who said wrestlers weren't actors?

The Marine

* *

Starring: John Cena, Robert Patrick, Kelly Carlson

The anxiously anticipated second offering from WWE Films hit the DVD rack recently and I've been dying to see it. Their last offering, See No Evil was an atrocity of mankind. The Marine is a little bit better than that for different reasons.

This one stars John Cena as an ex-marine. He and his wife decide to go on a vacation, only to have her kidnapped by diamond thieves and taken on the run. Cena then must track them down and do some marine-style killing to save his love.

I don't know why people don't think wrestlers are actors. Cena acts his way through this movie with back drops, kicking and punching, flying shoulder blocks, dropkicks, monkey flips and spears. Beyond that, his acting is just ok.

I don't know how WWE Films managed to get the T-1000 to be in this either, but Robert Patrick is terrible here as an over-the-top, brutal villain. There's even a joke at the mid-way point of the movie. The diamond thieves sink a million bullets into Cena's stolen cop car, without him getting hurt or losing the car from the road, and one of the thieves remarks to Robert Patrick, 'This guy's the terminator.' I laughed.

Something that I found really bothered me about this was that a lot of the explosions sequences were computer generated. As well as the pieces flying off Cena's stolen cop car. And some other really badly filmed sound stage scenes.

I found myself laughing a lot at this movie. But I found it somewhat enjoyable. I love action movies, but there were a few too many explosions that didn't make sense for me. The acting was stale, but Cena at least, somewhat, fit the role of a marine. Seeing as he salutes in the ring all the time.

I justify my two stars with this: this movie is not good. It's far from being so-so. Its kind of ok. Somewhat entertaining. Mostly, my review is in comparison to See No Evil, which I'm pretty sure I gave a Steaming Pile of Crap rating. I only hope with each new WWE Films movie coming out that they get a little better than the previous.

Notes from MovieGuy's Desk

MovieGuy's 2007 movie preview!
MovieGuy has decided to share his picks for the upcoming year in movies. These are movies that I am looking forward to seeing. Release dates are subject to change because Hollywood people are picky bitches and think no one is going to see anything but Spider-Man 3 and Pirates 3 this summer. Also, note as the months go on, there are less and less picks from me. Looks like the spring is the busy season for MovieGuy.

March
9th - 300 - based on Frank Miller's (Sin City) graphic novel of the same name. Retelling of the story of the battle of Thermoplayne.
16th - Sunshine - Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) directs a movie about a group of astronauts who have to re-ignite the sun.
23rd - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the foursome makes the leap to the big screen, this time as animated tortoises.
23rd - The Hills Have Eyes II - doesn't look as good as the original, but still creepy.

April
6th - Grindhouse - the new Tarantino/Rodriguez double feature.
13th - Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres - Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad prove that poor animation isn't only for South Park and make their own jump to the big screen.
20th - Hot Fuzz - the new one from the guys behind Shaun of the Dead (a movie I need to get around to reviewing on here soon)
27th - The Condemned - WWE films' third big screen epic. Steve Austin stars in what sounds like a rip-off pf The Running Man crossed with the Royal Rumble. Sounds awesome.

May
4th - Spider-Man 3 - Venom. Sandman. Harry as some kind of Goblin.
11th - 28 Weeks Later... - sequel to 28 Days Later.
25th - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - Sparrow and gang return for more pirate fun.
25th - Bug - Ashley Judd is trapped in a hotel with some crazy scabies

June
8th - Ocean's Thirteen - Danny Ocean and the gang are back with new allies and enemies.
15th - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Surfer looks cool. Movie also looks better than the original
29th - Live Free or Die Hard - John McLane is back for more ass kicking. This time there are cyber terrorists and one them is the guy that directed Clerks.

July
6th - Transformers - from the trailers I've seen, this one looks awesome. Even if the cast isn't more than stellar.
13th - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - more boy wizardry.

August
3rd - The Bourne Ultimatum - Bourne is awesome. Great great movies. This franchise should love on well beyond the books.
17th - Fanboys - a group of kids break into Skywalker Ranch to get a sneak peek at a yet unfinished Phantom Menace. Trailer looks hilarious.

September
7th - Shoot 'Em Up - Clive Owen. Monica Belluci. Paul Giamatti. Guns. Hyper-violence.
21st - Resident Evil: Extinction - Milla is back and Ali Larter is here too. And some zombies.

October
19th - 30 Days of Night - Vampires in Alaska. Directed by the same dude who made Hard Candy. A vampire movie like I Am Legend should be.
26th - Saw IV - the people behind the first three are gone. No one knows anything about this one: director, cast, plot, anything.

November
2nd - Bee Movie - my man Jerry Seinfeld in an animated movie about bees.
16th - Beowolf - made the same way The Polar Express was made. Based on the Beowolf versus Grendel legend.

December
14th - I Am Legend - as much as this doesn't sound anything like the amazing book, and more like Heston's Omega Man, and the fact that Will Smith is in it, I'll still watch it.
28th - AVP2 - Hahahahaha. Usually there's a big movie released around Christmas. This year, its a sequel to a terrible, terrible movie. I'm excited.

Happy viewing this year!!

bleeeeeeep!

Fuck

* * *

Its hard to do a full review on a movie like this, but I wanted to let the MovieGuy's fans know about it. This movie is literally a documentary about a word: the word fuck.

This one is brought to you by the producers of The Aristocrats, a movie I have yet to see, but I hear is very, very funny. Fuck is also very, very funny. It delves into the many usages of the word and its origins. Interviewing a variety of sources from media-related personalities to comedians like Billy Connolly and Kevin Smith to adult film stars like Ron Jeremy and . Each person explains what the word means to them and different ways they use said word. There's also a great deleted scene on the DVD where a majority of the people in the movie share their favourite swear words. My favourites: Hunter S. Thompson's 'pig fucker' and Billy Connolly's 'Jesus suffering fuck'.

Chock full of useful information, great interviews and some shocking quotes from some of our favourite politicians using the word fuck, this movie is great if you don't mind sitting down and watching a documentary that isn't directed by Michael Moore.

Check this one out. Luckily, my local video store carried this title, even though I went to rent The Departed, I was very happy when I left with this one.

high school confidential

Brick




* * * *

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Matt O'Leary, Noah Segan and Emile de Ravin

When I was in high school, my life was pretty simple. I read a lot. I ate a lot of chicken burgers. I played a lot of cards, and I skipped a lot of classes to do so. My high school life was nothing like what these poor kids in Brick go through. Brick is like, if David Lynch directed John Hughes' bratpack in a movie with a plot like a '50s pulp novel.

Now, I jest, but this movie is fantastic. I can honestly say that I haven't seen many movies that could be called film noir. I know enough about movies to pick them out, I just haven't watched any. But this movie has more of a pulpy feel that most whodunnits that Hollywood cranks out. I guess that's why movies like this only get made as indie flicks and they save the big stars and the poor scripts for the big wigs.

When Brendan's best girl turns up dead, he goes on a mission to find out who did it. Along the way, he runs into many stumbling blocks and dead ends, but also a cast of colourful characters like The Pin, Tug, Dode and The Brain.

The resources that these kids have and the lives they lead are insane. But I can honestly say I've never seen a murder mystery set in the confines of high school life, but director Rion Johnson has managed to do it, and do it well. This movie has the feel and look of Memento but isn't a copycat film at all. Its original and fresh and solidifies Rion Johnson as a great new writer/director.

This movie is well worth checking out. It is mysterious, artsy, well acted and directed and is everything one would want in a murder mystery.

I Just Couldn't... notes from MovieGuy's Desk

This doesn't happen very often. I've watched a lot of bad movies in my day. Hell, I've seen Plan 9 more than once. But once in a while, a movie comes along and I just can't finish it. I've decided to still go ahead and review these movies in what I'm going to call Non-Reviews. Non-Reviews will get a Zero Star review, because its not fair to call something a Steaming Pile of Crap if I didn't finish watching it. In the last two weeks, I have had two such movies I thought I would let you know were so terrible, I couldn't finish them. Here goes.

Non-Review #1
The Covenant
(zero stars)

Ok, so there are some man-witches and they are part of some secret circle of man-witches. Some other guy comes along and tries to kill them so he can steal their power. Watch as man-witches party. Watch as they race Hummers through forests. Watch as man-witches are super cool dudes that are the most popular people in school, and now matter how bad man-witches are, the girls still want them, big time.

Non-Review #2
Pulse
(zero stars)

What do you get when you cross Veronica Mars, any phone line connection, a supporting cast of early twenty-something no-name actors and the premise from, what I can only imagine, a great Japanese horror film? You get Pulse. A pure drivel piece of garbage that I tried to watch not once, not twice, but three times, and even jumping scenes ahead to were I was previously, I still didn't get more than half way through this one. Terrible. And you know what I'm getting really sick of? Fucking pasty-white, black eyed ghost-people in Japanese remake horror movies.

so, that's where that face came from

Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

The Beginning

* * *

Starring: Jordana Brewster, Taylor Handley, Diora Baird, Matthew Bomer, R. Lee Ermey and Andrew Byniarski

Its a relatively known fact that I love horror movies. Its also known, that while I loved the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I also liked the remake with Jessica Biel. This movie is just as good as the remake from three years ago. Its not better. Just more of the same.

The reason I gave this one three stars is because of the back story. This one takes place in 1969, the beginning of the Hewitt family's four-year reign of terror. In this movie, you find out where Thomas was born (a slaughterhouse) and how be became a member of the Hewitt family (they found him in a garbage can). There a lot of things that come out in this one besides that. You find out how Charlie got the police car (bloody murder) and uniform as well as how Uncle Monty lost his legs (bloody surgery), how Charlie lost his front teeth (bloody face bashing on the front porch) and how Leatherface got his leathery-face (its Jordana Brewster's boyfriend's face).

The back story takes up the first half hour of this movie but its all very interesting for fans of the series. Otherwise, the second half of the movie is pretty much exactly the same as the remake from three years ago. The only thing that really differs is the method in how the people are killed. My favourite was when the biker guy falls on the chainsaw, and Leatherface starts it up and continues to cut the man in half. Most ingenious.

I think the reason I really like these new TCM movies is how dirty and gritty they look. The producers and directors have managed to capture the feel of the original movie while heightening the horror elements. They made the gore a lot more in your face than in the original, which is why the original was so scary: the violence was left to the imagination.

I like these remakes on the whole. They are fun and gory and Leatherface is just as creepy as ever. I'm glad it seems like the TCM franchise is done though. I don't know what else they could do with this story. But kudos on doing a great remake. One more in a recent list of great horror remakes.

ah, beloved direct-to-video sequels!

Butterfly Effect 2

*

So, I love bad movies, right? And let is also be known that I am a staunch supporter of direct-to-video sequels that feature no stars whatsoever from the original film. This is what I found in Butterfly Effect 2. Except I found no enjoyment in this movie. Well, not really.

So, if you've seen Ashton Kutcher's masterpiece The Butterfly Effect, you know the basis of the story. Guy is messed up and when he looks at pictures, he can move around in time and alter the course of his, and his friends', destiny. Well, this one is exactly the same. A guy loses his girlfriend, and gets some headaches and fucks up everyone's life. He tries to fix them all, and makes an even bigger mess.

Ok, so this movie is bad. Its beyond bad. I can't believe that I watched it, really. It was either this one, or Behind Enemy Lines 2: Axis of Evil. Yeah, that's right. The major problem I had with BE2 is that, where in the first, Kutcher's character jumped all over time, the main character in the sequel only made two jumps through time. It just seemed like not as much happened to this character as did Kutcher's. It was like the writers got bored with the script and half finished it, submitted it, and some goon in a suit was like, 'Yeah, make it. Here's some money. Here's a girl from Smallville. Get it done.'

Now, let it be known that I did not like the original film. It was a little too Donnie Darko -ish for me. But this sequel is so terrible, it made me appreciate the original a little more. For the simple fact that those writers at least wrote an entire story and didn't throw some lame ending into it. And because, as much as I hate him, Mr. Demi Moore wasn't too bad in the role in the original. This one was too choppy and random and just all around shitty.

This movie will not hamper my spirits for direct-to-video sequels. I still love all of the Darkman sequels. I almost like all of them more than the original. I still think its a good idea to make direct-to-video sequels. Except Hellraiser sequels. Damn those Hellraiser sequels!! The funniest thing about this movie is that I hope they make another. Because someone, somewhere needs some cash, and will once more run to the well with this brutal premise and drag out some second-bit actors to star in the third movie.

Come to think of it, I need to get paid. Maybe I'll start working on Butterfly Effect 3. Starring Wilmer Valderrama as a guy with the "headaches" and Britney Spears as the girl he keeps going into the past to put underwear on, but no matter what he does, babies keep falling out. Gold!

bliztkrieg bop!

Running Scared

* * * *

I reviewed the movie Crank recently. A film about a guy who has to keep his adrenaline above a certain level to prevent death. Well, if the writer of Crank had seen Running Scared he wouldn't have continued writing his script.

Now, you can see I gave this one four stars. And it stars Paul Walker, who, as fans of this blog will know, if one of my least favourite actors. The reason I give it four stars is because from start to finish, this one never lets us. Its non-stop, balls-to-the-walls action. But its not just action. There's a really good story in it. And good actors (not Paul Walker), who act well (surprisingly, Paul Walker). Its a blitzkrieg of bullets, profanity and grimy movie-making.

Walker plays a second banana to a mafia figure head. When a drug deal goes sour, and some police are killed, he's given the task of hiding the murder weapons. But when the neighbour boy finds the weapon and shoots his abusive father, the gun hits the streets once again. This is the beginning of 18 hours of trouble our Fast, as well as Furious, friend.

This is one of those movies like Die Hard and Speed where each time something bad happens, you think, 'Can it get any worse?' Somehow, it does manage to keep getting worse. And it snowballs into the most impossibly bad evening anyone in their right mind could ever imagine having. But it makes a helluva movie!

Now, there aren't many Paul Walker movies I can recommend. If you look back in the archives, I think there is a review of Into the Blue starring our friend, which didn't get a good starred rating. Not even Jessica Alba in a bathing suit helped. But there's something dark and dingy and awesome about this movie. I've seen it more than once, and have stated that it is truly an amazing movie. I highly recommend this one. You gotta check it out.

and once again, I shake my head in shame...

Clerks 2

* *

I used to get this special feeling every time I watched Kevin Smith's first film, Clerks. It was like you were seeing something so original and so funny and well written and well acted for a cast of unknowns, that you couldn't believe you were seeing it. Smith moved from Clerks and went on to direct a slew of other movies, all of which I liked at varying levels.

Until Clerks 2 was released.

The plot to this one finds our heroes from the original film, Dante and Randall, still working away at their meaningless jobs ten years after the fact. When the QuickStop is burned to the ground, the two find themselves working at another Smith creation, Mooby's (a sarcastic McDonald's-like place). From there, we learn Dante is engaged to a woman and is on his last day at Mooby's. He's about to move to Florida, get married and run a car wash.

I found myself occasionally laughing at this one, but there was something about it that seemed forced to me. In the original, the conversations between Randall and Dante seemed like real people conversations, things fan boys would talk about. In this one, everything seemed wooden and stale.

There were some funny moments. I remember Randall getting into an argument with a customer and a co-worker about Lord of the Rings versus Star Wars. That was funny. There were some other things too, but they were minor. I also found the cameos by Kevin Smith regulars to be humorous as well. Kudos to Ben Affleck and Jason Lee (in full My Name is Earl moustache and sideburns) for dropping by the set for a quick one-off.

This bothers me too, because I love the original so much. I wanted this sequel to be good, but it just wasn't. I've read some Kevin Smith fan boy reviews on the web, and they're all talking about how this movie is "poignant" in the portrayal of these characters "growing up". Well, they don't really. And it isn't poignant. The only time I saw anything close to being poignant, was the scene where Dante and Randall (and other characters) are sitting and thinking about their lives and the song 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins is playing. A song that I've often thought was poignant in my own portrayal of my life at certain times (missing people, growing up, moving on). [MovieGuy shout out to my Smashing Pumpkins friend!].

Two stars for this one because no matter how much I didn't like this movie, I still like these characters. And I still like Kevin Smith. I just feel really disappointed after watching this movie. This was a sequel (like most) that was completely unnecessary and uncalled for.

Especially since Dante "died" in the original Clerks. Watch the deleted scenes on the DVD. Its there.

MovieNight at MovieGuy's house! Reviews on the Run

Employee of the Month

* * 1/2

When MovieNight in my house happens, I get told one thing: My wife likes romantic comedies. Or dramas. Or action. No horror. So, you can imagine my horror when I found myself renting Employee of the Month as the wife's pick for MovieNight.

For starters, this movie has three things I do not like. Dane Cook. Dax Shepard. And Jessica Simpson. Granted, Jessica doesn't spend as much time emitting dialogue or taking up film space as her cleavage does, but that's besides the point. Three things I did like about this one were Andy Dick, Harland Williams and Danny Woodburn (you know him... he was Kramer's midget friend, Mickey, from Seinfeld).

Ok, so you'll also realize my horror when I found myself laughing at this movie. And not just once or twice. Like a lot. To the point where I was getting worried that I might actually like it. Which I did. In a way. It was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

So, Dane Cook is a slacker-type fellow who works at a Costco-type place. Dax Shepard is an ass-kissing know-it-all, for-lifer at this Costco-type place, who is riding a hot streak of 17 straight months as Employee of the Month. When Jessica Simpson's character transfers from another store to this one, and she apparently has the hots for the employee of the month, both guys make it their quest to win her over by doing good things throughout the store. Who came up with this genius idea?

This one is, believe it or not, quite funny. For being a completely clicheed movie, with staple side-bit players, and three of my least favourite people in the "industry", I enjoyed it. Not immensely. Just enjoyed it. Here's a better way to put it. I didn't mind seeing it, but I'm not in a better place for having seen it.

Give it a chance, you'll laugh too.

The Illusionist

* * *

On MovieNights, its custom for me to pick a movie and my wife to pick one. I chose The Illusionist because, one: who doesn't like illusions and magic, and two: who doesn't like Jessica Biel (or Edward Norton or Paul Giamatti).

This one tells the story of an illusionist named Eisenheim, who loses the love of his life only to have her come back into his fifteen years after they last saw each other. She is to be married to a Prince, but methinks Eisenheim may have a trick or two up his sleeve.

I know I've been handing out a lot of three stars lately, but this one gets a BIG three stars. I couldn't bump it to four, because four means the movie is something special. For performances and story, this one has it. The most enjoyable thing throughout the movie is the cinematography, which makes the movie always look like an old film reel, or a brown faded picture from a hundred years ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and it makes me want to watch some more magic on film. I'm anxiously awaiting The Prestige to hit DVD, but I think in the long run, that The Illusionist will end up being a better picture. Check it out, for sure.