Release Date: March 31st, 1995 Directed by: Rachel Talalay Written by: Tedi Sarafian Based on:Tank Girl by Alan Martin, Jamie Hewlett Music by: Graeme Revell Cast: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Malcolm McDowell, Jeff Kober, Reg E. Cathey, Scott Coffey, Iggy Pop, James Hong, Doug Jones, Frank Welker (voice)
Image Comics, Trilogy Entertainment, United Artists, 104 Minutes
Review:
“Look, it’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down.” – Tank Girl
While Lori Petty was a great choice to play Tank Girl, this is a pretty awful movie that I’ve never been a fan of.
The concept is cool but the execution of it was terrible in just about every way.
I will say that I like the general look and aesthetic of the movie but it’s the clunky and unfunny script that really drags this concept down into the mud and drowns it before it has a chance to save itself.
The jokes never land and that’s not Petty’s fault, as she’s working with the script they gave her. And honestly, I have to give her props for really giving this her all, as she brings her A-game but basically wastes it in what should have been a really cool flick that could’ve even spawned a franchise had it been handled much better.
I also think the direction is a big problem too. I’ve never been a big fan of Rachel Talalay’s film work and that started with the abysmally bad Freddy’s Dead, which truly derailed the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. By this point, nearly a half decade later, she still hadn’t found her footing as a director.
Now I do generally like most of the characters in this but you’ve got Malcolm McDowell and yet, he’s severely underutilized and it feels like he’s barely in the film other than about three key scenes.
Honestly, this is just disappointing and the source material could’ve been harvested much, much better.
Side note: this is the cutest Naomi Watts ever was. I think I watched this shit movie more times than I should’ve in my teens because I was crushing so hard on Jet Girl.
Rating: 4/10 Pairs well with: other sci-fi B-movies of the early-to-mid ’90s. Especially, those based on comics or video games.
Also known as: Truth or Dare (working title) Release Date: January 1st, 2013 (Russia) Directed by: Steven Brill, Peter Farrelly, Will Graham, Steve Carr, Griffin Dunne, James Duffy, Jonathan van Tulleken, Elizabeth Banks, Patrik Forsberg, Brett Ratner, Rusty Cundieff, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Steve Baker, Damon Escott Written by: Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O’Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, Jonas Wittenmark Music by: Christophe Beck, David J. Hodge, Leo Birenberg, Tyler Bates, Miles Moon, William Goodrum Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Leslie Bibb, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler, Josh Duhamel, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville, Justin Long, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Emma Stone, Jason Sudekis, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Common, Charlie Saxton, Will Sasso, Seth MacFarlane, Mark L. Young, Fisher Stevens, Beth Littleford, Julie Ann Emery, Chris Pratt, J.B. Smoove, Kieran Culkin, Bobby Cannavale, Patrick Warburton, Seann William Scott, Stephen Merchant, Snooki, Emily Alyn Lind, Julianne Moore (scene cut), Tony Shalhoub (scene cut), Bob Odenkirk (scene cut), Anton Yelchin (scene cut)
“Excuse me, I’m gonna go do some Batman-ing.” – Fake Batman
I never wanted to see this movie and that was before I heard how bad it was when it came out. Also, the few people who seemed to like it were people that have historically had terrible recommendations in not just movies but just about everything in life.
Recently, I was told to watch it and I kind of just said fuck it because part of me was curious and wanted to know if this was as bad as I had heard it was.
It’s worse.
In fact, I can confidently say that this is the biggest waste of talent I have ever seen in a motion picture.
It’s so bad that it’s beyond atrocious. So much so, that I find it not just baffling that this film attracted so many big stars but I find it really unnerving.
Who greenlit this fucking thing? And how many terrible agents are there in Hollywood? Fire all of them!
Anyway, I had to start asking myself some questions while trying to work this film’s existence out in my brain:
Is everyone in Hollywood actually insane?
Do the Hollywood elite want all of us to commit seppuku?
Do the Hollywood elite think that sucking their own assholes is a good use of time?
Did this movie somehow leak over from a parallel dimension where Earth actually is Hell?
Did all of these “artists” commit some unspeakable crime and this was secretly some sort of punishment for said crime?
Did all of these people lose a bet?
Was this movie actually the result of a writing contest for mental patients?
Is this what people mean by “anti-humor”?
Did the person who put up the money have some sort of Brewster’s Millions deal where they had to throw away money to get their full inheritance?
Was this produced to debut on an earlier, failed attempt at CBS trying a streaming service?
I mean, those are all legitimate questions. In fact, I’d say that they’re more legitimate than this film.
This is the worst movie I’ve seen that was made for more than thirty dollars.
The film was full of crude jokes, none of which landed, and it offered up a bunch of gross out moments that just come across as Hollywood trying so hard to be edgy when in reality, they haven’t had their fucking balls in a long time.
Honestly, seeing how “politically correct” and “apologetic” the Hollywood elite have become since SJWs emerged and Cancel Culture took hold, this film feels like them desperately trying to get all the edgy shit out of their system before they all started their “I’m sorry, I’ll strive to do better” world tour.
Additionally, none of these gross out moments are all that effective if you’ve been a fan of ’70s and ’80s horror. Go watch Society and try again. Better yet, you shouldn’t have tried at all.
I think that film critic Robbie Collin said it best in his review of the movie:
“I was immediately overcome with a sudden rush of emotion: not amusement, anger or even mild irritation, but a profound and faintly tragic sense of pity.”
Speaking of reviews, let’s look at what all the big sites think. IMDb gives it a 4.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes gives it 5 percent from critics with 24 percent from the audience, Metacritic gives it an 18 percent and Richard Roeper referred to it as “the Citizen Kane of awful.”
In closing, I’ll simply state:
Rating: 0/10 Pairs well with: bad cavities and genital warts.
Release Date: September 5th, 2014 (TIFF) Directed by: Theodore Melfi Written by: Theodore Melfi Music by: Theodore Shapiro Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Chris O’Dowd, Terrence Howard, Reg E. Cathey
Chernin Entertainment, Crescendo Productions, The Weinstein Company, 102 Minutes
Review:
“You need to defend yourself, or you get mowed down.” – Vincent, “I’m small, if you haven’t noticed.” – Oliver, “Yeah, so was Hitler.” – Vincent, “That’s a horrible comparison.” – Oliver, “Indeed. Making a point, though.” – Vincent
*Written in 2014.
I finally got around to catching this film.
I’m a huge Bill Murray fan but then again, who isn’t? I’m not a fan of Melissa McCarthy though, so I found going into this to be a bit of a double-edged sword.
Well, as expected, Murray was pretty damn awesome. This is one of my favorite dramatic roles that he has played and he still brought the comedy where it was needed. His character was also a bit of a departure from what one is used to in a Murray performance.
In modern years, Bill Murray has essentially played Bill Murray. In this film, as Vincent, he was a pretty complex character that was more than just another Bill Murray caricature. He was a hard edged Vietnam veteran with a strong Brooklyn accent and a backstory that was heartbreaking and heartwarming as it unfolded throughout the movie.
Melissa McCarthy also impressed me in this film. I have to give her props on her mostly dramatic performance and I hope to see more acting from her like this. My issue with her in the past, is that she came off as the female Chris Farley. Everything about her career revolved around comedy based off of her weight. I just find that to be a low form of comedy and not that funny. Additionally, where she isn’t a walking fat joke, she fills the void with lewdness and crassness that has become the norm in modern comedy but just goes to show how shitty modern comedy has become.
Jaeden Lieberher, who plays the boy in the film, acted really well for a kid with a pretty small filmography thus far. His character befriends the grumpy and mean Vincent and it is the relationship between these two that propels this film.
Chris O’Dowd plays a teacher/priest that goes on to expand his acting chops and gives us another great and witty character. Vincent’s pregnant Russian hooker girlfriend is played by Naomi Watts and she is pretty hilarious here. I didn’t even realize it was her until about halfway through the film. Terrence Howard plays an asshole bookie but is almost a forgettable and unnecessary character.
This is a really good picture for Theodore Melfi, a first time feature film director. It’ll be interesting to see what he does next, as this was a stellar first effort. Melfi, with the help of this great cast, gave us one of the best films of the year, in my honest opinion.
Rating: 8.5/10 Pairs well with: Some of Bill Murray’s other films like The Life Aquatic, Broken Flowers and Lost In Translation.
Release Date: December 5th, 2005 (New York City premiere) Directed by: Peter Jackson Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson Based on:King Kong by James Creelman, Ruth Rose, Merian C. Cooper, Edgar Wallace Music by: James Newton Howard Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Jamie Bell, Evan Parke, Andy Serkis
What a disappointment this was. I never wanted to watch it but I did in an effort to review it, as I am revisiting all the King Kong films before the new one is released in a few weeks.
I was a big Peter Jackson fan when this came out and I had always loved King Kong movies. However, when seeing the trailer for this in 2005, I just wasn’t interested in it. Watching it now, I found it incredibly hard to sit through the 200 minute mess. Yes!… 200 minutes!
Coming off of the heels of his great adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson had Hollywood in the palm of his hand. His special effects studio also proved that Lucasfilm wasn’t the only kid on the block, anymore.
To put it bluntly, this film is awful. The story is a rehash of what we’ve already seen in two better King Kong films. There really is nothing new to this movie, compared to the previous 1976 remake or the 1933 original, except some characters have altered because even though this is a film that takes place in the 1930s, it has to placate to the overabundance of animal rights activists in the world today.
The character of Ann Darrow had to love Kong, right? She couldn’t just flat out be terrified of the beast like she was in 1933, correct? I mean, the most hardcore animal rights activist would be shitting their pants in the clutches of Kong. But this change in the Darrow character, I guess, somehow justified this movie being well over three hours long. Had she just screamed and Kong just grunted, we would have had another Kong film that ran around two hours. Peter Jackson can’t have that! Hell, he turned each Lord of the Rings book into four hour epics and one Hobbit book into three four hour epics.
I remember not being blown away by the special effects when I saw footage of this in 2005. At this point, they look really outdated. The Lord of the Rings films, which predate this, still look really solid for the most part. King Kong, especially the island stuff, looks terrible. It is a fast-paced visual mess. It looks like a bunch of CGI creatures were thrown into a blender while action figures of our heroes dance in front of the high speed churning concoction.
Most of the action is nonsensical and just stupid. For an example of this, look at the scene where Adrien Brody is covered in bugs and Jamie Bell assists him by firing a machine gun at him. Also, the film completely disregards basic biology and physics. I get that you have to suspend disbelief for a film like this to work but King Kong asks you to completely suspend logic and accept stupidity.
The special effects sequences were too abundant. They all just blend together in a horrid mess. Also, the heroes don’t even get to the island for 45 minutes or so. If they shaved off a lot of unimportant things in the long intro and then scaled back on the action stuff, the film could have reasonably been a two hour movie, which it should have been.
Also, the tribal people in this picture are way too terrifying. They were literally a tribe from a horror movie and were definitely too scary for a movie that should have been family friendly and was marketed as such. The tribe also didn’t have a look and feel consistent with the already well established King Kong mythos.
I also hated Naomi Watts’ screaming. It was awful and never seemed to stop.
There are a few positives, though.
The first was Jack Black. I thought he did a tremendously good job as Carl Denham, my favorite character from the original 1933 version.
Also, Andy Serkis was great as Kong. Then again, when isn’t he stellar at playing motion capture characters? He’s the reason why an Oscar should be created for motion capture acting.
Another positive was the last twenty minutes of the film. The finale was pretty great, even if you had to painfully sit through the first three hours. The sequence of Kong on top of the Empire State Building fighting for his survival was pretty heart-wrenching. In fact, I was surprised that I was so taken aback by it, considering the awfulness of the preceding three hours. I credit that to the greatness that is Andy Serkis.
As bad as 1986’s King Kong Lives is considered to be, I think it is better than this film. Sure, that is a bold statement but it at least felt more plausible and it wasn’t a 200 minute bore.
I really have no urge to ever watch this again, where I revisit the other Kong films every few years.
Release Date: August 27th, 2014 (Venice Film Festival) Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu Written by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo Music by: Antonio Sánchez Cast: Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts
Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, M Productions, Le Grisbi Productions, TSG Entertainment, Worldview Entertainment, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 119 Minutes
Review:
Alejandro G. Iñárritu seems to be making the sort of films that the big wigs in Hollywood seem to love. Michael Keaton seems to be having a real career resurgence over the last few years. So seeing the two collaborate is really interesting. Throw in an all-star cast on top of Keaton and you might find yourself with something truly special, at least on paper.
Birdman is a fairly refreshing film. It has some very unique elements to it but it doesn’t necessarily tread new or daring territory. It is a movie that I’m on the fence with.
Let me talk about the positives, many of which should be quite obvious, even without seeing the film.
To start, the acting is incredible. This is one of the best performances of Michael Keaton’s career. He truly shines and really lets loose. He also looks like he is intimately enjoying his craft.
Zach Galifianakis is a guy I’ve never been a fan of. However, he shows that he has what it takes to reach the next level and I enjoyed him in Birdman. Edward Norton gives one of the best performances of his career. Granted, he is always great in just about every role but this is up there with his part in Fight Club for me. Emma Stone, as good as she is, has never been better. Naomi Watts was also solid but didn’t have a lot of screen time, which is also how it went for Amy Ryan and Andrea Riseborough. These three women were stellar but needed more time to shine. Riseborough especially won me over.
The direction was very good and Iñárritu got the most out of his cast. The cinematography was phenomenal; the color palate and the lighting were stunning. The score to the film was perfect, as the jazz drummer flawlessly built up the right kind of tension and mood from scene-to-scene.
Now as far as the plot goes, there wasn’t much there to captivate me. Sure, Keaton’s Riggan is a good character with a lot of complexity but I’ve seen this story before. It is about an old actor, past the prime of his career, trying to hold on to his fame and asking himself, constantly, what the meaning of everything is. It is a midlife crisis playing out on film from a self-absorbed, sometimes douchebaggy man, that seems more like a spoiled child that can’t handle it when reality starts to set in. Therefore, he creates a fantasy world in his head, which sometimes teases that it might be real but never is. In fact, the teases get kind of annoying, as the overall story is more interesting than these little psychotic flourishes throughout the picture.
People often times question the film’s ending, asking if he actually did have these special powers or if there was some hidden meaning. The final scene sees his daughter look to the sky and smile, supposedly confirming that her father can fly like Birdman, the famous superhero he played twenty years prior. Throughout the film, you see people react to Riggan’s use of his powers in his fantasies. Why would the ending be any different? I think it is to signify that Riggan is still slightly mad, as opposed to it proving that he isn’t actually crazy and that he truly has superpowers. In fact, I feel like that was absolutely obvious but people want to read too much into things and have debates for the sake of debating. I don’t see it as an ambiguous ending at all. But it’s good for the filmmakers, as people will discuss it for years to come.
I did enjoy the film, despite the things that just didn’t grab me. It is certainly a showcase of great acting, directing, the use of music in film and cinematography. It is the type of film that a film lover loves. However, from a writer’s standpoint, it just feels very thin and not as unique as it tries to be. So many other films have walked the line between the real and surreal and done it much more effectively. Look at Terry Gilliam’s work for example.
It is also hard to not see the similarity between Birdman, the fantasy character, and the bird wings sprouting from the back of Jonathan Pryce’s character, in the midst of his fantasies in Gilliam’s Brazil.
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Talking Pulp 
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