donkey spooge?
Anyone?
And it’s a fact that if it wasn’t for that fan-base, “Hatchet” would suck. There would have been no effort put around it. Everyone and everything included Amy Winehouse’s vagina would hate the thing if it wasn’t fun. It’s fun, but it sucks. It has more holes than 50 Cent and SpongeBob combined and more annoying characters than “Bring It On 4.” Good thing is that we pretty much ignore all of the negative aspects on the film by focusing on the positive. We haven’t seen a film like “Hatchet” since “Scream,” and does anyone else agree that it’s about fucking time that we do see a slasher that knows how to slash the guts from your rectum?
Ben (Joel Moore) goes out to Mardi Gras with his best friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) after Ben’s girlfriend since the seventh grade dumps him. Instead of partying, they go on some “haunted” cruise ship, driven by some Asian guy that is kind of a weirdo and very suspicious man (Parry Shen). The other people riding on the boat are an older couple (Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo), a porn producer (Joel Murray), a ditzy blonde porno star (Mercedes McNab), a porno star with pubic lice (Joleigh Fioreavanti), and Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), a woman looking for her father (Robert Englund) and brother (Joshua Leonard).
Their boat crashes into a rock, when they get into that cliché horror confrontation when they spit the truth out to each other. The Asian guy admits that he only started the job last night and the porno star with pubic lice admits never going to NYU. Marybeth, however, admits that she’s here not to only look for her father and brother, but to discover the origins of HIS woods. A deformed kid Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) was killed by his father (also Hodder) by accident when some kids lit his house on fire, and since then, he haunts the people who come by his woods. So, you should pretty much mark it on your “Things Not To Do Plans” whenever you get a chance.
Okay, so yeah… it’s corny and silly and bloody and blah blah. Talking to anyone about that when they’ve already talked about it to guy number three is complete bullshit on my part. Instead, I feel like talking about why it’s so popular. “Hatchet” seemed to be that little movie that could. It had a cast and crew that were committed to the project, a brilliant looking fan-base, and for all of the people that didn’t hear about it at the time of release are sure to hear about it from fans, their children, or someone that they work with. Upon watching this movie, I never understood what was so big about this movie. The tagline read “It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's not based on a Japanese one.” So does that mean that it’s original?
Will Smith: Aww hell nawh.
“Hatchet,” when you put it next to remakes and sequel and Japanese films, will stand out as being that one movie that is so not original that it wouldn’t even fit the originality bill if it was released before “Psycho.” While you’re reading that plot, you could find traces of “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “Halloween” shoved into this flick, as you could find traces of “Dumbass,” “Look,” and “Here.” Maybe they did that so you would respect it a little bit more (the gullible ones that started Hatchet Army believed), but it doesn’t really matter after they released the new tagline that read “Old school American horror.” Now does that one sound any more original to you?
Will Smith: Five minutes later That’s that bullshit.
Nope, not really. But then you kind of figure out by now that “Hatchet” isn’t really supposed to be original. Even when they slap you across the face five fucking times and say, “You Dumb Shit,” you wouldn’t realize it until you actually saw the movie. You see that they are doing the same thing that those bastards did back in the 80s. You would have to be a fucking three year old to realize that the point is to relive the days when the slasher genre was at the top of its game. As we stood by and paid to see Freddy, Jason, and Michael, plus countless other slashers, maybe everyone was thinking that “Hatchet” could end the slump that the horror genre has been in for the past, oh I don’t know, ten years after “Scream.”
The good thing is that “Hatchet” is as good as an old school horror film will ever get. Everything’s right there for you. The setup, the annoying characters, the killer looking just to kill innocent victims, the plot-holes, the music, and best of all, the confrontations between the killers and the victims. “Hatchet” gets all of them right there: the setup sounds good, the annoying characters sound like a broken record, the killer is filled with no pity for his victims, the plot-holes are unlimited, the music is scary, and the confrontations and the end results aren’t pretty. No matter what you say about “Hatchet,” it knows what it’s doing.
And being that I’m a film reviewer, I can only recommend “Hatchet” to only the most die-hard horror fans. They know what “Hatchet” is trying to tell us without questioning its logic. If you put this on in front of the most cynical and most horror-hating son of a bitch on the planet, he’s going to fuck it in the ass until next Wednesday. Isn’t that why “Hatchet” was made? For the fans… you know? Will, HELP ME!
Will Smith: WHOOOOO! THAT one puckered up my butt-hole!
I guess that always works.
“Balls of Fury”2007
Original Rating: BOMB out of ****
New Rating: **½ out of ****
Director: Robert Ben Garant
Cast: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez
Back in August when I originally wrote the review for a little movie called “Balls of Fury” for Geeks of Doom, I gave it the inevitable BOMB rating, in which I only give to the most poor of movies. I wrote: “Ever have a major case of diarrhea, and once you are all finished, you wiped your ass with a long and very strong piece of Marcal toilet paper? Then you find out that you have shit on your hand after you are done wiping, and that is after you are done rubbing your eyes, sticking your finger in your ears, and scratching your genitals, and then you ask yourself, why the hell did you use toilet paper for? Director Ben Garant’s “Balls of Fury” is just like that case of diarrhea. It is honestly the WORST piece of shit that came out in theaters, DVD, Robin Williams’ ass, and Leona Helmsley’s will this entire year, and that means A LOT.”
Well I revisited the worst of times on Saturday night, where I was planning to yawn, snore, and eventually, start drinking, but something happened. I fucking despised “Balls of Fury” when it came out in theaters, to the point that I put it at number three of the Worst of 2007 before I was ready to write it. And then I watched it again, and then I said…
What the fuck?
No seriously, what the fuck?
“Balls of Fury,” while it still wasn’t a great movie, grew an impression on me. I laughed quite a few times, and one of those times was a laugh that continued on for so long that I had to pause the movie so I could catch my breath. I still found the mistakes, the plot-holes, and the bullshit ending to disappoint, but I found “Balls of Fury” to be a vast improvement the second time around, whereas when I watched it the first time in the theaters, I hated it so much that I could have jumped off of the Ben Franklin Bridge if I was a wack-job… I mean more of a wack-job of course.
So that means that Dave3 and Eve are probably entering the New York turnpike to get on to the New Jersey turnpike to cut off my Johnson after the scathing review I sent them. Fans are going to be disappointed in me when they find out that I won’t be ripping this film a new ass. People are going to hate me to the point that they are going to ask every website that I write for to fire me. And if that’s the way it has to be, well then so be it. It takes a man to admit the truth, but it takes an even bigger man to face the consequences. But one thing is for certain, however, I’m not apologizing to one guy that goes by the initials of D.F. (And yes, D.F. does stand for Dick Fucker, but it stands for something else also.)
Twelve year old Randy Daytona (Brett DelBuono) was at the top of the world. He was one of the best ping-pong players that the world has ever opened up their eyes to see. His dad/coach (Robert Patrick) gambles on his wins every game, but when Randy loses a match against Karl Wolfschtagg (Thomas Lennon), his dad loses his bet, and therefore has to pay the price. He is killed by Master Feng (Christopher Walken), and Daytona has held that inside of his heart ever since that game.
Fifteen years later, Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) now works as an entertainer playing with a paddle and a ball (pun not intended). After killing a guy by accident, Daytona is approached by Agent Rodriquez (George Lopez), an FBI agent with an eye for crime. It appears that Feng is hosting a tournament of ping-pong ball champions, and he finds something fishy going on. He asks Daytona to train, long and hard, to get invited into the tournament. They go to Master Wong (James Hong), a blind man who knows how to train people. His daughter, Maggie (Maggie Q), is about as aggressive as aggressive can get. They help him train, and sure enough, he’s invited to Master Feng’s mansion to compete in the tournament.
“Balls of Fury” is a main parody of “Enter the Dragon.” I saw “Dragon” a few days after seeing “Fury” for the first time so maybe that was a mistake on my part. It seemed to be like a “Dodgeball” carbon-copy with only ping-pong thrown in, but it is completely different. Once you get over that part, you probably will take a liking to “Balls of Fury.” One thing that I caught during the second viewing was that they equally divided the jokes – fart jokes, gay jokes, dick jokes, blind jokes, and immature humor. Some of them are hits and some of them are misses. It’s silly, but let’s not forget who actually directed this film. The guys who did “Reno 911” created everything, and there are some instances where the humor could have been used on the show and probably would have been much funnier.
I still have a problem with the ending, though. Why show us all of that tension between Daytona and Wolfschtagg during the second half of the film when all that happens is that Wolfschtagg doesn’t play Daytona in the first place? Even Christopher Walken, who runs the movie when Hong and Maggie Q don’t, couldn’t save the movie’s ending. Sometimes he would try and be too comedic, resulting in a bad ending. The thing that I can say, however, is that Walken holds onto his end of the film for a good time until the ending, as does James Hong and Maggie Q.
I still hate Dan Fogler too. I’m not going to explain that one because I think that six word sentence explains it all.
Like I said at the beginning of my review, I didn’t care for “Balls of Fury” when it was released in theaters. I wanted to see the son of a bitch burn in hell for all I cared about. Even though that the film still isn’t perfect in my eyes, I have grown just a bit more respect for it. It’s amazing how you can go from a BOMB rating to a two and a half star rating in a matter of a few months. I know that you guys all wanted to see me rip it a new ass again, but they filed me for movie abuse last time.
