Zack and Miri Make A Porno

In the immortal words of that elderly couple who sat behind Kevin in Reno 911: Miami (7 Beards): "What is this a pooooorrrrrnnnnooooo?!" No, but seriously, this movie isn't ACTUALLY a porno. Although, my mom think it is if she ever actually watched it, but I'll go to great lengths to make sure that never happens. In a lot of ways Zack and Miri Make A Porno may look like a porno, it's really about the making of a porno. When this is over can I get someone to count how many times I say 'porno' in this review?

The movie starts two of the new faces of comedy Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. They play lifelong friends who are living together platonically in the same town they grew up, working shit jobs, and struggling to pay bills that were due months ago. The plot's fairly simple, but it works because the humor of this movie is driven by basically one thing: that two best friends are trying to make a porno together because all their utilities are cut off and they're about to get evicted.  

What suprised me about this was how at the end of this movie, they stripped away the comedy and suddenly there was this resolution to a story that I had been unwittingly following. Basically, once I stopped laughing and settled down for two seconds, I realized that this movie actually had something going on. That something turned out to be pretty good. And, they also threw in just enough twists to take a rather tired story and make it interesting and endearing.

Who's gonna like this movie? Well let me ask you a few questions:

Do you like Seth Rogen?

Do you like Kevin Smith movies?

Do you like porno titles that are sexy reimaginings of actual movie titles?

Do you like porno?

If you answered yes to any of those, then you're going to like this movie. If you answered yes to more then one, you're really going to like this movie. And, if you didn't answer yes to any of those questions then, well, you should probably go watch Brokeback Mountain again.

Zack and Miri Make A Porno gets 6 Beards.

The Wackness

I won't lie in this next sentence. I loved Josh and Drake, even after Josh got skinny. I mean, it was still a great show just Josh's self depreciating humor didn't quite make so much sense (or did it because possibly he was still wrestling with his inaccurate self-percieved body image due to his rapid weight loss?). Seriously, it was still funny. What's not funny is that Carly got her own fucking stupid show and it's fucking stupid. That's not what this is about though, this is about The Wackness and how the reason I chose to watch it is because it stars the infamous Josh Peck. A measure of how stoked I was about this movie? Instead of leaving it festering at the bottom of my Netflix Queue I bumped it up to just below the last 4 discs of Battlestar.

First off, this movie is set in the summer of 1994 and it is the most 90s-tastic movie that wasn't made in the 90's that I have ever seen. I almost got nostalgic. Part of this setting was the soundtrack, which was awesome because it mainly featured some of the best rap to come out of the late 80's and early 90's. They throw a few other tracks in there as well, but overall it was probably one of the most aptly put together soundtracks I've heard in a while. This is mainly due to the fact that music made sense in time with the movie.

Anyways, the film follows Josh Peck as 18 yr old Luke Shapiro who has just graduated high school and is trying to earn as much money as he can in his summer before college by selling more weed. What was interesting is that the drug aspect of this film ends up taking a back seat and really only seems to serve as a vessel to string all the elements of the plot together, and to tug them along through the stream so they don't get caught in some twigs and stagnate. Beyond this the film revolves around Luke's relationship with his (kind of) shrink Dr. Spires and their relationship with eachother as well as the women in their lives.

The Wackness takes on a lot of big thoughts in this film and succeeds completely. I was totally satisfied at the end. Part of me wishes I had watched this when I was 17 or 18, but the other part of me knows that I would have rejected most of it outright because it has a backdrop of drug culture. The rest of the movie really overshadows this though (like I said before) and it's the challenges Luke and Spires face that are what really make this movie appealing. Besides all this though, the movie was excellently shot with quite a few Charlie Kaufman-esque cuts and dreams sequences that are excellently interwoven to keep from the veiwer from feeling complacent.

This is a movie I would recommend that most people under the age of 35 watch, but I make no promises that it will be fully enjoyed.

The Wackness gets 7 Beards And A Moustache.

Josh and Drake gets 6 Beards pending a full review.

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

I think this movie sat on my Netflix queue for at least 3 or 4 months before I finally got it. After receiving it I'm pretty sure it sat around my house for at least a week or two. Eventually, I broke down from the boredom of cleaning my room and decided to watch all 2 hours and 40 minutes of it. I think the reason it sat around for so long is because I was apprehensive about watching it. While I had heard some good things about it, the majority of the what was on the grapevine was negative a la, "terrible"; "worst movie I have ever seen"; "bored me to tears"; "my grandmother killed herself while watching it."

 

The first highly notable thing about this film is that it seems like every damn person in it is a super famous and/or super awesome actor. Doesn't matter how small the roll, it's probably someone famous. On top of this, the acting in this film is fantabulous. Brad Pitt, Sam Rockwell, and Casey Affleck especially play their roles delightfully. The roles played by actresses such as Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel are brief, suprising, and effective as well. In retrospect, my opinion on Brad Pitt in this movie may be a bit swayed. He plays a crazy person, and we all know how much I love when Brad Pitt plays crazy people (see: Fight Club and 12 Monkeys).

The movie is paced in a horrifically ungainly manner, and there are long stretches of silence punctuated by dialogue that often made me squirm in my seat. Parts of this movie will make you think you're getting bored, but you're probably not. It's hard to describe this movie because it's something that has to be taken as a whole. I wouldn't even go so far as to say I had a favorite part. It also has a narrator who comes in intermittently to fill you in on what has happened in the inexplicable time jumps that have just occured.

Despite all that, I really enjoyed The Assassination of Jesse James. As I said above, it's something that has to be taken in as a whole. If you only catch parts of it, or turn it off halfway through, or come in halfway through, you're probably not going to like it. I also recommend watching it by yourself so that there isn't anyone else around to distract you or interrupt it.

The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford gets 6 Beards.

Good Pyschology movie?

Okay kids, because I only have about 25 tv stations, I've been watching a lot of ABC Family. Because of this I have subjected myself to their "Countdown to the 25 days of Christmas" (and for those of you wondering there are 7 days until the 25 days of Christmas countdown.)
I bring this up to you because I recently watched a movie called Holiday in Handcuffs.

The movie is about a woman named "Trudie" played by Melissa Joan Hart who plans to visit her family with her then boyfriend Nick. Nick breaks up with her the day they are supposed to leave and then like all girls are apt to do Trudie goes crazy. Since she is working as waitress she chooses the best looking guy there (Mario A.C. Slater Lopez) and kidnaps him to bring home and meet her parents at Christmas.

Normally a movie like this would not be worth the celluloid it was filmed on, very basic. But the place that this movie shines is the fact that it depicts two psychological conditions and very well I might add. The first condition is Stockholm Syndrome where a kidnapping victim grows to like and care for their kidnapper.
The second is Lima syndrome which is the opposite, the kidnapper starts to develop feelings for their victim.
Okay without to much more text because I started this thing after a night of drinking...huh? yes I was up drinking and watching ABC Family what's it to you?

Holiday in Handcuffs gets 4 Clarissa explained beards
(side note I woke up and proofread this slightly then posted it, hooray drunk past randy for being lazy!)

Quantum Of Solace

Somehow we all managed to drag our sorry asses out of bed around 1030 yesterday and managed to make it to the theater (that is a 2 minute drive) by 1130. Barely. We showed up and plunked down our $4.75 and got to see the newest James Bond installment: Quantum Of Solace. Let me preface all of this by stating that I think the new Bond films are the best because they are finally taking the series in a new direction.

Now to start off, let's talk about Daniel Craig. Mr. Craig has been in some of my favorite movies over the last 6 or 7 years (Munich, Layer Cake, Road to Perdition, Golden Compass) and with the addition of his role in the new Bond movies and the preview for his upcoming film Defiance my enjoyment of him has only grown. While I fully recognize that Connery was an awesome Bond, he was definitely the best of the old school Bonds while Craig is the flag bearer of the new vanguard. In my humble opinion Craig's Bond is better than Connery's Bond. He just plays him with a little bit more edge that I never realized was missing until Craig brought it to the table. He basically makes all the other Bonds look like softies.

Ok, now that I've blown enough smoke up Daniel Craig's ass, lets talk about the rest of the movie. Quatum of Solace comes right out and kicks you in the left nut, and then walks away for a minute during the intro sequence/credits and then comes back and kicks you in the right nut. Feel free to substitute nuts for vagina lips, ladies. Anyways, this is to prepare for a movie full of "Oh my god"s "Wow"s and "Holy shit"s. These phrase can also be upgraded by adding "that's awesome!" to the end of them. The film is rock solid. Excellent filming really helps set and keep the mood of each scene as well as the overall story. The writing and dialogue is also interesting but efficient, I don't really feel like anything unneccesary was said. In addition, I totally got a big geek boner over the technology displayed in this film as well. A lot of it was subtle but the stuff used in the MI6 headquarters was fracking amazing.

The thing I liked most about this movie can be boiled down to one idea: continuity. This movie literally picks up no more than 15-30 mins after where Casino Royale ended. The continuity they are building here is impressive, and it definitely lends itself to a more immersive and therefore enjoyable experience. All the previous Bond movies had a serious single serving aspect to them and in retrospect I feel like that hurt them a little bit. One other thing of importance to me is the turn towards realism that these two films have taken. As much as I loved Q, the nonsense gadgets and Aston Martins with more weaponry than an armored cavalry division are not missed.

Quantum of Solace gets 9 Beards for being fucking awesome.