By Ryn Gargulinski
Anyone who thinks it’s gross if a 20-something dude who looks 13 were to fall in love with and marry an 80-year-old gal is right.
It is.
Unless it’s Harold and Maude.
This movie not only erases society’s baseless initial shock and repulsion at such a match, but it opens the doors to examine other societal “rights” and “wrongs” that all of a sudden seem ridiculous. Like why is it OK when Anna Nicole takes on an 80-year-old lover but disgusting to some when Harold does the same thing? Why is it disgusting at all when love transcends everything, even death?
This entertaining and wholly kitschy 70s flick also opens other doors with more questions and varied interpretation. Is Maude a real person or just a figment of much needed love for Harold’s imagination? Does Harold really die during one of his “suicides?” Is Harold alive in the first place? Is Maude? Is he really only 13?
These and many other inquiries, like how the heck Harold could weld a really cool mini-hearse out of a Jaguar in less than two hours, prey on our minds.
They make us think. They awaken our senses. They make us look at love, maybe even experience it. Heck, one of my friends said he'd marry Maude in a second (but alas, Ruth "Maude" Gordon died in 1985). (Bud Cort, who played Harold, simply got all obscure like child actors even though he wasn't a child but just looked like one.)
This is not your average sit-and-absorb-things-like-a-fat-blob-eating-popcorn movies. Nor is it annoyingly philosophical, yet it does tend to preach.
I won’t ruin the film by either revealing the ending or telling you what Maude likes to preach about. But I will say you won’t mind sitting in the pew.
Highlight: Opening scene that leaves Harold hanging himself from a rafter and his subsequent string of suicides.
Lowlight: Imagining life with a mother like Harold has.
Rating (1-10): 80,888
Showing posts with label dvd rental. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dvd rental. Show all posts
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Rental Review: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
By Ryn Gargulinski
This movie has the word “peaks” in the title because it reached new heights. New heights of boredom, stupidity, incomprehensibility and just plain annoyance.
The midget in the room where everyone spoke like they were under water didn’t help. Unfortunately, he was the highlight of the flick.
In addition to being hard to follow, it was undesirable to follow these stiff, clichéd characters through some murder mystery that nobody cared about.
There is no resolution because there is no plot to have a resolution for.
Have a nice day.
Don’t watch this thing.
Highlight: The midget in the room where everyone spoke like they were under water.
Lowlight: Everything else.
Rating: NEGATIVE 600 million, or the altitude of the valley in which this flop peaks.
This movie was recommended by a woman at the dog park whose dog Hank likes to hump every other dog.
This movie has the word “peaks” in the title because it reached new heights. New heights of boredom, stupidity, incomprehensibility and just plain annoyance.
The midget in the room where everyone spoke like they were under water didn’t help. Unfortunately, he was the highlight of the flick.
In addition to being hard to follow, it was undesirable to follow these stiff, clichéd characters through some murder mystery that nobody cared about.
There is no resolution because there is no plot to have a resolution for.
Have a nice day.
Don’t watch this thing.
Highlight: The midget in the room where everyone spoke like they were under water.
Lowlight: Everything else.
Rating: NEGATIVE 600 million, or the altitude of the valley in which this flop peaks.
This movie was recommended by a woman at the dog park whose dog Hank likes to hump every other dog.
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.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Rental Review: The Green Mile
By Ryn Gargulinski
As with any Stephen King story, we get twists, turns, intrigue, blood and plenty of horror. An added bonus is it’s all done on death row.
This flick features a killer who is not a killer and is really a healer who is sent to die on the electric chair. But first he has to contend with having bumblebees fly out of his mouth, an obnoxious fellow death row inmate (who’da thunk?) and a jerkhead prison guard, who happens to be the nephew of the governor and gets away with a lot, including totally botching an electric chair execution that makes the prison reek of singed flesh for five years.
This movie is just plain fun.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg for this highly-involved, emotionally-spent and entirely captivating film.
Highlight: The mouse in the house.
Lowlight: The jerkhead nephew who you just know is going to smush the mouse in the house.
Rating (1-10): 96
This movie was recommended with love by Mom and Dad.
As with any Stephen King story, we get twists, turns, intrigue, blood and plenty of horror. An added bonus is it’s all done on death row.
This flick features a killer who is not a killer and is really a healer who is sent to die on the electric chair. But first he has to contend with having bumblebees fly out of his mouth, an obnoxious fellow death row inmate (who’da thunk?) and a jerkhead prison guard, who happens to be the nephew of the governor and gets away with a lot, including totally botching an electric chair execution that makes the prison reek of singed flesh for five years.
This movie is just plain fun.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg for this highly-involved, emotionally-spent and entirely captivating film.
Highlight: The mouse in the house.
Lowlight: The jerkhead nephew who you just know is going to smush the mouse in the house.
Rating (1-10): 96
This movie was recommended with love by Mom and Dad.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Rental Review: May
By Ryn Gargulinski
We hate May. She’s nervous, flimsy, wishy washy and downright annoying.
OK, we have to give her some leeway since she was brought up wearing a “pirate patch” on her eye and had no friends but some creepy doll in a glass box.
Besides, the movie opens with May screaming bloody murder and ripping her eyeball out. So we sit around waiting for her to do something more than yell at her glass-encased doll.
And then she does.
The grotesque, gory and fully stomach-turning finale is not enough to make you turn away from the screen but is more than enough to make up for the boring beginning of the movie.
Highlight: The scene where May brings the doll to a day care full of blind kids and they break open the glass box, crawl around glass shards and dismember the creepy doll.
Lowlight: The long boring stretch of May’s attempted love life.
Rating (1-10): 17.66
This movie was recommended by Richard and Bonnie.
We hate May. She’s nervous, flimsy, wishy washy and downright annoying.
OK, we have to give her some leeway since she was brought up wearing a “pirate patch” on her eye and had no friends but some creepy doll in a glass box.
Besides, the movie opens with May screaming bloody murder and ripping her eyeball out. So we sit around waiting for her to do something more than yell at her glass-encased doll.
And then she does.
The grotesque, gory and fully stomach-turning finale is not enough to make you turn away from the screen but is more than enough to make up for the boring beginning of the movie.
Highlight: The scene where May brings the doll to a day care full of blind kids and they break open the glass box, crawl around glass shards and dismember the creepy doll.
Lowlight: The long boring stretch of May’s attempted love life.
Rating (1-10): 17.66
This movie was recommended by Richard and Bonnie.
Rental Review: Bullet
By Ryn Gargulinski
Excellent depiction of Coney Island, bloody eyeballs, a NYC graffiti artist and the stereotypical Jewish family with a couple of sons gone bad but the characters are annoying as hell.
We get Mickey Rourke with a stupid skull cap who just got out of prison with a massive heroin habit, his older brother who went schizo and thinks every day is Vietnam, a spineless yet talented younger sibling who you feel like slapping silly, an Italian stallion type who denies he is bordering on homosexuality and finds no qualms about driving around in a pink car and a one-eyed drug king who cruises town in his limo and wants to blow everyone away.
Yes, it’s a very fine and dandy mix of folks with a lot of potential but there’s one problem. We don’t like any of them.
Highlight: The bowels of New York backdrop.
Lowlight: The bowels of humanity characters.
Rating (1-10): 3.57
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
Excellent depiction of Coney Island, bloody eyeballs, a NYC graffiti artist and the stereotypical Jewish family with a couple of sons gone bad but the characters are annoying as hell.
We get Mickey Rourke with a stupid skull cap who just got out of prison with a massive heroin habit, his older brother who went schizo and thinks every day is Vietnam, a spineless yet talented younger sibling who you feel like slapping silly, an Italian stallion type who denies he is bordering on homosexuality and finds no qualms about driving around in a pink car and a one-eyed drug king who cruises town in his limo and wants to blow everyone away.
Yes, it’s a very fine and dandy mix of folks with a lot of potential but there’s one problem. We don’t like any of them.
Highlight: The bowels of New York backdrop.
Lowlight: The bowels of humanity characters.
Rating (1-10): 3.57
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Rental Review: Zodiac
By Ryn Gargulinski
This was one of the slowest-moving, boring flicks until I popped it out of the DVD player and attempted to watch the other two movies I had on hand. Then Zodiac became a masterpiece.
For the record, the other two DVDs were Jane Doe and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first features Calista Flockhart as a prostitute with a black eye that magically disappears the next morning, not unlike the fatal wounds that are healed in the next frame in all Wyle E. Coyote cartoons. The second was a rambling, drug-induced, self-important narration of Hunter Thompson, which is to be expected since it was based on his rambling, drug-induced self-important narration in the book that I did not like either.
So Zodiac ruled. At least comparatively. Yes, it was slow. Yes, we got the idea that everyone was scared, although that was driven home some 5,678 times with some 9,632 scenarios. No, we didn’t get that “ooh, ahh” feeling of a monster out there, although we should have based on the killer’s story. The movie just didn’t do it justice. Besides, it only depicted four murders and two attempted, rather than a dent into the 37 this guy said he committed.
Highlight: Being reminded Zodiac was never caught and wondering if he’s watching the movie himself and then wondering if he’ll read this review in which case I’d have to say he’s such a clever and awe-inspiring presence wherever he is.
Lowlight: The detective assigned to crack the case who is a real jerk.
Rating (1-10): 1
This was one of the slowest-moving, boring flicks until I popped it out of the DVD player and attempted to watch the other two movies I had on hand. Then Zodiac became a masterpiece.
For the record, the other two DVDs were Jane Doe and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first features Calista Flockhart as a prostitute with a black eye that magically disappears the next morning, not unlike the fatal wounds that are healed in the next frame in all Wyle E. Coyote cartoons. The second was a rambling, drug-induced, self-important narration of Hunter Thompson, which is to be expected since it was based on his rambling, drug-induced self-important narration in the book that I did not like either.
So Zodiac ruled. At least comparatively. Yes, it was slow. Yes, we got the idea that everyone was scared, although that was driven home some 5,678 times with some 9,632 scenarios. No, we didn’t get that “ooh, ahh” feeling of a monster out there, although we should have based on the killer’s story. The movie just didn’t do it justice. Besides, it only depicted four murders and two attempted, rather than a dent into the 37 this guy said he committed.
Highlight: Being reminded Zodiac was never caught and wondering if he’s watching the movie himself and then wondering if he’ll read this review in which case I’d have to say he’s such a clever and awe-inspiring presence wherever he is.
Lowlight: The detective assigned to crack the case who is a real jerk.
Rating (1-10): 1
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Rental Review: Fried Green Tomatoes
By Ryn Gargulinski
Even though the title made me think it would be similar to that nonsensical movie with killer houseplants, I was not only surprised, but captivated.
This wholly entertaining and amusing flick outlines the life and death of folks in smalltown Alabama. Some issues include wife beating, racism, the loss of loved ones and a freight train that kills, maims and rips someone’s arm off.
Another plotline running on a parallel track, pun intended, features the loveless marriage of a woman played by Kathy Bates. Thus if the movie ever does get boring, which it doesn’t, one can always think of Bates in the movie Misery where she cripples a man with a sledgehammer.
Highlight: Even though I hate to say it, the happy sappy ending amidst all that grief.
Lowlight: That the movie had to end. It was one of those where you could go another two hours and remain intrigued.
Rating (1-10): 782,000
Even though the title made me think it would be similar to that nonsensical movie with killer houseplants, I was not only surprised, but captivated.
This wholly entertaining and amusing flick outlines the life and death of folks in smalltown Alabama. Some issues include wife beating, racism, the loss of loved ones and a freight train that kills, maims and rips someone’s arm off.
Another plotline running on a parallel track, pun intended, features the loveless marriage of a woman played by Kathy Bates. Thus if the movie ever does get boring, which it doesn’t, one can always think of Bates in the movie Misery where she cripples a man with a sledgehammer.
Highlight: Even though I hate to say it, the happy sappy ending amidst all that grief.
Lowlight: That the movie had to end. It was one of those where you could go another two hours and remain intrigued.
Rating (1-10): 782,000
Friday, April 20, 2007
Rental Review: Monster’s Ball
By Ryn Gargulinski
While my mentor English professor once said a story can’t go wrong if you start with a dead body, this one did. Actually, we had three dead bodies going on - a death row electrocution, a suicide and a bloody boy hit by a car. And the movie still sucked.
The plot had so much promise, a corrections officer falling in love with the wife an executed criminal, an unloved son who makes his own fate, a much loved son who finds solace in candybars. Even the title is cool.
The description on the DVD box also screamed things about Academy Award winners! and even that dead guy who used to review movies gave it two thumbs up. Alas, it was still so slow and agonizing to watch, like a botched execution perhaps, in which you just wish for the end yet are made to linger.
Highlight: When one of the officers puked when they were walking the convict to the death chamber.
Lowlight:The false hope the flick would get better as it slogged along.
Rating (1-10): NEGATIVE 5,678,941
While my mentor English professor once said a story can’t go wrong if you start with a dead body, this one did. Actually, we had three dead bodies going on - a death row electrocution, a suicide and a bloody boy hit by a car. And the movie still sucked.
The plot had so much promise, a corrections officer falling in love with the wife an executed criminal, an unloved son who makes his own fate, a much loved son who finds solace in candybars. Even the title is cool.
The description on the DVD box also screamed things about Academy Award winners! and even that dead guy who used to review movies gave it two thumbs up. Alas, it was still so slow and agonizing to watch, like a botched execution perhaps, in which you just wish for the end yet are made to linger.
Highlight: When one of the officers puked when they were walking the convict to the death chamber.
Lowlight:The false hope the flick would get better as it slogged along.
Rating (1-10): NEGATIVE 5,678,941
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Rental Review: Shawshank Redemption
By Ryn Gargulinski
Now I know what all the fuss is about. This movie successfully depicts the harrowing fate of a clean cut dude, who may even be innocent, stuck in the horrific hole of a 1940s prison.
We get his daily abuse, his constant run ins with the “pretty” boys and his firm insistence that he’s innocent. Heck, we even start to believe him, but that would make his fate waaaay too horrific.
We also see what happens to men who cry about their fate. Let’s just say they don’t cry again. Ever.
But this movie is more than just inner prison violence, it’s a full-fledged plot, something many flicks of the day are often lacking.
Highlight: The friendship forged between two convicts.
Lowlight: Damn "pretty boys."
Rating (1-10): 923
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
Now I know what all the fuss is about. This movie successfully depicts the harrowing fate of a clean cut dude, who may even be innocent, stuck in the horrific hole of a 1940s prison.
We get his daily abuse, his constant run ins with the “pretty” boys and his firm insistence that he’s innocent. Heck, we even start to believe him, but that would make his fate waaaay too horrific.
We also see what happens to men who cry about their fate. Let’s just say they don’t cry again. Ever.
But this movie is more than just inner prison violence, it’s a full-fledged plot, something many flicks of the day are often lacking.
Highlight: The friendship forged between two convicts.
Lowlight: Damn "pretty boys."
Rating (1-10): 923
This movie was recommended by Nathan.
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