Random Movie Roundup (And Rollout!)

Sorry about not posting anything new lately.  Since I wanna keep this brief, I'll just say that I had a close family member being admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery.  Then in the days that followed, I kinda melted down from all the stress that's been building up in my head lately.  To make things worse, the only day I was in any sort of mood and had any time to write, my computer got a virus and I spent almost all day trying to get rid of it.  Yeah, this past week was horrible.  It's kinda weird how quickly things can change from good to bad.  Or from bad to worse.  But seriously, I did have a great time spending my birthday weekend with friends then suddenly, I was quickly reminded of the living embodiment of Murphy's Law that is my life. 

Anyways, enough of that.  In other news, thanks to all one of you reading this...OK, let me sidebar for a second.  I joke about how little my readership is quite often, but seriously, I know more than 1 freaking person reads this so you'd think I'd have more votes whenever I put up a poll.  Anyways, thanks to the 1 person that voted, I will be reviewing Ghost Rider next.  However, it won't be a standard movie review...I don't think.  I realize that I'm still trying to figure out which format I should go with reviewing movies but I'm going to try something new yet again with this.  As you can probably infer from the range of choices in the poll, I'm toying with making reviews of Nic Cage movies a recurring feature here on Sarcasmatron, seeing that he's pretty much the unofficial mascot of the blog at this point.  So it looks like Ghost Rider will be the first.  Eh, could be worse.  I was seriously hoping you guys wouldn't pick The Wicker Man.

So, in an effort to get some sort of new content up here, I'm just gonna talk about the random stack of movies I've been watching the past few weeks, complete with arbitrary grades.  How fun!

The Kid Stays In The Picture - This documentary focused on Robert Evans, a man who was discovered at a swimming pool while skipping a day of work and became a can't-miss prospect as a movie star, only to fail at it yet bounce back by becoming a producer at Paramount, a studio that was ranked #9 in the list of Top 8 movie studios in the '60s, only to bring it up to #1 by taking chances and producing some of the biggest movies of the '60s and '70s like Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather and Love Story.  Whew, holy run-on sentence, Batman!  Anyway, all of that came crashing down when his wife left him for Steve McQueen, the biggest actor at the time, followed up by being caught in a drug bust and getting stuck in the middle of a murder trial.  But now, Robert Evans is rising like a phoenix (I say that mostly because he's slightly less tan than a burn victim at this point), returning to producing movies and collecting lifetime achievement awards.  All in all, I think its a fitting tribute to a man willing to make unpopular choices that ended up paying off huge and a great look at a time in movie-making that I wasn't around for.  Anyone even remotely interested in movies should see this.  Also, it inspired me to want to speak in Evans-ese, which is basically whenever you talk about doing something or a feeling you had, but you say it in the form of a question which you promptly answer as pompously as possible.  For example: "Did I have breakfast this morning?  You bet your ass I did.  Was it delicious?  Wouldn't you like to know."  B+

Not Quite Hollywood - Yet another movie documentary, this time about the rash of exploitation movies in Australia in the '70s, affectionately dubbed "Oz-ploitation".  Not Quite Hollywood is split up into three parts: the softcore porn comedies, the horror and genre films and finally, action films.  Honestly, though it was chock full o' naked boobs (and dongs, as a warning to those guys out there who are sickened by the sight of a penis that isn't their own), I wasn't really feeling the first part.  Sure, these are the movies that broke down the standards and ratings of the super-uptight Australian censorship laws (which are apparently back in full force if you look at any of the video games that have made it there), but these movies look baaaaaaaad.  I mean, really bad.  They may have well just done porn as they tend to have better plots and acting than what these movies look like.  But the second and third parts really get rolling thanks to one man: Quentin Tarantino.  I kinda knew this all along but after watching this, I decided I want Tarantino as a friend.  Not to get me into the movie-making business or anything (though that would be awesome), but I just wanna hang out with him and ask him what movies he's seen lately, only to leave after a 5-hour discussion with a gigantic list of movies I need to check out that'll last me the next couple months.  He does his interviews for this doc as purely a fan, not a moviemaker, and the love he has for movies like these alone makes you want to check them out.  Not Quite Hollywood is definitely recommended if your taste in movies runs a bit skewed, much like mine.  A-

Lord of War - I'm going to keep pretty mum on this one just in case I end up having to review it in my Best of Nicolas Cage series but I will say this: Even if you're not a fan of Nic Cage, watch Lord of War.  I really liked it, regardless of if Nic Cage were in it or not.  If you didn't know, Cage plays an arms dealer that comes up through the ranks over the last 20 years and ends up at the top, arming both sides of just about every major war, only to lose it all at the end...well, at least everything that matters.  To me, Lord of War played a lot like Scarface, only on a much grander scale.  Replace the cocaine with major stockpiles of weapons and Al Pacino with Nic Cage and they're basically the same story arc.  Maybe that's why I liked it so much.  There are a few flaws with it, namely the fact that it takes place over the span of 20 years yet Cage perpetually looks in his 40's and his brother (played by Jared Leto) looks perpetually in his 20's, but I can overlook stuff like that.  And for you crazy Nic Cage fans, there is a cocaine-fueled freakout in the movie, leading me to believe that despite only being about 5 minutes, it was the inspiration for doing Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.  Anyway, go see it.  You can get it for $5 at Wal-Mart now so there's no real excuse not to check it out.  A-

Kiltro - After hearing about star Marko Zaror and how he's supposed to be the "Spanish Tony Jaa" or something like that, I couldn't help but finish this movie with a great sense of disappointment.  As much as I love martial arts movies, Kiltro was not engaging at all, to the point where I actually zoned out near the middle and had it on as background noise while I surfed the internet.  The story is pretty weak and confusing, Marko doesn't do much as a lead actor and the action could have been a lot better than it was.  As for the story, Marko plays a kid from the streets named Zami who's had a crush on a girl that he saved from an attack two years prior and has decided to protect her via beating up anyone she talks to, despite the fact that she hardly even knows he exists.  This actually would've been quite good if Zami didn't act like such a lovesick loser.  And believe me, I'm one of the loneliest lost-puppy-dog-lookin' guys you'll ever meet but when you have a guy who says such lines as "Love?  Obsession?  What's the difference?", then that's straight-up stalker behavior.  But then the two get mixed up with a bad guy who has a vendetta Zami, who's descended from a long line of legendary fighters, and the girl's father, who is also a great fighter himself.  Again, this would've been good but the way they use flashbacks to explain the backstory behind it all is very confusing.  Half of the time, I didn't realize they were flashbacks until they were over, and I was never really sure who was supposed to be who.  At one point, I thought the flashbacks were alluding to Zami and the girl he's in love with possibly being brother and sister (which would've been hilarious).  But there are a few funny points that kinda make light of the whole romance plot, like when Zami tries to go in for the epic romantic kiss, only for the girl to punch him in the nose. 

When concerning martial arts movies, I can easily forgive a weak plot as long as the action is up to snuff.  Unfortunately, I can't really say that either for Kiltro.  I don't want to undermine Marko Zaror's talents but watching this movie gave me the feeling that he started out as a gymnast and somehow parlayed that into martial arts.  Normally, that would be a good thing.  But in the case of Kiltro's fight scenes, it just looks like he's doing a bunch of flips near people that only have the illusion of connecting due to some weak CGI effects instead of using actual martial arts.  And speaking of weak CGI effects, the bloodshed in this thread is almost always CGI'd, much like Ninja Assassin only WAY more cartoony.  This combination really makes all of the fight scenes seem super fake.  In an odd note, one of the bonus features is a rehearsal of a major fight scene near the end where Marko takes on 20-30 guys by himself (which would've been way more epic if they didn't just charge him two-by-two) and the rehearsal looks way more realistic.  Sure, none of the blows connected or anything but I could actually see these things happening and it didn't have any cartoon blood or glossy after-effects.  All in all, I think there could be promise in Marko Zaror's career if he just had the right project.  Kiltro wasn't it.  D+

The House of the Devil - I was definitely looking forward to seeing this movie, not only because it's been getting such great reviews but because I really haven't seen a good horror movie in a while.  And though I thought it was good, I can't help but feel that it was a little bit overhyped.  I do love how director Ti West was able to recreate the '80s feel throughout the movie, down to the clothes and credit sequence.  And I also love how he was able to create tension throughout the movie.  However, what I didn't like was the payoff to all that build-up.  Between the title of the movie and the intro talking about belief in Satanic cults, you already know what you're getting yourself into.  So while the entire movie builds up to that, all that's left is about 10 minutes of the protagonist waking up in the middle of a ritual and making her getaway (and fairly easily, might I add).  I don't know, maybe I was just expecting more.  There's a fair amount of gore in the ending but after all that buildup, I can't help but feel let down.  I don't really want that to get in the way of the experience of watching it as a whole as it did have me on edge more than most recent horror movies have done.  I just feel that more could have been done.  B+

Ninja The Final Duel - For those that may not come here regularly or don't necessarily pay attention to anything I have to say (trust me, I get enough of it in real life), I mentioned buying a cheap 4-movie ninja-themed DVD from Best Buy just for this movie.  Previously, I had bought Shaolin Dolemite which had apparently used scenes from this movie to create one gigantic mess of blaxploitation, kung-fu and topless female ninjas.  So imagine my surprise when I finally saw the "original" and found out it wasn't nearly as messed up as I'd hoped it would be.  Sure, there's a scene where a female fends off her ninja attackers while naked for a few minutes, only to somehow turn a small piece of cloth into a two-piece swimsuit so that she may continue fighting clothed.  And sure, there are also fighting Hare Krishnas.  Let me repeat, FIGHTING HARE KRISHNAS!  But other than that, it's really quite tame.  Well, except for some of the fight scenes, which defy some semblance of logic.  If you're the kind of person that couldn't suspend your disbelief when Chow Yun-Fat runs across tree limbs in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you'll be scratching your head quite a bit here.  Even the "legendary black monk from Harlem" (yes, he's actually called that at one point in the movie) with the horribly racist voice dub only gets about two scenes, whereas he's the focus in Shaolin Dolemite.  So I did a bit of research and apparently there's some sort of uncut version of Ninja The Final Duel floating around out there that is 11 HOURS LONG!  I guess the story was the director was a bit crazy and pretty much used as much time and money as he was given so he just shot everything he could.  Shaolin Dolemite pretty much used whatever whacked out footage they could find that wasn't originally used in Ninja The Final Duel (and some people even consider it to be a sequel of sorts), leaving a good 8 or 9 hours of footage left that remains unused.  But I think there might be some videos on YouTube and even some rare VHS copies if you REALLY want to shell out the cash.  But anyway, yeah, fun kung-fu flick.  Also, giant ninja water spiders FTW.  B