Howl Review

Johnny’s Review

I have for months been waiting with great anticipation to see the movie Howl. For one, I love James Franco. Secondly, I love Allen Ginsberg. Third, I love movies. I pondered long and hard if a movie could possibly be made that was as awesome as the poem Howl. While I can’t say that writer/directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman accomplished that in their movie, I can say that what they offer is a passionate, interesting 90 minute ode to expression, freedom and revolution.

A good portion of the film is spent simply in the reading of the poem. This doesn’t work against it though, since, as I stated earlier, I think the poem’s pretty f**king awesome. Whether dramatized through CGI animation, or read by Franco in a smoky poetry bar, hearing the words of Howl brings its relevance front and center. The film makes you feel just how powerful Ginsberg’s work was/is.

The main portion of the plot is revolved around the trial Allen Ginsberg’s publisher faced after its 1957 release. The sentiments of the prosecutors and general religious public regarding Howl underline and punctuate the themes of liberation, self-discovery, honesty and truth that plays throughout the poems themes.

All the acting is great. James Franco gives Ginsberg’s character a great deal of warmth and love. And as always Jon Hamm is cool as hell.

I award Howl 4 F**king Awesomes. We’ll just use James Franco’s face this time, but I found a funny one, so it’s okay.

 

Delano’s Review

How could Delano possibly abhor a film about a poetry icon such as Alan Ginsburg, and one of the greatest poems of the modern age you ask?  Oh, there are plenty of ways.

To start, it made me cry.  As you know from my last review of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, I hate crying, mostly because of the weird smell of tears.  While my own tears emit the pleasant smell of patchouli and rose blossoms, when they dry up, they smell like the stale cider that I just so happened to be consuming while watching this movie.

The court case against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, brilliantly played by Andrew Rogers, was intriguing intertwined with Ginsburg’s story of how the poem was rendered, bringing together a detailed account of how the great poem was conceived, and, furthermore, it’s impact on America and the perceptions of what literature is, could be, and how it is evolving.  The fact that every word of the poem was read and reread in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz was euphoric.

What killed it was the CGI.  Apparently, someone thought it would be cool to depict the poem as representative, all while in court lawyers are arguing against the representativeness of the poem.  Perhaps, this could have been more plausible through low-fi techniques, but otherwise, the CGI contradicts many of the poems themes of man being swallowed through machinery and progress.  Plus, it looked sooooooo fake.  At times I couldn’t tell if I was watching Howl or Toy Story III.

Which brings me to my last point of contention with the film.  Not enough Buzz Lightyear.  The film could have been much more lighthearted and airy if there were more interaction from the forgotten toys.  The slinky dog could have fit in perfect in the section about Moloch.  And any number of toys could have worked with the lines:

“who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside

of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next

decade,”

Then again, perhaps more of Howl could have been used in Toy Story.

James Franco’s Ginsburg became fairly believable by the end of the film, saving this wretch from being completely unsalvageable, and thus earning my rating of 2 ½ fucking suck, which is represented by Woody , and, who, if you think about it, is the Carl Solomon of Toy Story

It’s a Funny Kind of Story Review

Johnny Awesome’s Review

The trendiest teen dramedy Delano and I attended most recently, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” is well-trodden territory. At the advice of a suicide hotline depressed teen, Craig (Keir Gilchrist) checks himself into a psychiatric ward in New York City where he befriends fellow psychiatric patient Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) who teaches him important life lessons, and so on.  Although this is typical of various other movies about teen depression/chaos of life, this movie sticks out in my mind because of its near-perfect balance of comical and dark approaches to the subject. The mood and outlook of Craig improves steadily throughout the plot, but does so without feeling like a motivational self-help video. Instead, the movie feels truly identifiable among angst-ridden teens.

Zach Galifianakis delivers a plausible performance for a grown man in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The mannerisms he adds to his character make his depression believable, real, and stark while maintaining a sense of comfort. He convinces the audience of his stability until a critical scene following a botched an interview for entrance into a group home. In this scene Bobby’s despair and subsequent loss of control are terrifying and unnerving as the audience observes the stability of a grown man crumble as he lashes out at any inanimate object within grasp.  This role for Galifianakis shows he’s an actor that deserves to be taken seriously.

Original music by Broken Social Scene, a popular band that has maintained its integrity over many years, was a good move.  Name-dropping Vampire Weekend appeals to the target audience, even if it felt a little bit cheap to those outside that demographic.

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” is solid movie. I’ll go ahead and rate it 4 F**king Awesomes, indicated with a picture of Jim Gaffigan who cameos as Craig’s father (even though he deflates our expectations by being un-humorous in this movie and must have just needed a couple bucks) (His wife is played by Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls, whom I’ll love forever).

P.S. If Delano says I cried it’s not something I admit to, though it is a touching movie at parts…

Delano Awful’s Review

It’s kind of a funny story about why I don’t like “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.”  It’s not the performances that irritated me. The performances were pretty solid even though I could have murdered Kiel Gilchrest for portraying the typical awkward teen with a flat personality and bearing the burden of affluent white teenagers in upscale Manhattan.  The comedy forces of Galifianakis and Gaffigan betrayed the expectations of hilarity by being somewhat serious, which is kind of how I feel about Bill Murray lately.  All the other performances were fine.  The story, okay, but it kind of felt ripped off from a memoir I recently read: Quitting the Nairobi Trio by Jim Knipfel.

It’s not the story that bugged me.  For a second I considered how clever the writers were to start from the bottom and work up.  In this case, Craig, starts from suicide, kind of like Patch Adams, or some other sappy bullshit.  But from down on the bottom, you can write about the sappiest things and it’s always an improvement.  The plot was kind of like the opposite of the classic Freytag pyramid.

I wasn’t even irritated with the usage of a third-person singular neuter pronoun at the beginning of the title, which anyone who has taken a writing 5030 class (and who hasn’t?_ knows you absolutely do not do.

I hated this movie because it made my Johnny Awesome cry.  Sobbing like a baby in the dark, slouched in his seat while he was “identifying” with the characters and shit, taking noticeable inhalations through his stuffed nose, pissing me off.  How can I concentrate while I have sour-puss blubbering right next to me the whole time.  I think he got some of his tears on my sleeve, and thus I had to burn that shirt because I hate the smell of tears, and for some reason, Johnny’s tears smell particularly bad.  Sure, he’ll act tough and deny any accusations, but I’m certain there is still a salty puddle on the floor of theater 4 at the Broadway Theater on 300 S and 200 E.  For this reason alone, I am giving this film 3 fucking sucks, as represented by the image of a really sad-looking Conor Oberst.

The Social Network Review

Johnny Awesome’s Revew

I’ve been pondering lately how you make a film about real events interesting. Real life is not very interesting. Especially if your life is filled with computer programming and company start-up strategies. Somehow David Fincher’s new film about Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg has accomplished just that.

Though the cinematography in general is not much to speak for, my favorite part of the film comes in the middle during an otherwise pointless and likely boring boat race. The way the scene is shot is so beautiful it’s anything but boring, in fact I was on the edge of my seat. There is a beautiful blur to the background that brings the forefront of the frame right out at you. Masterful.

The music to the film, composed by Trent Reznor, shows considerable skill, a huge departure from what we are used to hearing from the artist of Nine Inch Nails fame. There are times during the movie that the music is so well composed that it pulls you away from the film just so you can listen to it.  A serious Oscar contender for the soundtrack.

Performances by Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Rashida Jones are amazing. The personal drama between the two creators of Facebook builds slowly and methodically until it reaches the boiling point, resounding through the audience. Justin Timberlake’s performance, while less than brilliant, holds his own amongst the pros, filling the role of the cocky rich dude as though it were natural.

This is the movie everyone is talking about right now, and most of what is being said is positive. Fincher earned this, constructing a clean, entertaining and enthralling film out of a mundane story.  He was able to generate interest in a topic that is difficult to build interest for. I award it 2 1/2 F**king Awesomes, represented by the Facebook F, because Facebook is more addicting than crack, and everyone knows how much I love crack.

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Delano Awful’s Review

Typically, I find it easy to harbor a secret love for foreign films.  There is a miniscule amount of pretention in the subtitles, and reticent air of superiority in the mere fact that the film has been imported. Typically, foreign films tend to be on a higher level of sophistication than the overbearing simplicity of American cinema.  Unfortunately, the latest and hottest foreign film, The Social Network failed to accomplish the easy pass granted to most foreign films.

I wanted to love this film.  I really did this time. And I really appreciated the overtly pretentious decision by the filmmakers to leave out the subtitles forcing spoiled Americans to flounder within the incomprehensible foreign dribble in attempts to understand it.  As if the decision to leave out subtitles wasn’t bold enough, the film includes two separate languages other than English: Nerd and Money, neither of which I am fluent.  Americans have too long depended on the unilingual dominance of cinema, forcing filmmakers to sacrifice their craft to the weighty letters of translation on the bottom of a screen. Leaving out the subtitles forces the viewer to actually look at the film, really look at it.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to look at.  Just a bunch of techies playing on the computer and yelling at each other in clever Nerd talk.  There were a bunch of hot chicks though.  While everyone knows the tech world is inundated with hot easy chicks, the filmmakers made a smart choice in toning it down by only have a few hot easy chicks represented in the swarthy erotic world of computers.  Had the reality of the tech world been depicted, this may as well have been pornography, or a movie about a bunch of dudes watching pornography.  Either way, who am I to separate fantasy from reality?

All in all, there wasn’t a lot of action to grip my American sensibilities, and I could only understand about half of what anybody was saying.  Therefore, I’m going to give this film my highest rating yet: 4 fucking sucks.  This is represented by the MySpace — a place for friends — logo, because, let’s face it, MySpace is archaic and just doesn’t feel as good as Facebook.

Get Low

Johnny Awesome’s Review

In GET LOW Robert Duvall returns to his roots, once again playing a misunderstood hermatic legend as he did in his 1962 debut TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Only this time, playing the lead role of Felix Bush, he delivers his smart-ass one-liners with the precision and effectiveness of a seasoned Academy Award-winning veteren.

And in fact, though I can’t say that I abolutely loved the film, I’d say it does have some of the finest acted roles I’ve seen recently. Since the plot line is practically novella-sized, the trick to making a movie as entertaining as this one was is truly developing the characters; something Duvall is truly adept at. He brings such subtle dimension to Felix that the audience begins loving him almost immediately despite the limited dialogue he’s afforded.

The whole movie actually works better when thought of as a character showcase. We have here four strong characters acted out well by four experienced actors. Sissy Spacek’s character Mattie adds the warmth that a movie of spiritual redemption requires. She also terrifies me far less here than ever before. Bill Murray does Bill Murray, which is what we love him for. Lucas Black too plays the only role he’s good for as the good natured kid almost annoyingly trying to do the right thing.

Well this is a short one since, with the exception of these fine performances, I found the film mostly forgettable. Bill Murray could save any wayward attempt at a touching, lesson-filled, feel-good flick, so I award this movie 3 F**king Awesomes represented by Zombieland Bill Murray’s F**king Awesome face.

–Johnny Awesome

Delano Awful’s Review

I hated this film, for a simple reason: my fear of death.  And my fear of Robert Duvall.  And my fear of anytime I try to take Bill Murray seriously.  Granted, he wasn’t the most serious character, acting as a funeral home director.  PLUS this film made my sweetheart friend, Elyse, cry.  And I hate anything that makes her cry.

This “movie” was less about the plot than the way a story is told, the way people can be forgotten, and the way people can harbor guilt to the point of paralysis.  While the film focuses on the big upcoming funeral party at which a rich amount of land will be given away in a random drawing, there is something forgotten, and not just Felix Bush, but also another terrible secret which comes to light in an the act of ritual penitence.  Losing the plot is easy to do, and it is this structure that underscores the theme of the movie: my misdirecting our attention towards the plot or lack thereof, the audience has a tendency to look over the painful act of reconciliation, just as the town has forgotten about Felix and furthermore what Felix is hiding.

I hate rituals, they are stodgy and old-fashioned, so I couldn’t really latch on to much of the religious bullshit.  No wonder they had to make it old-timey.  When the secret is finally revealed, it was an okay noir-esque secret, perhaps absolving the tortured character, but it would have been better if Felix was actually Billy the Kid and/or Bob Dylan, and that’s what I thought they were going for.  But they didn’t.  I also thought a lot more people should have been shot by Bob Dylan, to add some flare, and to show the real truth about that bastard.  The film neglects to do any of this.  For this I am giving it 4 fucking sucks, but because of the clever reversal of the theme/plot importance as noted above, I am going to scale back my visceral hatred for this film to a 2 ½ fucking sucks.  Lucas Black “acts” alongside Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, so rating is represented by a 1981 Monte Carlo to remind everyone of the another movie that Lucas Black was in the really fucking sucked: Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift.

I’m Still Here Review

Everybody loves a villain. In Joaquin Phoenix’s new movie I’M STILL HERE he allows us to watch as he turns himself into one. Though the film never admits to it, this is an experimental look at the way we interpret celebrity, debauchery and madness. As Phoenix transforms into a self-important jerk we learn something about oursleves and the expectations we place on our public figures. We have in the end or scathing criticism of Hollywood and celebrity media.

The fact that it is all fabrication does nothing to hurt the movie-going experience. In fact, it adds to it. Phoenix has invested more dedication into this character than any in his history, and the bravery he exhibits is the best part of the story.

I liked also how there was no aversion to showing uncomfortable scenes. We get to see all sorts of self-destruction such as drug use, prostitutes, vomiting and public embarrassment (including five minutes of the David Letterman interview that brought the new Joaquin character into the limelight.) Witnessing Phoenix in these compromising situations brings us closer to the character. And that’s not the only method they employ to get us to love him. There’s also something a little bit transcendent about the new Joaqhin. His image is almost prophetic and in one scene he has a reverence to the spiritual ramblings of actor Edward James Olmos. There is something identifiable in Phoenix’s desire to be true to himself and his dreams of rap notoriety. By the end of the film it is almost excruciating to witness his life completely fall apart.

If you haven’t seen this yet I’m going to completely spoil the ending for you unless you stop reading here. The final sequence of the film is one of my favorites. After his disastrous encounter with David Letterman, Phoenix flees to Panama to visit his father. The final shot of the film is an incredibly long one, where Phoenix walks through a river and slowly sinks into it until he is completely submerged. This ending is a parallel to the images that started film, of him jumping into a pool near a waterfall. The clear biblical illusion to baptism is one of the most interesting concepts of the film. Phoenix is here killing his one year persona to be born again into his actual self.

All in all the movie is both compelling and entertaining. I award it 4 F**king Awesomes which will be represented by a picture of Joaquin’s beard because it’s bad ass.

I had one beer and about 12 oz. of a pretty strong screwdriver which were incredibly easy to sneak into the Broadway Theatre. There were like three other people in the theatre with Delano and I and it was so dark in there no one could have seen our drinks. In fact it was almost too dark since I myself could hardly see my own drink. I could certain hear Delano’s drinks though since he apparently has no skill for preventing them from clinking into each other and/or falling over. I award The Broadway 4 1/2 F**king Awesomes.

–Johnny Awesome

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I’m Still Here is an exceptionally bad movie, though the attempt to entertain is admirable.  The movie explores the narcissism of celebrity, or at least the character of an overconfident seemingly prima-donna who believes he can conquer any industry after conquering the film industry.  What he doesn’t understand, and what P-Diddy shows, is that it takes a lot more effort to suck at music and be famous than what Phoenix is able to put out.

Yet, there are those who will say, that in the process of exploring the hubris of the celebrity, Phoenix and Casey Aflek actually explore the obsession of the public with celebrity.  He pushes himself further into degradation, and the audience is expected to react.  The film attempts to heap sympathy onto Phoenix, and then asks the audience to compare this to the media coverage of Phoenix, and then explore the difference.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some times when I really felt as though I had to walk away from the film, feeling so sorry for the Phoenix character.  This comes at what could be construed as the climax of the film, which is a meeting with P-Diddy in a studio, a meeting Phoenix has anticipated since the beginning of the film, only to be told off by Diddy.  This moment is complex and crushing, as we watch all the hope drain from Phoenix, as he still attempts to cop an attitude.

Yet, this comparison between the empathy the audience is expected to feel with the character versus the media perception of him falls flat if the audience is unaware of anything Phoenix has done prior to the film, as well as the attention it has received afterwards.  Some, like myself, might be unaware of Phoenix’s prior success as Johnny Cash in Walk The Line.  I needed some reminding, since that character was simply Jonny Cash to me, which should be kudos to Phoenix for making the actor dissolve in the film, but I was also attempting to finger a girl on a couch in a shitty apartment while I was watching it, so I wasn’t really paying much attention anyway, so perhaps that isn’t a compliment.  Nevertheless, the sheer fact that this movie depends on the notoriety of the actor’s previous success simply bounces the attention from the audience back towards the narcissism of the celebrity.  In a word, this movie couldn’t stand on its own for maximum dramatic effect.

I might have relented on this film had not those responsible for creating this atrocity revealed that it was a hoax all along, as Phoenix did recently on David Letterman.  This is simply another “fuck you” at the audience, which, on second thought, is kind of redeeming given that I enjoy a little butt play, as well as the works of Robert Morris and Donald Judd, whose work is also a “fuck you” to the audience.  To align this film with minimalist sculpture would not be a stretch, but I will leave that to those more rehearsed in that field.

Revealing that it was a hoax all along simply shatters the reality of the documentary, and pushes it back into the realm of shear entertainment rather that informational.  Can we now call it a documentary given the information?  Can we simply ignore the information and appreciate it for what it is?  If we have to have an understanding of what is at stake for our pro/antagonist as far as his previous success is concerned, don’t we have to have take into consideration what is said of the film after the film?

Throughout the film, there is a grappling with the frustrations of the general public believing Phoenix is hoaxing it up.  While they play it off pretty well, confronting one of his assistants about allegedly selling information to the press, what if it had all worked out?  What if Phoenix had succeeded in throwing away a film career for music?  Let’s not forget that Diddy liked two track produced by Phoenix, even he was being polite, and even if Diddy might have been in on it.  I mean, Kevin Bacon is in a band, and while it isn’t a very good band, I’m sure Bacon loves being in the band regardless of its success.  Drake made his way from cut-rate acting to hip-hop stardom.  And there are less talented people out there that have had success, like ICP.  If Phoenix had had some minor success in hip-hop, would he have pursued it?  And then what might we think of the film?

There were a lot of funny parts in the film that probably could not have been replicated if it was scripted, such as Phoenix getting shit on, and there were some powerful moments, such as Phoenix baptizing himself in the river (and then arising, post-film, pure and shaven to reclaim his film success).  Nevertheless, this film sucked, like all movies do.  Obvious gaffs, such as the director, Casey Aflek jumping in and adding commentary, were blights on the documentary genre, particularly after the established fact that this is a commentary-less documentary.  Plus, the “Fuck you” to the audience is a bit of a turn off, but when you think about it, kind of a turn on.  Lots of shaky camera for authenticity.  And Goddamn if Phoenix talking about “smelling their bubbles” isn’t really believable.  In attempting to create a sympathetic character from a character that unsympathizable (such as the movie “The Wrestler”), we merely found out where Arther Craven has vanished: in Juaquin Phoenix.  This leads me to my final film score: 2 1/2 fucking sucks, but since I had so much fun writing this review, I’m going to give it 1 fucking suck, but since Joaquin Phoenix is tough to spell, and even when you spell it right it still pops up in spell checker, I’m going to finally give it 1 1/2 fucking sucks, which I will also represent in the form of Phoenix’s nappy beard, which sucked.

The theater was way too dark to find where my bottles were, as I blindly groped for the bottle-opener.  Furthermore, no one goes to this theater, making my colleague, Johnny Awesome, and I stand out as we try to down what is clearly a beer and a screwdriver.  The Broadway, though, isn’t really known for its accommodations and comfort that suburb superplexes are known for, because the focus is on film, not the stadium seating, or overpriced gourmet (though you can purchase a latte, which is awesome), or the all-in-one shopping located within. The Broadway lacks all of these, and that’s why this place sucks.  It cuts the crap and focuses on film.  I am giving it ½ fucking suck.

–Delano Awful

Easy A review by Johnny Awesome and Delano Awful

Johnny Awesome’s Review

I went into this movie completely expecting to hate it. Try as I might I found less wrong with it than I expected. Where I expected it to fall back on cheap laughs, it instead presented legitimately funny writing. This was especially true of the protagonist’s parents, who were completely artificial, but I couldn’t help but love their quirkiness. There was a certain charm to the chapter like format of the storyline. Each section was marked by a webcast chapter heading and title.

I also felt like there was plenty of sex positive feminism represented with the liberation from social expectations and gender roles. Though Olive received a lot of backlash for her actions, it was well established that the actions of the prissy Christians were hypocritical and wrong. Warms my heart to see a movie geared toward high school kids support forward thinking. Also it’s always fun to see either Thomas Haden Church or Malcolm McDowell, and this movie’s got both

All in all the movie could have been better, but it certainly could have been worse. I give it 2 1/2  F**king Awesomes which is represented with the image of Thomas Hayden Church’s handsome face:

I saw this @ the Megaplex 12 in the Gateway Mall. I drank approx. 50 ml of Jim Beam and two beers. The theatre was packed and we had to sit way in the back next to little girls and it made me feel wierd to drink. I do although consider it a plus that you can buy your assigned seating tickets from a machine and pick where to sit. The theatre gets a 3 1/2 F**king Awesomes from me.

–Johnny Awesome

Delano Awful’s Review

I went into this movie completely expecting to hate it, and I did.  Despite a couple of redeeming qualities, such as the Sylvia Plath references, and the loose interpretation of The Scarlet Letter (I always appreciate references to books in film), this movie was suck suck suck.

When Olive agrees to pretend to sleep with a gay student to boost his popularity and reputation, this movie could have been made a positive statement about GBLT relations in high school.  After this encounter, though, she agrees to pretend to sleep with a bunch of straight guys to boost their popularity, so it kind of copped out.  Furthermore, sleeping with the school tramp was never a popularity booster in my high school, but perhaps it’s different in whatever state they were in.

Also, it didn’t help that the gay kid ran away to live in promiscuity with a man rather than confronting his suppressors, once again bolstering the gay stereotype that we saw in Scott Pilgrim.

And of course Olive is thin and attractive, despite what her narration indicates.  Can’t have fat chicks pretending to be tramps.  No, that would not do.  Olive’s low self-esteem sort of reinforces the man-woman power structure.  This movie may have attempted to reject social norms, but what happened was exactly the opposite.  By flaunting her sexuality to gain respect/popularity/notoriety, she is affirming the subjugation of women to attain power through sexuality.  She gives the appearance of being sex-positive while actually being sex-negative, so I don’t’ know which is worse.

Her narration also bugged me, as well as a bunch of cheesy one-liners, and the use of the webcam to indicate chapter changes.  Overall, I give this movie 2 ½ fucking sucks.  For this film I was going to use obscene imagery to depict the rating system, but since my mother might read this, I decided on using something else.  The main actress in the film is Emma Stone, who is from Arizona.  Arizona sucks given recent extremist legislation, so I am using the flag of Arizona, which sucks because there are stars in it.

On opening night on a Friday, the theater was packed with a bunch of preteens and underage girls, making it difficult to consume alcohol while in the theater.  The girl next to was totally on to me, but considering she talked and texted on her cell phone several times throughout the movie, I don’t think she has any room to complain.  Parking is awful, unless you can find a place somewhere far from the theater.  Another megaplex, with a ton of stairs to walk up, and overpriced concessions.  3 fucking sucks.

–Delano Awful

Johnny Awesome’s review of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

I love the movie Scott Pilgrim because it draws you right in. The pace especially in the first twenty minutes is fast and exciting and is a good set up to the latter phases of the film. The movement of from scene to scene was interesting and streamline. I also like how pointedly comic bookesque the style of the film was. It was a pretty solid adaptation from its source material. Somehow at the same time they managed to successfully incorporate a lot of video game style without making it feel too frenzied or schizophrenic.

I’m not really a big violence guy, but the violence in Scott Pilgrim was satirical enough for me to enjoy. I liked how it mixed its humor in with its action to soften the blow of what would otherwise be uncool fight scenes. In fact, the humor in general had me laughing when I was supposed to be laughing, which I give them credit for. All in all I typically find myself detached from movies and are target toward my age group, but this was a movie that I felt like was made for me and people like me.

In the end, this movie was awesome.   Therefore, I am giving it 4 F**king AWeSOMES!!!

I drank 3 beers. Snuck the alcohol in with relative ease. Theatre was not packed so it was easy to drink without detection.

Cinemark 16 @ 3300 South State gets 2 1/2 F**king Awesomes.

Delano Awful’s review of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Delano’s Review of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Despite what Johnny Awesome has written about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, all of the positives about the film, there were quite of few things about the film that sucked.

The start, the beginning of the film feels a lot like a visual mashup. While I am not totally opposed to the entire collapse of space and time within a narrative, the movie seemed to use the technique to breeze through all of the pertinent details of Scott Pilgrim’s life so that it can get into the rest of the film, which is undoubtedly straight forward.  I would have preferred the director to stick with one technique or another, otherwise it feels completely half-assed to me.

I didn’t feel too invested in the relationship between Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers.  The only assumptions we get of Ramona is that she dates a lot of possessive dudes, otherwise there’s not much more to her character.  A lot seemed cut out, perhaps due to the choppy opening, but there seemed to be a male fantacization going on, where you take a girl for a walk and then she asks you to sleep with her.  Their relationship occurs instantaneously, which doesn’t make sense, because he chooses to fight all of her ex-boyfriends.  But, I suppose in this world it is acceptable for a male character to have a harem of women while it is unacceptable for any of the female characters to date more than one man at a time (except for Ramona, who apparently dated two twin musicians at one time, but that was so in the past).

The characterization of homosexuality in the film is also disturbing.  Wallace Wells, Scott’s supportive friend, fits into the accepted homosexual stereotype of promiscuity as he is with a new partner every time we see him on screen, or seducing straight men at a bar.  This is apparently okay, though, because Scott is okay with it.  Wallace, though, is set apart.  There is a mentality that exists that all homosexuals are promiscuous, a common belief amongst many conservatives and liberals.  This film plays off the stereotype that gays are promiscuous and it is funny, reducing Wallace to nothing more than a dirty clown-type figure.

There are other things in the film that I could point out, such as the odd desire for the underage Asian character that is really good at Japanese video games who is stuck in her desire for Scott, that reduce the film to nothing but suckiness.  In a word, though, this film sucked.  Therefore, I am rating this film with one fucking suck, and I’m not starring out the word like my colleague, Johnny Awesome, because I mean it:

Given that there isn’t really a rating system for how much a movie sucks, and therefore no image to represent how much a movie sucks, I have to be inventive and come up with my own.  Since this movie takes place in Canada, I have chosen to use the Montreal Expos’ logo, considering the team is the worst in major league baseball.  I should note that I am not affiliated with the team in any way, so don’t sue me please.

The theater that we watched the movie in was a standard megaplex on 3300 south, where they overcharge for popcorn and candy, but on a Sunday it was pretty easy to drink a few beers and some shots from Johnny’s flask.  Parking is also ample.  Don’t expect to have unique experience here.  I give it three fucking sucks.

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