88 Minutes

You know that when a film's release date is pushed back by two years (two fucking years!), that it's gonna be bad.

I just didn't expect 88 Minutes to be as mind-numbingly horrific as it turned out to be.  The studio was right.  Well, kinda right.  They should have burned all the prints of this awful mess.  Just nullified it's very existence. 

The plot was silly.  The direction was amateurish and campy.  The premise that young women all over the Pacific Northwest are dying to sleep with Al Pacino when his is looking like a decripit ventriloquist dummy is just outright laughable.  And the performances...well, the performances are mythically bad.  Starting with Pacino and infecting everyone one around him.

And the super-secret plot twist?  Yeah, we saw that coming from around the block, assholes!  We just didn't know about the killer's motivation.  But when we finally find that out, it's "whack yourself in the head" time.  Really?  THAT'S why the killer did this? 

Holy shit, this is a bad film.  From beginning to end.  I'd trade those 88 minutes for a rectal exam any day.

Quantum of Solace

For as much as I loved Casino Royale, I never expected to type these worlds here:

But Quantum of Solace sucked!

I mean, I get it.  I get what the filmmakers were trying to do here.  It was supposed to be a filler film.  A direct sequel that wrapped up some of the loose ends from the previous film.  Something to clear the dust for the next film.  But it had no heart.  No soul.  No wit.  All things that were plentiful in the first film.

And the standard contrived plot of the standard Bond film was even more contrived in this one.  At times I barely knew what was going on.  Why did he wind up in that hotel room where he killed that guy?  Boy, it sure was lucky that he thought to ask the desk clerk for any messages so he could get that briefcase.  And wow...look at that?  He did it just at the exact moment that the dead dude's contact was gonna pick him up outside the hotel.  That all worked out well.

It seemed like the entire film was an excuse to film a chase/fight scene every 15 minutes or so.  Just a whole lot of nothing going on in between donnybrooks.  Sure there was something about a secret organization that tried to kill M.  That pissed Bond off.  And it was all maybe kinda somehow connected to Vesper's death?  I guess.  I really don't know. 

Worse.  I just didn't care.

Stupid fucking title too!

Surfer, Dude

I'll get to Wargames 2 later in the weekend. I had a big meal tonight and I didn't think I could stomach it. Strangely enough I did have the energy to watch Surfer, Dude. I can't even fathom why though.

Here it is in a nutshell:

Surfing.
Weed.
Topless women.
Weed.
More surfing.

Oh, and Matthew McConaughy plays a musical instrument while nekkid somwhere in there. But it's a didgeridoo, not a pair of bongos. Guess he didn't want to be typecast.

It sucks so much that it harshed my mellow. And I didn't even know I had a mellow. But it most certainly was harshed.

I think it does have possibilities as a drinking game of epic proportions though.

• Drink every time you can see the ocean.
• Drink every time you see McConaughy's bare chest.
  
• Drink every time someone says "brah" or "bro" or "brother".
  
• Drink every time McConaughy looks confused.
• Drink every time someone smokes some weed.
  
• Drink heavily every time you consider watching this piece of shit.

I honestly can't even begin to tell you what this film is about. It was as indecipherable as sanskrit to a normal human being. I'm not calling myself normal, you see. But I have known a few normal folks. And I just know they would have as tough a time as I did comprehending what was going on. Something about a reality surfing show, a video game, an ex-surfer turned into an asshole businessman, some kind of weed/surfing fast and Woody Harrelson's lawn mowing business. I think McConaughy falls in love somewhere in there as well. I don't really know.

See, I just typed that and it makes no sense.

Stay away from this one. Unless you are high. Or surfing. Or surfing while high. Or dead from the neck up.

That might work.

You make the call

It's been a while since I've seen a bad film. I've even watched a couple that I thought were going to be bad, but wound up being pretty good.

So I put it in your hands, dear readers. I have a selection of potentially bad films ready to go on my Netflix Instant queue for this weekend. Which one should I watch?

• 88 Minutes - 88 Minutes of overacting by Al Pacino. Almost seems unfair to list any other films after that endorsement.
• Traitor - I dig me some Don Cheadle, but I've read some pretty bad reviews about this one. Meaning the film was bad, not the review itself. One of these days I will learn to write, um, better.
• Wargames 2: The Dead Code - Just kidding. I'm not watching Wargames 2. Ever! I don't care if you kids actually vote for it. I'm just amazed that someone made a sequel.
  
• Surfer, Dude - Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play surfers. Um, dude. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.
• Domino - The commercials for this one looked so annoying when it came out a couple of years ago. I can only imagine the film as equally annoying. But longer.

So there you have it. Vote in the comments section and I will watch whichever selection has the most votes by the time I get around to it (probably Friday around 11PM).

My fate is in your hands. Choose wisely.

UPDATE - OK, the masses (4 or 5 of you) have spoken. I'll watch Wargames 2. But first I'm gonna watch Surfer, Dude. Just because.

Wanted

Generally, this is exactly the type of film that I want to see when I am home sick or I can't sleep for some reason. Dumb, silly action flick that allows me to check my intelligence at the door.

But this one was soooo over-the-top that it came round again and wound up on the bottom. Huh? Yeah, I don't know what that means either.

A fraternity of assassins formed by a group of weavers over a thousand years ago receive orders from a mysterious loom and follow out those orders with semi-magical abilities that include super-strength, super-speed and the ability to curve bullets from a gun around corners.

OK. It's a comic-book. A bad comic-book, but basically it's a comic-book. I get it. Highly stylized, deep in it's own mythology and ridiculous as all hell. It's escapist fantasy on par with The Matrix or Harry Potter or any other film where the main protagonist escapes his mundane, boring existence to live the exciting life of a super-hero.

Yawn.

I mean it was seriously boring. They couldn't jam enough ridiculous action into this one to hold my attention. I stopped watching it halfway thru to take a nap and when I woke up to watch the rest of it, I had kinda forgotten what had happened previously in the film. The cold medicine I am taking might have had something to do with that. I dunno.

All I can say is that I Wanted to like this film. I Wanted it to be as funny and as good as Nightwatch or Daywatch (same director). I Wanted to like James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie in their respective roles. I Wanted something to take my mind off my freakin' cold.

After it was over, all I really Wanted was an hour and forty minutes back.

Poolhall Junkies

One of my strange movie fetishes (non-masturbatory) is with The Con. Anything to do with con-men. Loved The Sting, and Diggstown is a movie that I can watch over and over again. Just great.

So I bumped Poolhall Junkies into the top spot of my Netflix queue the other day and I watched it last night. I don't have a lot of tremendously negative things to say about it. It was extremely derivative of The Hustler and The Color of Money, but it would have to be given the subject matter. Of course. But it was even more derivative of Rounders, if you ask me.

Had all the same plot elements. The lawyer girlfriend who doesn't want him hustling and leaves him over it. The protagonist helping out one of his friends in trouble with a bad guy. The showdown at the end with his nemesis complete with smarmy "gotcha" dialogue. Now, I loved Rounders. Loved it. But if I wanted to see it again I would just see it again. Capisci?

So this one doesn't get a recommendation. I kinda liked it, but I can tell you that it wasn't good. It was what it was. The only reason I'm mentioning it here is because of one scene that cracked me up.

The main character had hair that can only be described as Christopher Walken hair. You've seen Christopher Walken, right? Well he had hair like that. Here is a picture of the great Walken:


That's the hair the main guy had. Anyway, I must not have been paying attention to the credits because Christopher Walken was actually in this movie. Seriously. And the first time he meets the guy, they have the following conversation:

Walken - "You know, I saw you when you first walked in. Nice hair!"
Other dude - "Thanks" (they both stroke their manes)
Walken - "Maybe we're related or something."

That right there? That alone made this film worth watching for me. My advice for you? Skip it. I already told you the best reason to watch it. Just go re-watch Rounders, okay?

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

You know, I should have known better.

Every single commercial I saw for this film last year made me chuckle a little bit. I think I knew deep down inside that it was gonna suck big time, but I still wanted to see it. Adam Sandler as an Israeli super-here smacking around rude New Yorkers with his feet? Even thinking about it makes me smile.

What I should have remembered is that Adam Sandler hasn't been funny since, well...wait a minute. Has Adam Sandler ever been funny? I really can't recall. Remote Control on MTV was a little funny. Does that count?

Whenever an American comedian dons an silly accent for a role as a quirky foreigner, the film rapidly descends into a one-trick pony joke. See Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson or Eddie Murphy in Coming to America. Except those were, ya know, good. Imagine those two films and then imagine never laughing again. Ever. THAT is what this film is like.

Even John Turtorro can't save it. And John Turturro can save your soul. If only you would let him.

Don't mess with the Zohan. Don't even consider it.