DVDS
Rush Hour 3 (1 Spud)
Played (1 Spud)
Shoot’em Up (2Spuds)
The Host (1 Spud)
The Quiet Earth (2 Spuds)
SPUDITORIAL
MICHELLE WIE –Good Golfer or Bad Joke?
KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks
The Wife has taken off with my sister for eastern parts known. This has its obvious disadvantages, in that I kinda like having the Wife around and it goes without saying that I miss her dearly.
There are however, a number of things that I can do when she is not here. For example, I can forget to flush the toilet without serious repercussions. I can leave the dishwashing liquid on the counter, even when it’s not being used. I can run the dishwasher when it’s not 100% jam-packed. Complete control of the big TV in the basement. I can leave a used glass or plate in the sink overnight. The Spudmobile 24-7. None of that pesky bed making. I get to move my office into the basement, where it’s cooler and darker, as I am not a big fan of summer any more. I get to answer the home phone line and drive the telemarketers crazy. It all sounds like a lot of fun but at the end of the day, be glad to get her back.
OK, so this week, I also get to choose the movies at ye olde Video Shoppe without any regard for what the Wife will think of them. Of course I can’t choose films that she might like to see at some point, so that limits the selection to sci-fi, ultra violent bad guys flicks and maybe the odd ‘so stupid that it was actually enjoyable’ flick too…which, not coincidentally, is what I ended up with.
PLAYED (1 SPUD)
This is a Brit Gangster flick with obvious pretensions of being up there with Mona Lisa or Layer Cake. But pretensions are about all it can muster. That and a few good character turns. There are good people in this movie like Gabriel Byre, Val Kilmer and Anthony LaPaglia and they all do a pretty admirable job of being bad-ass. But the real problem here is that nobody bothered to write in a character that anybody would give a shit about. You could tell, pretty much from the beginning, that just about everybody was going to end up dead, and just about everybody does. Having said all that, all I can tell you is that somebody screws up a heist, somebody gets killed and that starts a whole long and arduous chain of retribution, double-crossing and sadistic crap that kind of just spins around and around until it gets dizzy and falls down dead. File it under ‘crap happens, and some of it has Val Kilmer and Gabriel Byrne in it’.
RUSH HOUR 3 ( 1 SPUD)
I’ve seen all three Rush Hour movies, and believe me when I tell you that it exemplifies the law of diminishing sequel return to a T. The first Rush Hour was kinda dumb, but funny. The second was more than kind of dumb and not so funny. This one is superdumb and not even remotely fun, because everything that could be funny gets trumped by the superdumb.
In this movie Jackie Chan plays the bodyguard of the Chinese Ambassador and Chris Tucker plays an LA detective who has been demoted to traffic cop for screwups committed in the last Rush Hour movie. When the Ambassador gets shot by a Triad Assassin, Chris shows up to help Jackie and somehow manages to get permission to do this from his captain, and heads out with Jackie to Paris following the clues. The boys then proceed to trash that city and pretty much order anything they want from room service.
This movie is so full of dumb stuff that you don’t feel so much like an asshole for watching it, but more like someone who happens upon a train wreck in progress. There’s nothing you can do about it, so you just stand there like an idiot while all this really stupid movie stuff happens all around you. After a while you give a fleeting thought to all the brain dead idiots who went to see it at a movie theatre, and then you project that sadness out to the rest of the world somehow, thinking, if this kind of movie can get routinely made in Hollywood, for big bucks, what a sad sorry ass planet we are living on.
SHOOT ‘EM UP (2 SPUDS)
This movie is a hoot. In it Clive Owen plays a guy sitting on a bench who sees a pregnant woman being chased by a bunch of black leather-jacketed gangsters. He goes to the women’s rescue, shooting everyone in sight, cause he’s like ultra capable in the shooting department. The woman then gives birth and then gets killed by another wave of gangsters. Clive takes the baby, kills off that wave of gangsters and brings the baby to a hooker he knows who happens to be lactating and can feed the baby. But the gangsters keep coming and Clive keeps killing them.
This movie was not intended to make any powerful social or political statement. It was just intended to be a movie with a lot of great shooting and exquisitely choreographed movie violence. And on that level it succeeds in spades. It was clever, smart, action-packed dark and everybody in it, especially Clive and his nemesis, played by Paul Giamatti, appear to be having a really good time being bad.
I loved this flick in spite of the fact that a lot of people might think it’s glorifying violence. The violence is so comic book in nature that it’s really hard to be anything but amused by it. By the way, there is a plot here, and it’s pretty much as outrageous as the rest of the movie. But it all works and I can see why A-Listers like Clive Owen and Giametti were attracted to it.
THE HOST (ONE SPUD)
This badly dubbed Korean flick falls under the category of ‘so stupid, it was interesting’. It’s a monster movie about some slimy lizard like creature that mutated into being in some river in Korea and started menacing all the dopey citizen who hang out by this severely polluted body of water. This movie is pretty straightforward in its plotting and the action sequences are terrific. But the characters are way beyond stupid and the dubbing is actually quite insulting to your intelligence. In fact if I hadn’t been so comfortable and tired, I probably would have turned it off after the mutant monster’s first rampage.
But noooo. I’m a glutton for punishment and without the Wife there to tell me just what an idiot I was being for watching this movie all the way through, I deserve all the intellectual punishment this movie so generously handed out. On the cover box there was a quote from this movie by Roger Ebert, who I generally agree with, that this film was better than Jaws. Sorry Rog, you must have gotten your reviews crossed up, because this movie isn’t better than much of anything.
THE QUIET EARTH (2 SPUDS)
Sooner or later, every country will have a go at the “Last Man On Earth” high concept. In 1985 the Kiwis of New Zealand had their shot. It’s called the Quiet Earth, and it’s a pretty decent little sci fi thriller. Movies like this are kinda neat because everywhere the character goes, you find yourself waiting to have the crap scared out of you in some way or other. This movie is well put together enough to have a lot of scenes like this. The reasons for being the last man on earth are never fully explained or figured out by the character, although
he does figure that it has something to do with a scientific project he was a part of, and not coincidentally, opposed to.
I also admire these movies because they are so difficult to make, because, well you can’t have anything moving in them other than the characters. This is a logistical nightmare for the producers and camera people.
It’s also kinda neat to see all the really primitive computer equipment that the main character has to work with. But, of course, back in 85, that stuff would have been state-of-the-art. Today it looks like pong.
The core message of all these movies is pretty much the same. Be careful what you mess around with as it just may be the thing that bites you in the ass. The Quiet Earth is good vintage sci-fi.
THE SPORT SPUD SPEAKETH
MICHELLE WIE – GOOD GOLFER OR BAD JOKE
A few weeks ago, Michelle Wie was disqualified from a tournament for failing to sign her scorecard. This week, she entered another men’s tournament, and for about the fifth time trying this bold move, failed to qualify. Michelle Wie has never won a significant tournament in her alleged career. Yet next to Annika Sorenstam, who is a genuine woman’s golf legend, Wie is the most recognized female golfer in the world. And that would be great if she actually did something for the sport. But alas, she does nothing except lose and steal attention from better players. Even if somebody like Adam Sandler tried really hard, he could not invent a character as odd as Michelle Wie. She is to sports what Paris Hilton is to fashion. She does nothing outstanding or deserving of the status she holds in the sports world, yet there she is, vamping up all the camera time on the first two days of play.
What’s wrong with this picture? There are plenty of great golfers out there on the ladies’ tour. Why does it always have to be about Michelle Wie? There’s nothing more uninteresting in sports than watching a loser get all the attention. But every now and then it happens, and the blame for this sits directly on the shoulders of the media. They somehow glommed on to her when she was a young freak of nature, and they just don’t have the stones to admit that she’s really not a newsmaker any more. So they keep on covering her as if she was and it makes me want to spew.
Lets face it women’s golf, which for those who don’t know, is every bit as exciting as men’s golf, except for the fact that you can’t win million buck plus prizes. But if having Michelle Wie as their hood ornament is believed to be a smart PR move for the LPGA, I’m sorry, ladies, you need to have someone who can actually win a tournament every now and then, and not some California Valley girl who forgets to sign her score card.
Well that’s about it for this issue. I’m heading down to Spud Central to follow the Olympics for the next two weeks, so my next column will be mainly about that. I watched the opening ceremonies last night and the one word that kept bubbling to the surface of my mind was
‘scary’.
