Category Archives: General

Dane Benko, General

Capsule Review: Klimt (2006)

Leave a comment

Klimt poster

Chilean director Ruiz takes on the post-impressionist painter’s biography, but he’s more interested in figures and ideas real and unreal surrounding the character of Klimt than his actual life story, resulting in a heady drama that feels more like one too many glasses of wine than cerebral. The best parts are when Ruiz keeps the camera spinning and plays with shadows and mirrors, but this is not the best example of either his skill as a director nor the genre of doppelganger/mysterious appearances narratives.

General

Capsule Review: Following (1998)

Leave a comment

Following poster

Christopher Nolan’s debut rode in with the tide of neo-noir thrillers by stylish young directors with an eye on MTV editing and an ear for ’40s dialog. What is striking about this particular project is how Nolan makes clear to make his ideas big, even though here he’s managed to shore them in to a sheer 1hr10m. Also weird to see a character named Cobb (Inception) and a Batman symbol on the door to the protagonist’s apartment, which makes you wonder what other minutia from the film will show up in other features.

–DB

Dane Benko, General

Capsule Review: John Dies at the End (2012)

Leave a comment

John Dies at the End poster

Cracked.com columnist David Wong got his start with a cultastic horror comedy novel with its spoiler-mugging title that he delivered on an blog until it went viral and got published. Don Coscarelli of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep fame picked it up and fell in love with it, and got Paul Giamatti so interested that Giamatti even produced it. So if you’re wondering why everyone’s all excited, it’s because of psychedelic time traveling gore-induced profanity-laced alt-universe skipping toilet humor, essentially what would happen if The Dude got into something a little harder and from a different dimension.

–DB

General

Megan Fox Cast in Ninja Turtles?!?!

Leave a comment

Megan_Fox_Turtles

um……

So, it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. We’ve heard various things about the reboot before, and non of them have really made fans cheer for excitement. I mean, when you change the turtles to aliens and say Michael Bay is producing, can you really blame fans for acting the way they have? I know I don’t! You know a movie is going to be bad when the best news you hear is that the film might not happen. Anyways, Some new news (new news?) has arrived, and I gotta say….the bad news train continues. CHOO CHOO! (That’s right! I made a noise in an article!)

So, it turns out that the film makers have cast one of the most important roles in any Turtles movie: April O’Neil! Now…guess whose playing the famed reporter? Megan Fox….I’m not even kidding you. Megan Fox is going to play April O’Neil…The only time I would have ever said those words was if I was making a Joke. Never thought I would be stating a fact. Honestly, when I first heard this, I was completely speechless. Who actually thought this was a good idea? WHO?!?! Also, have you seen the list of actresses that were consider along side Megan Fox? Go look it up, and I promise you’ll be even more baffled by this news.

Another thing that makes this hard to believe, didn’t Fox and Bay have like a small altercation? Fox called Bay Hilter, which based on past stories seems to be true, and Bay didn’t cast her in Transformers 3. Do you remember this? I don’t know, man. This is just some shocking news, y’all! To know my full thoughts on the matter, click on the picture above! I made it myself! Also, to see more videos from me, go ahead and subscribe to Channel23hahaha on Youtube! Thanks for your time!

Dane Benko, General

Capsule Review: The Rabbi’s Cat (2011)

Leave a comment

The Rabbi's Cat poster

The French have really been killing it with cat-based feature length hand-drawn animations recently, with this and A Cat in Paris coming out relatively close together (within a couple of years). The Rabbi’s Cat is more adult though, as a Algerian cat gifted with speech makes his sardonic and explicit opinions about sex, religion, and politics known throughout a pre-WWII picaresque journey that takes him from the multiethnic streets of his home city to the tented camps of extremist Muslims on his and his Rabbi’s search for a hidden Jerusalem.

–DB

General, Russell Pinkston - Middle America Contributor

The Best and Worst Movies of 2012

Leave a comment

 

The-Avengers-Poster

by Russell Pinkston

2012 is over…and like every year since 1994…it’s time to make my Best of and Worst Movies of the Year list.  I am not your typical critic so I am not impressed by big boring Hollywood dramas.  My Best list will consist of movies that may have made me laugh, made me cry, sit on my edge of my seat in anticipation but most of all these are the movies that entertained me the most in 2012.  

*Disclaimer:   1st thing…This is my list…if you don’t like my choices…too bad…it’s my list…get your own…thankfully everyone is different and different movies are gonna appeal to different people.   Second thing…this list may contain movies that were actually released in 2012.  These are the movies I saw for the first time in the calender year of 2012…it’s the way I have done my list since 1994…and I am not gonna change now.

First let’s start with my WORST Movies of the 2012.

House-at-the-End-of-the-Street1-671x1024#10   The House at the End of the Street:  Hollywood was betting that since Jennifer Lawrence was successful with this years The Hunger Games (which disappointed me) and last years X-Men: First Class (which I loved) surely she would do good in an horror drama.  But the first hour was dreadfully boring and the acting from both Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue (who plays her mom) had me hating almost every minute of this.  Only bright spot was director’s Mark Tonderai use of the boob cam.

#9    Moonrise Kingdom:  Another weird movie by director Wes Anderson.  This movie had an excellent cast (Edward Norton, Frances McDormand (Fargo), Bruce Willis and Bill Murray (a Anderson movie regular).  It tried to be a cute story of two coming of age teens which would have been alright but when the adults started talking it got a bit out there.  Definitely not my kind of entertainment.

#8    Snow White and the Huntsman:  Probably the only thing that saved Kristen Stewart from having 2 movies on mysnow white Worst Movies list this year was my flat out refusual at seeing Breaking Dawn: Part 2.  She was terrible in SWatH.  The only bright spot was Thor’s Chris Hemsworth who kept saving Snow White butt at every turn.  I can’t believe there will be a sequel to this movie…I can’t wait. 

#7    The Smurfs:  I kind of liked the cartoon as a kid but I didn’t expect too much going in. Hank Azaria as Gargamel was the main reason I hated this movie so much.  I would have rather he be animated instead dress up so badly…and that voice…sometimes it keeps me awake at night.

Ghost-Rider-Spirit-Of-Vengeance-Poster#6    Ghost Rider:  The Spirit of Vengeance:  I don’t know what we have done to deserve such a terrible Marvel sequel.  I like Nic Cage but this movie total lack of a story bothered me too much.  The first movie wasn’t great but this sequel was so bad. 

#5     Piranha DD:  I never thought in a million years I would dislike a movie with this much T&A as much as I did this movie.  It was so bad.   I felt terrible for the actors especially David Hasselhoff.  Ving Rhames reprises his role but nothing could save this dud.   Granted I didn’t have the benifit of seeing this movie in 3D as the makers intended for me to but bad is bad even in 3D. 

#4    Universal Soldier:  Day of Reckoning:  It’s great that they were able to get both Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme in this movie but they were basically used as for their name alone…they were basically extras.   The fights looked good but they needed alot more of Van Damme and Lundgren…and a much better script.

#3    Nature Calls:  Patton Oswalt and Johnny Knoxville star as competing brothers in this comedy.  There was not much to laugh at in this movie.  

#2    Lincoln:  I know…this movie is a contender for major awards this year.  Daniel Day-Lewis definitely deserves thelincoln credit for transforming himself into Lincoln and the rest of the all star cast (Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones) wasn’t bad.  My main problem is with how painfully boring this movie was.   Steven Spielberg directed this 2 hour 30 minutes epic snooze fest.   If only it had a few more vampires.

madea#1    Madea’s Witness Protection:   In my movie viewing life there are 3 movies I hated so much I didn’t want to finish sitting in a theater to watch.  Garfield…which I forced myself to finish watching, Cry Baby…which my friend Scott and I walked out of and this movie.  I suffered though each and every painful minute.   I have alot of respect for Tyler Perry and what he had done but I just can’t relate to these Madea movies.  I do wish he would do more roles like Alex Cross for those of us that don’t want to watch him in drag.

 

 

BEST  Movies of 2012

#10     Pitch Perfect:  Didn’t think I would enjoy a movie about people in a singing competion as much as I did.  Rebel Wilson stole every scene she was in.   Lots of fun.

#9    Chronicle:   I love the originality of this movie.   It’s not your typical superhero movie.  The directing for this found footage film was really good as well.   Marvel took notice as well hiring star Dane DeHann to be the new Harry Osborn in the next Spiderman movie and director Josh Trank to helm the Fantastic 4 reboot.

#8      This Means War:  This action romantic comedy was alot of fun.  Spies Tom Hardy and Chris Pine compete for Reese Witherspoon”s affection.  Chelsea Handler provided alot of laughs as well.

#7     The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey:  I wasn’t a huge fan of  The Lord of the Rings.  I hated the first movie, loved the second and thought the third was ok.   I didn’t expect much going in but I did find myself liking this movie.  I am not sure about breaking this book up into 3 films but we’ll see how the other 2 movies are.

bm#6     The Dark Knight Rises:  I don’t drool over everything Christopher Nolan does.  I do like what he has done with the Batman franchise but I wasn’t impressed with his other films like Inception.

#5     That’s My Boy:  Gonna catch some crap for this movie being in my top 10 but it made me laugh so much.  I am not a huge Adam Sandler fan…so I was suprised I had such a good time watching this movie.  Vanilla Ice wins the best performance by a person just playing themselves (David Hasselhoff-Piranha DD, Sam Jones-Ted). 

#4     Jack Reacher:  Loved the one Lee Child novel I read and I really like the Reacher character alot.  He says what he means and does what he says.   Tom Cruise did a great job as Reacher.  I really hope they make more Reacher movies.

#3     Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil:  5 minutes into this movie I was wondering what I got myself into…this movie seemed like just another crappy B-horror movie.  10 minutes later I was laughing my ass off.  This is not your typical horror movie.   I highly recommend this movie.

av#2     Project X:   I was surprised I liked a party movie.   Chronicle and Project X proved that not all found footage movies suck.  I had such a good time watching this movie.

#1     The Avengers:   Josh Whedon done what I thought could never done…he combined so many actors and superheros into just one movie.   Robert Downey Jr. was the star but the Hulk smashed everybody and scene he was in.  I hope part 2 is just as awesome!

Biggest Disappointments:

The Amazing Spiderman:  Basically the same movie as the first Spiderman except with a different love interest andthe-amazing-spider-man-nuovo-teaser-poster-225680 villian.  Would rather have had Raimi, Dunst and Maguire back for another sequel instead of this reboot.

The Hunger Games:   The cast was not bad but some of the changes from the book to the movie really didn’t have to be made.  The directing was not very good either.  I want to see the action not get sick from the shaky cam.

Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter:  I liked the book so much but was so disappointed in the movie.

Taken 2 :  I absolutely love Neeson in Taken but this sequel is just a watered down version of the same movie.  It wasn ‘t original like the first movie and Liam looked old and not as bad ass.

Dane Benko, General

Holy Motors (2012) review

Leave a comment

Holy Motors poster

Leos Carax’s highly lauded montage of various cinematic references and tropes starts with the basics of early silent actualities and a few more framing devices including an audience in a theatre, before starting off on the meat of the meta with a character who shifts chameleon-like between filmic roles as he’s driven from set to set, location to location, occasionally running into other actors who may or may not be placed for another mini-narrative.

It does not take long to get into the flow of the exercise being played with here. When the character of Mr. Oscar switches faces, you get a hint of the new scene about to be played, and then when the scene is actually performed, it’s usually humorously subversive of many major tropes (basically, when you expect a woman to go nude, you end up with something else; when you expect a serious drama about old friends, you get a musical). Unfortunately like most metanarratives there are these moments where one has to really question if an already unpopular trope like the endless death scene is any more palatable when you watch it as a scene about the performance of an endless death scene. Also, Carax throws in some typical meta curveballs with a few sequences placed to make you question whether you are watching just another scene being shot, such as the ‘car accident’ and the ‘midnight laugh.’ We do get some sort of placement into the logic of this metaverse via the driver (who may also be a character actor) and a conversation with a producer that reveals the overall story to be set in a future universe where cameras have gotten so small they’ve become invisible, and actors are carted appointment to appointment rather than sticking through sustained feature length movies.

Thus, underlying the theme of this exercise is exhaustion, exhaustion of the common cinematic tropes and exhaustion of a depleting actor base as the audience become less and less interested in ‘the cinema’ and consumer cameras become smaller and taken more for granted. A continuitous dream sequence (because there’s a dream sequence within one of the shoots Mr. Oscar attends) is performed by the use of datamoshing, a technique where video encoding is altered to create surreal morphological shifting between frozen pixels to draw attention to the brittleness of the current cinematic apparatus, digital video.

If only modern movies were more comfortable at going to the level of surreality as someone like Jean Cocteau, one of the many visual references this movie employs, without requiring some establishment in a logical, somewhat science fiction future framework. Also, once the movie-within-a-movie picaresque is established, it’s not really necessary to commit to any one sequence or line of dialog to find deeper meaning or significance. This is one of those movies that’s not difficult to understand if you’ve seen more than a few non-Hollywood movies, whereas people who’ve never stepped far outside a genre movie diet will love to hate it and exaggerate its ‘randomness’.

–Dane Benko

General

Doctor Who: The Snowmen Review

Leave a comment

There is no one better to spend the holidays with then The Doctor!

HO HO Hello everyone! It’s your ghost of Christmas nerdiness, Richard, here! I hope each of you reading had the happiest of holidays this year, and got everything you asked Santa for. So, I’m a recent inductee into the society of Doctor Who fans know as: Whovians. Sounds so much cooler then trekkie or trekker or whatever the hell Star Trek fans are called. Anyway, my first episode was from season 5 when the current Doctor, Matt Smith, went back in time to see Vincent Van Gogh. It wasn’t the greatest episode I’d ever seen, but I could totally see why people were digging this show.

Eventually, via the power of Netflix, I was able to catch up on the current stories of The Doctor and his various companions. I found myself a brand new favorite show, and I’ve been watching ever since! Now, I’ve made it a Christmas tradition, as do most Whovians I’d imagine, to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special every year. Last years special, The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe, wasn’t exactly the mind blowing epic we’d all wanted it to be. Thankfully, 2012’s special simply titled The Snowmen was the exact opposite!

The Snowmen, set in 1892 Victorian London, shows us a Doctor who has grown apathetic of the world he used to save all the time. This new found apathy has come about through the lost of various loved ones. Specifically, the death of the Ponds from the last episode. However, a vibrant and energetic new character, sort of new, named Clara springs The Doctor from his slump so that he can help defeat this weird new snow themed villain. I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to love this episode as much as I did. There were aspects I was thrilled to see, the new companion and the new look for Tardis and Doctor, but the commercials didn’t wow me. However, I was pleased with the outcome of this new episode!

First off, Steven Moffat is a master storyteller! Ever since he has taken over the show, I’ve been loving the stories told more then ever! Not every episode is amazing, obviously, but I’ve been loving them more then the previous stories. This latest tale, I feel, is total proof of Moffat’s story telling powers! Sure, It wasn’t the most Christmas-y Christmas special, but the script’s greatness made up for that. Also, I’m in complete pure love with Clara Oswin Oswald! I will always love Amy Pond, but there is something about Clara that drives me wild! Yea, she is freaking gorgeous and intelligent as hell, but there is something else about her. An element not yet discovered, you know?

This is something even The Doctor noticed. When I say this, I’m talking more about the gorgeous part. The Doctor seemed to be crushing on Clara as much as we all were! This is the first time, to my knowledge, where the companion isn’t the one with the crush! I can tell the dynamic between these two characters is going to be a fun one, indeed! Clara made this episode for me. Jenna-Louise Coleman, the actress behind Clara, knocked it out of the park! What an amazing performance! I can see her being everyone’s new favorite companion.

Now, not only has the companion changed, so has the look of two key elements to Doctor Who: The Doctor’s outfit and The Tardis interior. Admittedly, I’ll miss the old tweed jacket, but I am liking the new look. Mainly because The Doctor is still sporting his bow tie! If He didn’t have it, which he didn’t at first in this episode, I would have been upset. I did like the way they introduced the bow tie in The Snowmen. It showed The Doctor transforming from apathy to empathy.

Between the two new looks, I love the new Tardis more then the new outfit. The new interior is beautiful! I love the blue color, the alien vibe, everything! I Don’t know if I’m alone in this feeling, but I love it regardless! All in all, This latest Christmas adventure was the best one yet! I think even the cruddiest of Christmases could be fixed with a viewing of this new episode! I can’t wait to see what is to come in the second half of series 7!

I give Doctor Who: The Snowmen 5 evil snowflakes outta 5!