Brain Tilt

Rounders (1998)

Matt Damon, Edward Norton

Ah, Rounders. The movie that helped touch off the current poker craze.

We have David Levin and Brian Koppelman to thank for the 683 poker shows on TV everyday. Thanks guys!

Thanks to Rounders, I now have to endure daily hand-by-hand recaps of the previous evening’s poker game from one of my coworkers. Do I really care how you did in some local tournament with a $20 cash prize?? NO!!!

After I got past the fact that thanks in part to Rounders I endure 30 minutes of torture each day, I realized that it’s not a bad movie.

Damon is great. He reminds me of me when I tried to quit smoking for the first time. I gave it up and three days later I was smoking again. (I was able to quit for good 174 tries later) Damon is that same with poker. He can’t give it up.

Edward Norton is the guy in my office. Well, maybe my guy isn’t quite the degenerate that Norton is, but Norton always has to be in a game. And he’s a degenerate to the point that not only does he ruin his life but he manages to screw Damon over as well. What a friend!!

You also have the added bonuses of Famke Janssen (eye candy), John Malkovich’s atrocious Russian accent, and killer nicknames like “Teddy KGB” and “Worm”. All this makes a movie that finds itself on my Amazon Wish List for this Christmas.

If you hate the fact that you can’t flip the channels today without finding a televised poker game, then Rounders may not be for you.

Training Day (2001)

Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it??

Do all dirty cops require their rookie partners: Smoke PCP on the job?? Drink beer on the job?? Take the fall for a murder?? Have the exact same goatee as them??

Probably not.

I had heard nothing but god things about Training Day since its release. So it only figures that I would wait 5 years to actually see it. And naturally, I was let down.

Yes. It was a good movie. But it wasn’t fantastic. It’s just another cop movie.

My biggest problem with it is that I could see where it was going from the outset. Dirty cop tries to bring rookie into the fold. Rookie rebels at first but then slowly begins to accept the way things are done. Dirty cop then does something completely outrageous and rookie cop remembers his duty as an officer and thwarts the dirty cop’s evil plan. Typical day in the life of a rookie cop.

Boring.

Just once, I’d like to see the dirty cop get away with it. Would that be so bad?? Is it wrong that I seem to be constantly rooting for the bad guy?? Does that say something about my fragile mental state??

Not sure. But am I am sure the Training Day’s predictability did more to put me to sleep than the 3 beers I drank while watching it.

(Interesting note here to follow up on my Unbreakable post: Bruce Willis was actually offered the role of Detective Alonzo Harris. Seriously Bruce, maybe you should branch out. At the very least, change to a different civil service role.)

Unbreakable (2000)

Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson

Ok. At this point, I can safely say that M. Night Shyamalan no longer surprises me. His movies all seem to follow a similar pattern. Good story that has a twist of sorts at the end. And if you pay close enough attention to the story and his little filming tricks, you can pick up on what the twist is in each of his films. And this depresses me.

Unbreakable is no different. Good story that is fairly easy to figure out if you pay attention. Samuel L. Jackson does a pretty good job and I love his afro. (I really think that a good hair style is what Mace Windu was missing. I would have had an easier time thinking of Mace as a bad ass Jedi if had an afro or a Jeri curl (like Jules in Pulp Fiction). Anyway, back to Unbreakable).

Bruce Willis does a decent job playing that same sort of Bruce Willis character. I’ve discovered that he has 2 main characters that he portrays in movies. The first is the washed up, burned out, ratty looking cop who saves the day (Die Hard, 16 Blocks, etc). The other is his character from The Sixth Sense. Quiet, almost laid back, soft spoken guy. In this movie he plays the both: he’s a soft spoken security guard (almost a cop) who saves the day. Does this mean that Bruce has reached the absolute pinnacle of his career? He’s combined the two roles he is good at into one character. Where can he go from here?? Die Hard 4??

Sadly, a quick glance into my IMDb crystal ball tells me that Die Hard 4 is on the slate for Bruce.

So until it is released and we can once again see Bruce Willis play a cop, I’ll wait for my next Shyamalan movie (Signs) to arrive and hope I haven’t figured it out before it gets here.

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005)

Seth McFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis

This movie was so funny that I actually stopped breathing at one point and I’m pretty sure that I peed my pants a little bit.

I don’t know that I need to say anything else.

16 Blocks (2006)

Bruce Willis, Mos Def

Not a bad movie. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t horrible. This is one of those movies that if it’s on TV, I’ll probably watch it, but I won’t plan my Friday nights around TNT’s showing of it.

I did have two problems with this movie though:

1) Mos Def’s voice. After about 20 minutes of him talking I was ready to throw my TV out the window and puncture my eardrums.

2) Bruce Willis’ plays the same cop character he plays in every movie that he is a cop. Drunken, disheveled and looks like refried ass. Can’t he branch out and play something else?? And what was up with the porn mustache he was wearing?? I mistook him for Ron Jeremy at least 3 times during the movie.

If you can get past Mos Def’s voice and Bruce’s John McClane impersonation, then you’ll enjoy 16 Blocks.

The Ring Two (2005)

Naomi Watts, David Dorfman

Hey. Guess what movie sucked?

No, not The Forgotten.

Well, yes The Forgotten. But guess what else sucked?? That’s right, The Ring Two.

I can only assume that this movie was made because the directors and writers needed the cash to pay for the happy ending on their Japanese massages.

I really can’t stand it when victims are stupid and don’t learn from the past. This isn’t something specific to this movie but to most horror movies. But I’ll use this one as my example. If you had seen a ghost girl climb out of your TV and kill people, would you even have a TV in your house?? I sure as hell wouldn’t! And if you are that little kid and the TV randomly comes on in the middle of the night, given what has happened to you and your mother in the past, would you go anywhere near it?? I didn’t think so!! I hate it when victims make themselves easy targets. If you make the killer have to work a bit to try and kill you, then maybe it would make the movie better and more believable.

Bottom line: avoid The Ring Two like the plague.

Aeon Flux (2005)

Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas

Before I watched Aeon Flux, all I knew about it was that it was a cartoon on MTV in the late 80’s or early 90’s. After watching the movie, all I know about Aeon Flux is that it was a cartoon on MTV in the late 80’s or early 90’s.

Not as bad as Ultraviolet, but still not easy to keep up with and it seems at times that you have to have seen the cartoon to understand what’s going on in the storyline.

Oh. I also know that Charlize Theron is H-O-T.

Scarface (1983)

Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Steven Bauer

“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”

I’ll tell you the truth about Scarface. It’s bad ass. And here’s why:

Tony Montana is a bad ass. There’s no other way to put it. In the Godfather, Pacino was awesome because he had that eerie calmness about him and he never lost his temper, even when he found out those close to him were plotting his murder. In Scarface he’s the complete opposite. He’s brash, vocal and completely insane. And it works. No one wants to mess with this guy. Seriously, would you ever want to fight a guy that can snort a kilo of cocaine and then still be able to kill 10-15 Bolivian assassins?? I didn’t think so.

It’s an amazingly quotable movie. Most everything Pacino says turns into a quote that you’ll drop on your friends every now and again. “Say hello to my lil’ friend!” “The only thing that gives orders in this world is balls.” “Say goodnight to the bad guy!” “Everyday above ground is a good day.” The list goes on. This ranks up there with Top Gun and Monty Python and The Holy Grail in terms of quotable movies.

The unintentional comedy is off the charts. The music is a cross between 80’s keyboard music and a bad porn soundtrack (which is made even better by the fact that Tony Montana sounds like a porn name and he dresses like a pimp throughout the movie). It even includes your standard 80’s montage segment. Crappy music played over scenes depicting Tony’s rise to the top. (I’m pretty sure that during the 80’s you were legally required to have these montages in each film.) Pacino’s accent is laughable and Ben Wallace has nothing on Mary Elizabeth’s hair style.

But the absolute apex of unintentional comedy in this movie is when Pacino and Pfeiffer are dancing at the club the first night they meet. (The music that plays over close-ups of Tony’s face when he gets angry with his sister is a close second.) I actually had to rewind that scene twice to catch what they were saying since I was laughing so hard. Comedy at its finest.

I’m not sure how, but Tony’s character, the lines he delivers and the unintentional comedy are able to mesh and create this freaking awesome flick. This one definitely gets added to my Amazon wish list for Christmas this year.

The Forgotten (2004)

Julianne Moore, Dominic West

I can’t begin to tell you how bad this movie is. Julianne Moore thought she had a child; turns out she did and aliens were doing an experiement to determine how strong “the bond” between mother and child were and if it can be broken.

It can’t. She gets her kid back.

Now send me $8 for saving you ninety minutes of your life.

Godfather 3 (1990)

Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Diane Keaton

In trilogies, it’s hard to sustain the quality of the movies for all 3 movies. Very few film franchises have been able to do it. By the time you get to the 3^rd one, it seems forced, as if the theater companies are only doing it for the money. Matrix Revolutions was the worst of the 3. Return of the Jedi introduced Teddy Ruxpin into the storyline to appeal to a larger audience. These things happen. Bad movies get made that taint the franchise in some way. And Godfather 3 is no different.

For this movie, Sofia Coppola was the Ewok; that furry little creature that ruined Return of the Jedi. Sofia’s acting is so horrible that it overshadows the phenomenal job that Garcia does and destroys the movie. So it’s really no surprise that when you look at her IMDb page, she has done nothing of consequence since this movie. I would go so far to say that if she wasn’t in the movie, this one might be on par with the other 2.

For me, this movie is Fredo. In which case, only one quote from Michael Corleone will do:

“You broke my heart. You broke my heart!”