Friday, May 25, 2007
Rental Review: Vanilla Sky
By Ryn Gargulinski
An awesome flick, even despite the fact it stars Tom Cruise who now got fat and reminds me of a teddy bear left in a dumpster.
A dumpster, in fact, is exactly where this young, freewheeling, rich executive daddy’s boy ends up after a tragic turn of events that ruins his life forever. Maybe.
The film starts at the end, with daddy’s boy wearing a mask in a high security prison being interviewed by a shrink and works backwards from there.
Of course, we are dying to know what’s going on.
Not to ruin it, I’ll just say what’s going on is a nightmare world full of drinking, reckless driving, suicide, murder, lost love, cracked friendships, psychosis and twists and turns that leave you exhausted yet enthralled.
Highlight: The psychosis.
Lowlight: The cheesy title which references what daddy’s boy says about a Monet painting or the phenomenal ability for the two main characters to be able to draw like seasoned artists. Their artistic ability is not believable in the least.
Rating (1-10): 623
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
An awesome flick, even despite the fact it stars Tom Cruise who now got fat and reminds me of a teddy bear left in a dumpster.
A dumpster, in fact, is exactly where this young, freewheeling, rich executive daddy’s boy ends up after a tragic turn of events that ruins his life forever. Maybe.
The film starts at the end, with daddy’s boy wearing a mask in a high security prison being interviewed by a shrink and works backwards from there.
Of course, we are dying to know what’s going on.
Not to ruin it, I’ll just say what’s going on is a nightmare world full of drinking, reckless driving, suicide, murder, lost love, cracked friendships, psychosis and twists and turns that leave you exhausted yet enthralled.
Highlight: The psychosis.
Lowlight: The cheesy title which references what daddy’s boy says about a Monet painting or the phenomenal ability for the two main characters to be able to draw like seasoned artists. Their artistic ability is not believable in the least.
Rating (1-10): 623
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
Rental Review: Punch Drunk Love
By Ryn Gargulinski
It’s hard not to love Punch Drunk Love, especially since there’s punching and love involved. Lot’s of it.
Adam Sandler stars as a subtly freakish character who is always clad in an unstylish blue suit for no given reason. People, including his seven sisters, a woman with a British accent who tries to seduce him and his coworkers at the novelty toilet plunger place, keep asking him why. That, and why he has a piano that’s not a piano on his desk.
Sometimes all the questioning just gets to be too much and he has to punch things.
I actually laughed out loud twice during this flick, something I do often but not with movies. Once was the scene where he destroys the bathroom and again when he tells his lover she’s so beautiful he wants to smash her face in with a sledgehammer.
If the movie sounds chaotic, disjointed and silly, it is.
It’s also a heck of a lot of fun.
Highlight: When he destroys the bathroom or when the sex line hick gang start stalking him.
Lowlight: The effective use of music and choppy scenes to portray heightened tension actually gets you tensed up enough that you, too, want to punch through a plate glass doorwall.
Rating (1-10): 333, or the amount of punches it takes to get rid of blue suit tension.
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
It’s hard not to love Punch Drunk Love, especially since there’s punching and love involved. Lot’s of it.
Adam Sandler stars as a subtly freakish character who is always clad in an unstylish blue suit for no given reason. People, including his seven sisters, a woman with a British accent who tries to seduce him and his coworkers at the novelty toilet plunger place, keep asking him why. That, and why he has a piano that’s not a piano on his desk.
Sometimes all the questioning just gets to be too much and he has to punch things.
I actually laughed out loud twice during this flick, something I do often but not with movies. Once was the scene where he destroys the bathroom and again when he tells his lover she’s so beautiful he wants to smash her face in with a sledgehammer.
If the movie sounds chaotic, disjointed and silly, it is.
It’s also a heck of a lot of fun.
Highlight: When he destroys the bathroom or when the sex line hick gang start stalking him.
Lowlight: The effective use of music and choppy scenes to portray heightened tension actually gets you tensed up enough that you, too, want to punch through a plate glass doorwall.
Rating (1-10): 333, or the amount of punches it takes to get rid of blue suit tension.
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Rental Review: Blue Velvet
By Ryn Gargulinski
This film is shackled with a misnomer. Rather than Blue Velvet, it should be entitled Roy G Biv Velvet Roy G Biv Velvet because it’s long and boring enough to go through the full color spectrum at least twice.
While the flick kicks off with an intrigue and promise, complete with a man falling over in an apparent stroke, a close up of beetle bugs and the discovery of a severed ear, things go downhill from there.
While we yawn through the incredibly slow-paced film and wonder what the stroke guy had to do with anything, we are also subjected to an annoying woman with an equally annoying accent who is usually naked, a guy whose face looks like it’s made out of pushed-in cardboard and a plot we really don’t care about because it seems to go nowhere.
We are also left with a drove of unanswered questions, like where is that annoying lady's annoying accent from, where does the stroke man fit into all of this and why are all these women waiting on a guy with a cardboard face?
Highlight: The one gruesome scene in which a dead man is left standing.
Lowlight: The rest.
Rating (1-10): Negative 5,432, or the number of yawns it takes to get through the movie.
This movie was recommended by Val and everyone standing around him Friday night.
This film is shackled with a misnomer. Rather than Blue Velvet, it should be entitled Roy G Biv Velvet Roy G Biv Velvet because it’s long and boring enough to go through the full color spectrum at least twice.
While the flick kicks off with an intrigue and promise, complete with a man falling over in an apparent stroke, a close up of beetle bugs and the discovery of a severed ear, things go downhill from there.
While we yawn through the incredibly slow-paced film and wonder what the stroke guy had to do with anything, we are also subjected to an annoying woman with an equally annoying accent who is usually naked, a guy whose face looks like it’s made out of pushed-in cardboard and a plot we really don’t care about because it seems to go nowhere.
We are also left with a drove of unanswered questions, like where is that annoying lady's annoying accent from, where does the stroke man fit into all of this and why are all these women waiting on a guy with a cardboard face?
Highlight: The one gruesome scene in which a dead man is left standing.
Lowlight: The rest.
Rating (1-10): Negative 5,432, or the number of yawns it takes to get through the movie.
This movie was recommended by Val and everyone standing around him Friday night.
Rental Review: Pulp Fiction
By Ryn Gargulinski
Fast-paced, kooky, disgusting and violent, this is a wonderful flick.
The brilliant mélange of interconnected tales include a drug lord, a heroin overdose, a boxer turned murderer and other jovial moments such as an armed robbery and a guy who gets his face blown off in the back of a car.
Wheee.
It’s especially interesting to see John Travolta in a dance scene and compare it to the one he filmed 100 years ago as Danny Zuko in Grease.
Highlight: The scene where they clean up the guys's face blown off in the back of the car.
Lowlight: We are left wanting more. But not enough to merit a Part 2 that always ruins everything, like Grease 2 did.
Rating (1-10): 941
This movie was recommended by Val and everyone standing around him Friday night.
Fast-paced, kooky, disgusting and violent, this is a wonderful flick.
The brilliant mélange of interconnected tales include a drug lord, a heroin overdose, a boxer turned murderer and other jovial moments such as an armed robbery and a guy who gets his face blown off in the back of a car.
Wheee.
It’s especially interesting to see John Travolta in a dance scene and compare it to the one he filmed 100 years ago as Danny Zuko in Grease.
Highlight: The scene where they clean up the guys's face blown off in the back of the car.
Lowlight: We are left wanting more. But not enough to merit a Part 2 that always ruins everything, like Grease 2 did.
Rating (1-10): 941
This movie was recommended by Val and everyone standing around him Friday night.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Rental Review: The Devil Wears Prada
By Ryn Gargulinski
An amusing story of a good-hearted wanna-be journalist who seeks her fortune in New York City where she takes a magazine job she is neither fit for nor wants and begins to fall prey to Big Apple corruption.
Not an unusual story, at all, but disappointing that her corruption is the high society, plastic façade of the fashion world when there are so many other forms of NYC corruption that beckon.
It’s a beautiful tale nonetheless, save for the annoying boyfriend who always seems to need a shave. His character, however, is offset by the snooty accented receptionist, the good-hearted girl turned Dior diva and the most awesome character of all played by Meryl Streep, the devil herself in Prada.
Highlight: The setting, two of my favorite haunts, NYC and Paris.
Lowlight: Not once do they even go near Coney Island.
Rating (1-10): 597, or the average cost of a pair of Prada
This movie was recommended by someone and I don't remember who but I thank them.
An amusing story of a good-hearted wanna-be journalist who seeks her fortune in New York City where she takes a magazine job she is neither fit for nor wants and begins to fall prey to Big Apple corruption.
Not an unusual story, at all, but disappointing that her corruption is the high society, plastic façade of the fashion world when there are so many other forms of NYC corruption that beckon.
It’s a beautiful tale nonetheless, save for the annoying boyfriend who always seems to need a shave. His character, however, is offset by the snooty accented receptionist, the good-hearted girl turned Dior diva and the most awesome character of all played by Meryl Streep, the devil herself in Prada.
Highlight: The setting, two of my favorite haunts, NYC and Paris.
Lowlight: Not once do they even go near Coney Island.
Rating (1-10): 597, or the average cost of a pair of Prada
This movie was recommended by someone and I don't remember who but I thank them.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
