300

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Starring: Gerard Butler
Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller

Looking for the ultimate guys night out? Just follow these simple instructions for a celebration of all things testosterone...

Step 1: Round up a bunch of immature, emotionally handicapped, beer-swilling buddies (cost: $0).

Step 2: Hit your local "adult entertainment" establishment for a pre-movie drink (cost: approx $10.00 but your mileage may vary).

Step 3: Go see 300 (cost: $9.00).

Step 4: Post-movie beer and chicken wings at Hooters (cost: varies depending on your level of alcoholism $10.00 - $100.00).

Step 5: Bask in the glory of feeling like a Spartan warrior. Women swoon and lesser men tremble at your sheer awesomeness (cost: Priceless).

While I've never actually read Frank Miller's graphic novel, I did read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire about eight years ago and I remember thinking at the time that it would make an awesome movie. Well, nearly a decade later computer animation has finally caught up with my imagination and brought this ultra-violent spectacle to life on the big screen.

Blood sprays profusely in anime-style abundance. Limbs and heads are cleaved from their bodies. Spears, swords, axes and arrows eviscerate, skewer and generally perforate unlucky victims. All with a grinding, techno-rock track pounding in the background. This, my friends is the ULTIMATE guys movie...



The CGI visuals evoke a hazy, dreamlike quality, which is actually perfect for a film that would have seemed absurd and cheesy if it had been filmed in the "traditional" fashion. In fact, if you can look beyond the brutal, gritty violence you will see a visual work of art that is incredibly beautiful in it's own right.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go slaughter some Persians. Wait....What? The Persian Empire collapsed over 2000 years ago? I guess I'll just have to make do with my stuffed animals then...Allright Mr. Fuzzy Bear/God-King Xerxes, prepare for some Spartan ass-whooping!

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Gates of Fire

Author: Steven Pressfield

In honor of the release of 300 today, I thought I would share with you one of the best books ever written about the legendary Battle of Thermopylae.

It's 480 B.C. and the million-strong Persian army is set to lay the smackdown on Greece, thereby extinguishing the first fertile fires of Democracy. In order to buy time for the rest of Greece to get it's act togeather, 300 Spartans and their allies embark on a suicide mission to the pass of Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass above the Aegean sea. It is here that these crazy-brave warriors, led by King Leonidas, hold off more than 100,000 Persians for the better part of a week. It is one of the most valiant stands in military history, and it bought the rest of Greece the time it needed to rally it's armies and eventually repel the Persian host

Pressfield gets down and dirty with his prose as he describes this viscious battle in painstaking detail. Every tactic, technique and "dirty trick" employed by the Spartans in their desprate fight is lovingly detailed here. The narrative style is brilliant, adding a sense of suspense and immediacy to a battle with a pre-determined outcome.

When Xerxes, the leader of the Persian army demanded that the doomed Spartans lay down their arms, Leonidas' replied simply, with two words: "Molon labe". Roughly translated: "Come and get them". That, my friends, is the very definition of BALLS.

Here's the trailer for 300. If it even comes close to telling this story as well as Stephen Pressfield did in this amazing novel, I'll be first in line at the movie theatre....

300 - movie trailer

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Score: 11/12 ass-kicking Spartan monkeys!

The Prestige

the prestige

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Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine

The word "magician" has become synonamous with cheap Vegas-style lounge acts and glorified street performers. However, there was a time, not so long ago when magicians were the rockstars of their day. They were macho bad-asses who twisted the laws of science in front of captive audiences and occasionally died for their craft.

The Prestige pulls this era out of it's hat and evokes a dark, puzzle-box narrative that will feel familiar to fans of Nolan's other recent film Batman Begins. Jackman and Bale play up and coming magicians who's professional and deeply personal feud has driven them both to the very limits of sanity.

The film's tagline: "Are you watching closely" should tell you all you need to know about the cleverly designed twists and subtle misdirection present here. Nolan does a fantastic job of manipulating the audience, making the whole thing feel like an elaborate two-hour magic trick.

My only complaint is that no one gets mauled by a white tiger. I mean, how can you have a movie about magicians without one single, tiger mauling?!?! So much for realism.

Score: 9/12 monkeys

Jesus Camp

Jesus Camp

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Directed by: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady

The media has gone out of its way in the past few years to show us the end result of Islamic fundementalism. I think we can all agree that kids walking into crowded cafe's strapped with explosives is a bad thing. Sadly, this type of reporting has led many of us to paint all Muslims with the same brush. Now, imagine for a moment if you will, what would happen if all Christians were judged based on documentaries like Jesus Camp. Airport security sure wouldn't be a cakewalk anymore would it? Kids aren't routinely blowing themselves up in the name of Jesus....Yet. But don't kid yourself; the battle lines are being drawn as we speak. One thing religious fundementalism teaches very well is how to pledge your undying love to some vague, nebulous idea while at the same time engendering hatred and loathing for those who don't share your beliefs. This type of "us" against "them" indoctrination is brought into sharp focus througout this wonderful documentary.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady do an admirable job of presenting the subject matter in an unbiased fashion. However, any rational person is going to recognise this for what it is: A very insidious form of child abuse. Watching these kids regurgitate dogma under the watchful eyes of their parents then collapse, weeping in a religious stupor is a truly horrifying experience. They are given an "education" in social and political issues such as abortion, the war in Iraq and global warming in the same way that Hitler "educated" Germany about the evils of the Jewish people. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

Normally I'd make some tasteless joke right about now. But this shit just makes me too damn angry. So think up your own tasteless joke, you heartless bastard.

Score: 9/12 monkeys

The Departed

The Departed - Trailer

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Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: It would be easier to list who ISN'T in it.

It's not very often life grants us a "mulligan" (aka: a "do-over" for the non-golfers out there). How many of us wouldn't love to go back and take another shot at things like prom, the big job interview or that night you convinced your girlfriend that it was better without a condom? Well, thanks to this year's Academy Award nominations, I have had the rare opportunity to see a movie that I missed out on last year, and have been crying myself to sleep over ever since. That movie is, of course, The Departed which is now in limited re-release to build Oscar buzz for its run at the best picture prize.

Scorsese is intimately familiar with this type of filmmaking having given us testosterone-fueled mob epics like Goodfella's, Casino, and most recently, Gangs of New York. The scenes are raw, quick-cut vignettes that form a sort of tapestry of events rather than a straight-forward narrative. I found this method of storytelling a little jarring at first until I realized this was an incredibly effective way to convey the passage of time. It beats the hell out of the old "One year later...." cop-out employed by lesser directors. Bravo Mr. Scorsese! Well played sir.

In a huge ensemble cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, its gotta' be tough for any one performance to outshine the rest. But Leonardo DiCaprio bitch-slaps them all with his brilliant turn as the sunken-eyed, deeply conflicted Billy Costigan. All you Leo haters out there who love to bring up Titanic (which was actually a really GOOD movie, damnit! What the hell is wrong with you people?!?) better get ready to have your misguided opinion changed forever. Leo is all growed-up now and if this movie doesn't validate him as a serious player than nothing will.

The Onion once claimed that Scorsese's next film would be three hours of begging for an Oscar. If by "begging" they mean "deserving" then yeah, I'd say that's EXACTLY what The Departed is.

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Children of Men

'Children of Men' Trailer


Directed by: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine

"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

-T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"

Humanity is dangling over the edge of the abyss in Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men" and it's hanging on by it's fingernails. A miraculously pregnant woman offers some hope for salvation, but as the savage fascism unfolds around her, we are forced to ask ourselves: Do we really deserve to survive?

Luckily we have Clive Owen, who's flip-flop clad protagonist provides an anchor of morality in a world where basic human decency has long-ago been set adrift. He is tasked with delivering the pregnant "Kee" (played with wild-eyed vulnerability by newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey) beyond the clutches of a corrupt British government and a group of freedom-fighters-turned terrorists and into the welcoming arms of a group commited to saving civilization known only as "The Human Project".

One of the biggest stars of this show is Alfonso Cuaron's brilliant cinematography. His police-state London and war-torn refugee camp present a vision of the future that looks disturbingly like the images we see on the news every night. The action sequences rip the audience out of its role of dispassionate observer and place it in the middle of white-knuckle gun fights and car chases. The single-cut, first-person fluidity of these scenes has to be seen to be believed.

My first piece of unsolicited advice in 2007 is this: GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It's a brilliant piece of filmmaking and an early frontrunner for my favorite movie of the year. I know, it's only January, but with most of the garbage coming out of Hollywood these days (see "Idiocracy" review below) I'm pretty confident in that pronouncement.

Score: 12/12 monkeys

Idiocracy

Directed by: Mike Judge
Starring: Luke "I needed the paycheck" Wilson

The narrator of Mike Judge's latest bowel movement helpfully informs us that brain-dead entertainment has helped to create an entire society of morons. Here is a shining, classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy: Watching this movie for the full ninety minutes will actually significantly lower your IQ. It's a cautionary tale about the value of education told with the subtle nuances of fart jokes and groin injuries. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

The very people that Mike Judge is mocking are the only people that will appreciate the humor. So if you're a fan of the Jackass franchise, this may well be your Citizen Kane. For the rest of us, who are not at risk of winning a Darwin Award this is more like Cabin Boy.

Score: 1/12 monkeys

An Inconvenient Truth

Directed by: Davis Guggenheim
Starring: Al Gore, Al Gore's Laptop, Al Gore's Ego and Al Gore's Hypocrisy

Looks like Al Gore is running for political office again. He must be, why else would he produce this 90-minute campaign ad, not-so-cleverly disguised as a documentary on global warming? Our buddy Al spends most of those 90 minutes in front of a giant, expensive-looking powerpoint presentation, giving us the hard facts about the imminent demise of our planet. He quotes dubious sources that he simply identifies as "a friend of mine", or "My scientist buddy". He blames the current administration for their laughable enviromental policy while in the same breath claims that this isn't a political issue. He strangles a homeless guy and drowns a kitten.

Okay, he didn't do those last two things, but he might as well have. The zombies sitting in his studio audience would never question the infinite wisdom of Al Gore. Is that homeless guy okay? Who cares...Look, Al is showing a clip from The Simpsons!

I can't quite get my head around this "documentary". On one hand, many of the facts are quite staggering and the raw data is very sobering. On the other hand, we have an over-paid, ex-vice president driving and flying around the country telling us to try to cut down on our carbon dioxide emissions. Ummm, we can't burn any more fuel Al...You fucking used it all!

For over twenty years we have had brilliant, respected people like David Suzuki and Laurie David warning us about the environmental toll we humans are taking on mother earth. I urge you to visit their sites and contribute if you can. Hey, If it takes a snakeoil salesman like Al Gore to mobilize you into thinking about these issues, than I guess that's better than nothing. Just promise me one thing; if he ever does run for office again, run the other way.

Score: 2/12 monkeys

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Directed by: Chris Paine

I've been having a little problem with rage lately. Don't worry, I'm in therapy and the nice man in the white jacket says that I'll be fine if I can just stay away from the things that trigger my "episodes". You know what? I just finished watching "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and I'm off the wagon for good. Ah, sweet, sweet righteous anger...How I missed thee.

I think the best way to give you the vitals on this documentary is by providing you with a vulgar analogy: Let's say you are addicted to heroine. It's expensive, readily available and it will kill you eventually. Well, one day some guy comes up with a drug that gives you the exact same high as your precious smack, the only difference is it's cheaper and it is guaranteed to never, ever kill you. In fact, it may even make you healthier. This is a no brainer, right? Wait a second, not so fast my drug-addled friend. Your heroine dealer stands to lose a LOT of money in this deal. So he does what any self-respecting drug peddler would do...He destroys the new, safe drug and buries all evidence of it's exsistance.

I know what you're thinking, this could never really happen right? Well, it DID happen, but instead of "heroine", think "the internal combustion engine", and instead of "your smack dealer" think "government", "big oil" and "the automotive industry".

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go light a puppy on fire. I might as well. Apparently no one gives a shit about things like social responsibility anymore. I'll fit right in.

This movie does lose a couple of points for featuring an interview with Mel Gibson describing how much better off we would all be if we embraced electric car technology. How's that for a glowing endorsement? A drunken, anti-semitic lunatic loves the electric car?! I'll take two!

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

The Borat Trailer

Had enough of this guy yet? I sure haven't...

Directed by: Larry Charles
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen

There seems to be two distinct schools of thought on the whole "Borat" phenomenon. One is that he is a complete buffon, generating cheap laughs at the expense of unwitting victims. The other is that he is a genius, ushering in a whole new era of comedy: The "Mockumentary". I have to admit that I am firmly entrenched in the latter camp.

Beneath the surface of the "cheap laughs" there exsists a sharp, often frightening look at human psychology. Mr. Cohen understands that people tend to let their guard down when confronted with someone who they percieve to be inferior. As in one chilling scene where an all-American good ole' boy matter-of-factly states that every muslim and homosexual in the USA should be rounded up and imprisoned/executed. Funny stuff right? Umm..Not so much.

Don't let the highbrow psycho-babble scare you off though, this is inspired comedy of the highest order. Just be aware that not everyone will appreciate the humor. Also be aware that there is a fight scene between two naked men that will haunt you for the rest of your days.

As Borat would say: "I like you, do you like me?" I sure do Borat. I sure do.

Score: 11/12 monkeys

Trainspotting

Trainspotting

Heroine Addiction isn't cool, but it makes a GREAT movie.

Directed by: Danny Boyle
Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh

I couldn't let one more day go by without sharing with you one of the greatest movies of all time. Suffice it to say that if my love of movies could be compared to a slow burning campfire, this film was the gasoline, nay...the napalm that got dumped on to turn me into the movie-crazed fanatic that I am today.

Allow me to set the scene for you...A crisp fall day back in 1996. Burned out on "action" movies and unfunny comedies, I had begun to think of movies as nothing more than junkfood for the mind. Sure, they allowed us to escape from our mundane exsistance for a couple of hours, but they did nothing to challenge us. Then, on the advice of a friend, I picked up Trainspotting from my local video store, fully expecting to be turning it off about halfway through. After all, what was all this nonesense about some film festival in France, and who cares if this movie won just about every award there...What the hell do french people know anyhow?

As it turns out, the french know plenty about wine, and even more about movies. To this day I attribute Trainspotting as the movie that rekindled my love of movies. It turned my apathy into enthusiasm. It is just as fresh and relevant today as it was ten years ago. If you haven't yet seen it, then what the hell are you waiting for? If you have, then my hat is off to you; you know a good film when you see one.

Score: 12/12 monkeys (Yes, this movie DOES have a poop throwing scene! Bonus!)

Art School Confidential

Directed by: Terry Zwigoff
Cast: I'm not mentioning any names...*cough* John Malkovich *cough*...

Here is a brief synopsis of my reactions while watching this movie (in chronological order): "Oh, what a funny movie! That is so true, those pretentious artistic-types ARE all like that. This has John Malkovich in it? That's fantastic, he's such a great actor. Wait a second, what is this subplot about a strangler? What happened to all the jokes? Suicide?!? What the hell? That's horrible!"

To say this movie squanders its potential at about the mid-point is an understatement. If you listen close enough you can actually hear the writers running out of ideas about 40 minutes in. They abandon a smart, funny story about a young art student and his first year at art school for a dark, ridiculous story about an undercover cop investigating a murderer.

If you needed a paycheck this bad Malcovich, next time consider doing some ads for 1-800-COLLECT or Subway. Those commercials have more artistic merit than this piece of bathroom-stall graffiti.

Score: 2/12 monkeys

X-Men: The Last Stand

Directed by: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen

A more appropriate title would have been X-Men: The Last One Night Stand because it left me feeling dirty and violated. I didn't think it was possible to screw up a franchise that has millions of fans, a built-in audience and Ian Mckellen as a super villian but Brett Ratner pulls it off beautifully. I screened this one for the monkeys (they had also seen the first two vastly superior films) and they proceeded to hurl feces at the screen. One of them drooled on his typewriter and came up with: alkf920987 aw'''#. I took this to be close enough to the actual script, so it scores a one. Barely.

Score: 1/12 monkeys

Lucky Number Slevin

Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu (Mmmmm..Lucy Liu)

This movie has Lucy Liu in it. 'Nuff said....Bah! okay, truth is I really wanted to like this movie, but the whole mess fell apart in the second act. I even started chanting to myself "You like this movie, you like this movie, you like this movie, etc." but I just couldn't make it true. If you're gonna make an action comedy a good rule of thumb is to not take ALL the jokes out of the last hour and substitute brutal violence. One of the monkeys got drunk last night and wrote this one....WITH IMPROVEMENTS.

Score: 1/12 monkeys

Thank You for Smoking

Directed by: Jason Reitman
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Sam Elliot, William H. Macy, Robert Duvall...Lots of great cameos too

This one would take ten monkeys with a great sense of humor to hammer out. One of the best movies I've seen in the last two years and easily one of the funniest. Aaron Eckhart's big tobacco lobbyist, Nick Naylor is one of those characters that you just love to hate...At first. A funny thing happened to me at about the midpoint of the film. Despite the fact that Nick is morally bankrupt, I started sympathising with him, then downright cheering for him. Does that mean I am morally bankrupt too? Probably. Does that mean this is a great film? Definately.

Score: 10/12 monkeys