Archive for the ‘Dodginess’ Category

In what was clearly a revenge attack for calling Boondock Saints Gun Porn, @networkaegis a.k.a. that bastard, decided to inflict Shoot ‘Em Up on me. Fortunately, this means you will read the review and he will be unable to inflict it on anyone else.

Shoot ‘Em Up is Gun Porn. Well, strictly speaking, that’s not entirely true.  Shoot ‘Em Up is Carrot Porn with some gun fights thrown in to try and make the Death-by-carrot scenes less ridiculous.  I fail to understand why writer/directors come up with a couple of cool ideas, in this case, Death-by-carrot, and then write a whole movie centered around it, complete with bad Bugs Bunny references.   It didn’t work for Wanted, and it sure as hell didn’t work for Shoot ‘Em Up.

Now, I kind of went off about the lack of plot in Boondock Saints.  Perhaps I was too hasty.  Shoot ‘Em Up makes Boondock Saints look positively Shakespearean in it’s scope.  This plot could be done in a tweet and there would still be room for pi.  Man rescues baby, shit happens, he kills everyone, with a carrot. (75 characters) Not only is there room for pi, it’s not even the rounded off short version you learnt at school (3.1416)  No, we’re talking full on memory testing pi.

Shoot ‘Em Up managed to get 5 Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, for 3 reasons, the skydiving gunfight, something I have not seen before, and it really should have been made longer, but by that stage I just wanted the pain to stop, so the brevity was appreciated,  and Death-by-carrot, twice.  Although, Death-by-carrot really should not have happened in the first scene.  I was kind of hoping after that that a whole array of vegetables would be used, perhaps death-by-potato or death-by-aubergine, but no, we got stuck with carrot.  And the eye stabbing death should have come before the skull piercing one, but that could just be my preference for dodginess in a movie increasing as the film rolls.  (In case you didn’t guess, Death-by-carrot got the dodgiest moment award)

It also managed a rare and dubious honour of getting 1 Mutant Smiley for rewatchability.  This film really is the proof that despite what many people think, there is a substantial difference between good dodgy and bad dodgy. It’s like the difference between a scooter and a Ducatti.  They both are technically motorbikes, but you wouldn’t be caught dead on a scooter.

One liners abound in Shoot ‘Em Up, and I have a theory about this.  I think the writer/director had a bet going with some drinking buddies to see who could get the most lines with sexual overtones into a script.  I really hope I don’t ever find the movies his drinking buddies wrote.  Still the best line in the movie does not have any innuendo in it, sexual or otherwise, but it won’t make the NRA happy either.  yes, I’m referring to “Guns don’t kill people! But they sure help.”

Shoot ‘Em Up was not a good film.  It was not an interesting 80 minute diversion.  It may have made for an interesting 5 minute diversion had I been aware enough to fastforward through everything except the Death-by-carrot scenes, but how would I be able to post any sort of waring if I did that.  Avoid this movie.  Don’t even consider watching it to find out what bad dodgy is.  In fact, the only reason I can think of to watch Shoot ‘Em Up is as part of a film class on learning how not to write an action film.  You hav been warned.

The Boondock Saints is pure unadulterated Gun Porn.  It has minimal plot, marginal character development, but lots and lots of guns, most of the time in slow motion. As gun porn, you would expect a number of things, bodies flopping around like breasts on Baywatch, spent cartridges ejaculating everywhere and The Money Shot.  In Boondock Saints this is fairly easy to spot.  Il Duce, sporting enough guns to supply the cast of the Matrix, up against the McManus twins and Rocco.  Chaos, gunfire and the removal of appendages follows in some glorious tribute to western faceoffs.

While plot is normally a hinderance in a dodgy movie, some plot is required.  There seems to be plot at the beginning, then a large stretch of plotless wasteland while they get the gunfights out the way, and then some plot at the end to try and fool you into thinking it was there all along.  This is successful the first time you watch, but the second time, you start asking questions.  How did they know the Russian Mobsters would be in the hotel room?  How did Il Duce find them? And why were there not more gunfights?

Based on the sheer volume of gunfire, Boondock Saints would qualify for 3 Stay Puft Marshmallow Men.  Add in Willem Dafoe as a gay-hating homosexual detective, and you bump it up to five.  Convince Willem Dafoe to dress in drag and it gets full marks, 5 Stay Puft Marshmallow Men of dodginess.  Of course, just because they managed to convince Dafoe to dress in drag doesn’t mean he should.  I suspect the wardrobe brief was to make sure he was the ugliest transvestite in cinema history, and they succeeded admirably.

My big criticism of this film is the slow motion.  I don’t think I always had a problem with it, but since 300 my tolerance for the use of slow motion has declined dramatically.  In fact, I didn’t realise just how much my tolerance had declined. Fortunately the use of slow motion was minimal when compared to the atrocities inflicted on film by Zack Snyder and so, I can give Boondock Saints a respectable 4 mutant smileys out of 5.

While I suspect that the Willem Dafoe line, “Television. Television is the explanation for this – you see this in bad television. Little assault guys creeping through the vents, coming in through the ceiling – that James Bond shit never happens in real life! Professionals don’t do that!” is probably my favourite in the movie, it isn’t really snappy enough to warrant the most memorable quotation award.  The snappy line “We could kill Everyone” is the one that surfaces when I think back to the film.  Not only is it short and sweet, but it’s an accurate summary of the plot.

Fortunately, gun porn is something you can admit to liking in public and the worst you’ll get is people rolling their eyes at you.  And occasionally, you can find someone with which to discuss which is the best gun porn, The Matrix, Equilibrium or Boondock Saints.  Of course, if you’re reading this, you already have an opinion and you;ve found a safe place to air it, so let us know in the comments.

300 is a bit of a strange movie. I only realised during the final scene that it was a saga in the style of the Odyssey or any of those other historical Greek poems with visuals being used to avoid the long descriptions, which they felt were necessary to put in using a Narrator anyway. Maybe, if I had realised this earlier, I would have enjoyed it more, but I doubt it.

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a film quite like 300. It had some gratuitous sex, lots of gratuitous violence and still almost managed to put me to sleep. How could a film based solely on a band of 300 men defying an army of thousands put you to sleep I hear you ask, and to tell the truth, I’m still puzzled at that one myself.

Maybe it was the number of slow motion impaling-death sequences they showed, like they were worried about running out of film during shooting so they used slow motion sequences to stretch 30 minutes of footage into a 90 minute film. Maybe, it was the half-hearted (and I’m probably being a little generous here) attempt at using any semblance of a plot so that the film didn’t consist solely of gratuitous violence, although that might have improved it. Or maybe it was the fact that the CGI was so appalling that the blood looked like solid chunks of rock and the wolf at the beginning, well, words cannot describe it. Suffice to say that if the narrator hadn’t told us it was a wolf, we’d still be wondering how the Spartans had managed to master genetic manipulation. All of these things combined to form a completely forgettable film and I find myself wondering how it got any reviews at all, nevermind any reviews that were positive.

A film consisting solely of gratuitous violence strung together with minor narrative really should score full marks on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Scale, but, seeing as how most of the combat sequences felt like repeats of the first one and the fact that if it wasn’t still light outside while I was watching it I would have fallen asleep, it only manages to score a 2. I should have realised when the film makers decided to unleash this monstrosity on the world at Comic Con and not at one of the film festivals that they realised how bad it was and tried to cover it up by doing something unusual. And it worked, they got their publicity, and won the dodgiest moment award. The second one without even trying.

Where some films suffer from ADD directors, and I’m thinking of Aeon Flux in particular, this one seems to have a director hopped up on serious dinosaur tranquilisers. Maybe the slow motion sequences would seem to be real time if I was stoned out of my bracket, and that might have been the secret ingredient I was missing while watching. However, watching in real time was so bad that you had time to leave the room, make a cup of tea, and return before the spear had finished going through the body of a Persian soldier. But, to it’s credit, 300 just managed to avoid getting the not-so-coveted Anti-Nike and scored a 1 on the rewatchability index.

When you spend half the movie trying to place the voice of the Narrator, (who is the monk in Van Helsing that invents all the cool equipment), it’s not likely that you remember too many quotes. Fortunately, IMDB comes to the rescue, and a quick browse of what people think are the memorable quotes reveals that I didn’t miss too much. The only one that is vaguely memorable is because of the foreshadowing inherent in the quote. “Our arrows shall blot out the sun” “Then we will fight in the shade” and lets face it, it’s not a very good one.

Unless you have a morbid curiosity and insist on watching things to see if they are as bad as people tell you, or have an insatiable lust for gore, 300 can stay in the DVD case in the shop. You may want to watch it if it comes out on television and it’s free, but I am sure you will have better things to do with your time, like learning why cat bathing is considered a martial art, or if all else fails, watching paint dry. You won’t be missing anything by skipping this one.

Hoodwinked is a musical, film-noiresque detective story version of Little Red Riding Hood.  If that doesn’t immediately make you run out and buy it, and it should, you may be on the wrong site.  But, if you need more convincing, read on.

Hoodwinked starts off by showing the end of the story, which turns out to be the middle of the story, but you only find that out later. The main players in this musical drama, Red, Granny, The Wolf and Kirk all get detained by Flippers, the police investigator,  and each is interviewed. During this process, you can piece the entire story together if you pay attention, but to get all the subtleties you will need to watch it more than once.

The interviews start, and you’re still convinced that this is a Disney cartoon made by a small budget studio. Then the singing starts. The first song is a crayon version of Julie Andrews in sound of music.  You’re still fairly sure what you’ve gotten yourself into, and that’ll be the last time you question whether this movie is dodgy.  After this, the musical numbers include a yodelling goat, a singing bunny and The “Schnitzel on a Stick Song” You have to see, well, hear  them to truly appreciate the full extent of the dodginess.

Vignettes abound, including homages to the great dodgy movies XXX and The Matrix.  There is also a group of singing porcupines dressed as The Village People, which is really just icing on top of the goodies. Ultimately, the mystery is resolved and the story ends happily for everyone that you care about, despite the fact that Kirk ends up in “Der Happy Yodelers”, but it makes him happy, even though yodelling has been outlawed by the Geneva Convention as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Cartoons don’t normally qualify for more than a 4 on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scale as a certain level of dodginess is expected. Hoodwinked, however, manages a well deserved 5. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that pushes this movie up to the maximum rating. The schnitzel song and yodelling goat, the “battle of the iron cage gladiators” champion granny as well as the squirrel after being fed caffeine could compete for that privilege. However, the Broadway-esque musical number in which the Bunny’s plan is revealed, complete with choreography by the evil henchman, including Jazz Hands, pushes it over the edge.

I bought this one having only watched the trailer, and my faith was well rewarded. Every time I watch it I find something to appreciate, and it isn’t always something new. Even the musical numbers grow on you after a while, and for that, this one gets a 5 Mutant Smileys for rewatchability.

The most memorable quote was almost a tough choice, with gems like “Oh good, More singing” and “Use the hood Red, Use the hood.” But it wasn’t even close once the bunny started dishing out commands. “Keith, darnit change your name.. Please.. That’s not scary and I’m embarrassed to say it. Boris, try that. Keith, you know, oh watch out for Keith.” We all know the importance of scary henchman names, and this spells it out in flashing neon letters.

You won’t get the  slick, polished visual smorgasboard that you experience in the newer Pixar films, given that Hoodwinked had a far smaller budget. However, the script carries this one, and the animation is more than watchable, making this one a must buy for everyone.

Evolution starts out with a lot of promise. Directed by Ivan Reitman and starring David Duchovny, dodginess is assured. Throw in a plot containing aliens, Dan Akroyd and Sean William Scott and you’ve got a winner.

The film opens with Sean William Scott saving a blow-up-doll from a burning building and just goes downhill from there. The burning building gets destroyed by an incoming meteor which conveniently happens to contain the alien organisms. With this, the thrill ride begins, taking in interesting sights along the way, including a giant alien bird hunt in a mall and the administering of an anti-dandruff shampoo enema to the giant alien.

The movie has a plot, which is nice and straightforward. This is good as it doesn’t get in the way. Basically, aliens land, they evolve, the military steps in, stuffs it up, and it’s up to the psuedo-scientific heroes to save the day, with a brilliant deduction about Arsenic and Selenium and carbon and silica based lifeforms that would make any movie scientist proud.

Essentially, the plot exists to move the film from one dodgy moment to the next, not that this is a bad thing. However, it does get a little tricky to pick out a favourite.  I have managed to narrow it down to 2 key moments. The first occurs while hunting the giant alien bird in the local mall. Sean William Scott steps up to the microphone and utters the now infamous phrase “ca-caw, ca-caw. Tooky tooky tooky.” The second, a career defining moment for all involved, is the administering of the head and shoulders anti dandruff shampoo enema to the giant alien creature using a firetruck. Despite the ensuing explosion being reminiscent of the giant marshmallow man exploding sequence in ghostbusters, it is no less memorable. As a result of these two scenes, the film gets a Staypuft marshmallow man rating of 5.

Evolution has firmly established itself as one of my top 5 movies of all time. I have yet to get bored while watching it, even though I can almost recite the script. This gives it a massive 5 out of 5 for rewatchablilty. If I didn’t already own this one, I’d have to buy it.

You’d think that the line “There’s always time for lubricant” would have no competition in the category of “Best Film Quote of all time” but, such is the strength of the script, that it doesn’t even win best quote in Evolution.  That dubious honour goes to “ca-caw, ca-caw. Tooky tooky tooky” and a well deserving winner it is.

Do yourself a favour, if you haven’t already seen Evolution, go and watch it, and if you have, go watch it again.