John’s Movie Musings

How can you make stand-up comedy boring? Ask Vince Vaughn. He’s proven to be an expert in Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show.

Here’s the premise of this snoozefest. Vince Vaughn takes four “comedians” on a bus tour of America. They cover 30 cities in 30 days (or something like that) all across the South. In addition to the four main comics, a few others drop by on occasion and add a total of 0 cups of Not Funny to the recipe. Look at that poster. See all those faces? None of them bring the funny.

Actually, there was one part where the Mac Guy mocks Vince Vaughn in Swingers. That was the first scene of the movie and it’s the best.

Now I realize that stand-up comedy is all relative. There might be some of you who might like these guys. I’ve seen better talent on Last Comic Standing. The first ones cut. Then again, there are people who liked Superbad. Who am I to judge?…since that’s basically all this site is.

Another problem is that locking a bunch of comedians in a bus should result in hilarious situations. Unfortunately, these guys are all jerks. I wouldn’t even want to shake their hand after a show. That’s assuming I was forced to attend one of their shows at gunpoint.

This is the last Rambo, not the first Rambo. At least I hope this is the last Rambo. Let me explain the plot with a nursery rhyme…

What starts out as an interesting look into the Burma crisis turns into 90 minutes of dismemberment. Seriously. This is the most violent movie I’ve ever seen. You can see daylight through every bullet wound. And more limps are severed than words spoken by Rambo.

The movie sucks, but what I really want to talk about is Molog. Here’s how Wikipedia describes it:

Now in the demo of how to use Molog in Rambo, I saw none of that. Instead, what I saw was probably the worst tech demo ever. For over twenty minutes (maybe longer), I saw a walkthrough of some guy pasting clip art on the screen while the movie is playing in the background. Who wants this? I know of no one who thinks, “This movie needs a giant boat in the middle of the screen.”

But the best part (and by “best”, I mean “horribly offensive”) came when we got to the animated clip art. The demo selects a clip called “Hanging” and places it in the top left corner. It’s a man swinging in a noose with about 3 frames of animation. So as the rest of the demo goes on, there’s a Burmese villager swinging from a noose in the top third of the screen. You can’t help but laugh and be mortified at the same time. Seriously, if you get a chance to watch this in Blu-Ray (don’t. ever.). Watch the Molog demo. You’ll never forget it.

Grade: D

Like all of Jack Black’s other movies, I thought, “instant rental” when I saw the trailers for Be Kind, Rewind. Nacho Libre had me laughing for hours and School of Rock was ok, but neither of them were worth wasting $10 on. Same with Be Kind, Rewind.

But here’s the thing with this movie. It’s like a spoof movie in that there are a list of prerequisite films to get the humor. Fortunately, that shouldn’t be a problem because who hasn’t seen Ghostbusters or Driving Miss Daisy? …Says the man who just saw Predator and the Rambo movies.

The humor is all fine and dandy, but I found the “magic” of some movie tricks to be the most interesting. As these guys are remaking these movies on the cheap, it’s amazing at how great some of the shots look. Sure, it’s cheesy and cheap, but that’s kind of the point. My favorite was the “night mode” while wearing Xeroxed copies of their face. Trust me, it’s hilarious.

Anyway, if you like Jack Black go rent this. If not, well, Mos Def is funny.

Grade: B-

I remember reading an interview with one of the Star Trek cast members who said that the script only had “Technobabble” written in places where the actor had to explain a scientific problem. On the day of shooting, they would just make something up and go with whatever sounded good.

While watching Untraceable, I got the feeling they did the same thing. Only this time, they weren’t talking about electro-phase relays and their fluctuating impedance (not bad, eh?). They were talking about websites and the internet. All things that many people have intimate knowledge about. So when Diane Lane starts making crap up about how a website is untraceable because its IP changes every 5 seconds, my hand instinctively smacks my forehead. If you’re like me, this movie will give you a headache.

One more thing. Check out that poster. How many of you are having an OCD fit over that hand icon mot moving? Just me? OK, moving on.

As annoying as the technobabble is, this isn’t a bad movie. If you are completely clueless about how websites work, you might really enjoy this. It’s like those thrillers Ashley Judd does every now and then. Not great, but worth a rental. If you’re at all technical, you might want to avoid Untraceable. Or rent it if you’re in need of a laugh.

Grade: C

If you’ve never read The Kite Runner, now you don’t have to. They made it into a movie. I read the book last year and it is an incredible story. One you must watch or read at some point in the near future.

Whoever did the movie did a great job translating the book. I could tell a few things they changed, but they were changes that made sense. Some things may work fine in a book, but fall apart when filmed. The director fixed all those very well.

One cool thing is that I finally understood the kite battles. Watching them unfold (as opposed to reading them) added some tension that the book lacked because I couldn’t get my imagination to understand what the heck was going on. Watching them take place makes me want to go get a kite and try it out.

I’m not really going to say a whole lot about this because it’s one of those movies that’s best to go into knowing nothing. Just take my word and rent it. Or, if you’re a reader, pick it up next time you’re out shopping. It’s an incredible story and you need to experience it.

Grade: A

300 is one of my all-time favorite movies. Sure, the plot is simple – maybe a too simple. And there’s no character development to speak of. But when you take that kind of style, wrap it in bloody combat, then deep-fry it in testosterone – you better serve me up seconds.

Another aspect of 300 I like is all the jokes that have saturated the internet. Jokes like this:

Seriously. I’ve laughed at that for days. What I didn’t laugh at was Meet the Spartans.

OK, I get that it’s a spoof of 300. But what is it with spoof movies these days? Years ago, they would take a bunch of different plots and mash them into a single story, hopefully with plenty of jokes to go around. But like Walk Hard, Meet the Spartans only spoofs one movie, and follows it scene for scene. Where’s the originality in that?

Oh and where are the jokes? Instead of taking the opportunity to make some clever 300 jokes (like the one above), this crapfest just thows in pop culture references. Two hours of them. For instance, I bet you can think of who gets kicked into the bottomless pit.

I will admit that some were funny (“Tonight, we dine at Hooters!!”), but most were awful. I also have to give props to the main actor. His impression of Gerard Butler is classic. But everything else sucks. Skip this one.

Grade: D