The Hurt Locker ...unbelieveably absurd

Based on my mixed experience with Kathryn Bigelow's previous movies, ranging from excellent ('Strange Days') to abysmal ('K-19: The Widowmaker'), I didn't know what to expect from her first full length picture in quite some time. After seeing it, I'm beginning to suspect that everything I liked in 'Strange Days' should probably be credited to James Cameron. 

'The Hurt Locker' follows the last several weeks of an EOD (that's Explosive Ordnance Disposal for the non-military) unit rotation in, yes, you guessed that correctly, Iraq. And then the shitstorm starts. Not in Iraq, in the movie. Now we all know that the military have somewhat different idea of what common sense is and that military intelligence is a classic oxymoron, but nevertheless they are not idiots. Even if some are, they have a strict set of SOPs which, no matter how stupid they may seem to a civilian, are literally written in blood. However, every character in the movie seemed determined to act like a complete and utter moron, not only ignoring the normal military procedures, but showing total disregard for common sense and ultimately, for their own life. Examples? Be my guests:

Exhibit A: a bomb disposal robot loses its trailer with some explosives on it. I can't speak for the military, but I guess they would use one of the common sense approaches - get a new trailer, drag the old trailer to safety and fix it, get a new robot, or evacuate the area and shoot on the IED to detonate it. You think? Hell no, the only way to get some explosives to the bomb is to get your retarded ass as close to the bomb as possible and collect your Darwin award immediately. Honestly, if I were the commanding officer of this unit, I'd see to get the so-called bomb expert court-martialed and if the motherfucker somehow got off the hook, to send him to mental care institution and sedate him. Heavily. If not for his own good, then for the good of the innocent bystanders.

Exhibit B: you disarm an IED made from an artillery shell and decide to follow the wire. Upon discovery that the wire branches out in several directions, you either a) follow every branch very-very cautiously and disarm whatever you find at each end, or b) pull the fucking wires as hard as you can in firm belief that the insurgents are total schmucks, bigger retards than you and incompetent bombers, and even if there are secondary detonators, they won't go off? Darwin award number two.

Exhibit C: a car full of explosives is set on fire. By a rifle shot no less, screw the 'Last Action Hero' lessons on how easy cars catch fire when shot at. Never mind the assumption that a two of a three man bomb squad have to secure the area on their own, we already assumed the military are idiots. The real gem here is the so-called bomb expert, who rolls up his sleeves and starts putting out the fire. With the car so full of explosives that 'the suspension is sagging'. Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw ©'Heathers'. 

And you know what? We're only like twenty minutes into a movie over two hours long, and it doesn't improve later. We get the same bomb squad or members thereof repairing their Humvee (sure, no motor pools in the base), trucking out and detonating shitloads of disarmed IEDs in the desert (yes, they are bomb techs, mechanics AND truckers), in a sniper duel (bomb techs, mechanics, truckers AND snipers), you get the picture... I suppose some of these events bear some hidden and wise meaning or serve some purpose, like showing character development, or symbolizing the loneliness of a Man facing a Bomb, whatever, to me it was just a pointless, erratic sequence of illogical actions that could be attributed only to a severe brain damage, Down syndrome or subconscious death wish. However, after the scene with the techs celebrating with friendly punches in the stomach, I think I'm going to go with the brain damage. How are we supposed to relate to these characters, feel compassion or even identify with them after that is completely beyond me.

Truth be told, there are a couple of good things, mostly the rendition of the explosions, these were done in a remarkably spectacular and convincing way. Small, but pleasant cameo appearances by Guy Pearce, David Morse and Ralf Fiennes (although I have the sneaking suspicion that his scene was there only to show him on screen). However, none of these doesn't make this movie even remotely enjoyable or convincing - you can safely skip it and you won't miss anything except the demise of Ms. Bigelow's once promising career.

W. - Half assed stab gone wrong.

Here we go again - a renowned director (undeservedly so in my opinion, but who am I to argue), a brilliant cast and a complete piece of shit as the next installment in Stone's presidential series. Stone is obviously after the cheap publicity that would inevitably come from his choice of such a controversial subject as George W. Bush beyond any doubt is, so I will try to spell his name (Stone's, not W's) right as not to disappoint him. 

The main problem with this lukewarm puddle of piss of a movie is that it is trying to leave us with the impression that it is an unbiased and impartial bio picture. Naturally, this is far from being easy, considering the long and wide trail of stupid if not outright retarded stuff Dubya has left behind, and the several half-hearted personal attacks clearly show that Stone didn't manage to avoid the trap of slipping in his own agenda. The final result is a movie that tries not to (God forbid) irritate anyone, but ironically pisses off with its half-assed position Dubya supporters and haters alike. The former because of the frivolous (yeah, yeah, artistic freedom, whatever) treatment of the facts and several of Dubya's most famous quotes which make him look like a complete idiot (duh, like we had doubts about that after the bold statement that 'I believe men and fish can coexist peacefully'), which definitely defeats the intended impartiality of the movie. The latter because of the guarded attitude which they would no doubt perceive as way too delicate and gentle, if not even whitewashing. 

Another irritating feature is the amateurish psychology - the poor Dubya, tired of being the family's black sheep and fuck up, so desperately craves his paternal authority figure's approval that he goes to his own war to get it right this time. Lame. And worse, cynical, we're talking a war which cost the most conservative numbers estimate at $3 trillion, 2 million of refugees and tens of thousands deaths. We are supposed to feel for him, see, he can't accomplish shit on his own, because he's been born with the proverbial silver spoon and everything is being taken care of by his father. Lame. He'd like nothing better than to run a baseball team. Really? Then why the fuck sit in the White House for eight fucking years? LAAAAAAAAAME!!! He's a good guy really, just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, prone to bad influence, so Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rove steer him wherever they want to. What the fuck? Let's resort to Reductio ad Hitlerum just to further emphasize Stone's ineptitude at delivering a message - see, Herr Adolf must have been a good guy too, blah-blah sensitive soul, being painter and all, it must have been the bad, bad Goebbels, Borman and Goering. Same goes for Uncle Joe and his evil mastermind Beria, right? Now, I wouldn't give a flying fuck if he's an incompetent weak-minded and absent-willed retard, if he weren't Commander-in-Chief of the world's strongest military force, but that makes him far more dangerous than a monkey with a hand grenade. I couldn't help but notice that Stone also very, very carefully avoided raising painful subjects as Katrina, the financial crisis, the whole Patriot Act, and only brushed on torture tactics, without mentioning Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. Bottom line? Stone's trying to mindfuck the audience is just as delicate and graceful as a sneaking elephant. 

There is a single strong point of the movie though, and this is Josh Brolin. His reincarnation as W. was amazing and incredibly convincing, I almost forgot I'm not watching the actual W., too bad his talent was washed away in the tsunami of bullshit coming from the screen. This movie had its balls crushed because of Stone's patethic attempt to keep it sitting on the fence.

Seven Pounds ...could be good if it weren't that stupid

'Seven Pounds' follows the last days of Tim Thomas (Will Smith), an obviously well paid space engineer, who caused a road accident killing seven, including his wife, by using his cell phone while driving. Ruined by guilty conscience he takes the wise and democratic decision to pay for his sin a pound of flesh (figuratively speaking) for each of the seven lives he took. He assumes the identity of his brother Ben and posing as an IRS agent finds and meets seven people, deemed worthy of his help which takes the form of donating his organs - lung, liver, kidneys, marrow, eyes (?!?!) and heart - and last, but not least, a house (just for the nitpicking, how many pounds does that count for?).

The opening scene spoils it somewhat, as it shows Tim Thomas requesting an ambulance on 911 for his own suicide, so you already know the end of the story, but you still have to spend the next half an hour trying to figure how and why he reached that decision. Don't misunderstand me, these aren't thirty minutes filled with storytelling and explaining our hero's motivation, this is just how much it must have taken Gabriele Muccino to account for part of the budget with several overextended and fragmented scenes that grace us with the evaluation of some of the intended recipients of the graceful donation. The criteria will hardly surprise anyone, if you've been good, you get to live, if you've been naughty - die, motherfucker, die.

The unsuspecting audience is then introduced to the method our hero intends to use for putting his miserable existence to end, namely by the means of jellyfish poison (sic!). Actually that strikes me as quite ingenious, provided it's not imperative to keep his organs fit for transplantation. By the way, the jellyfish apparently turns out to be of some unknown freshwater inhabiting species, unless this specific motel provides sea water on the tap. And no, no matter how logical it might seem after that, there are no low-flying snails and killer bees later in the story. The Animal Planet contribution is restricted to a Great Dane, who turns out to be vegetarian (hardly on his own accord) but still barks like a real dog.

Anyway, all that's left to see after that is the decent, so-so convincing and extremely heart-touching love story between Tim 'Stupid Suicide' Thomas and the desperately needing a heart transplant Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson, who gets the applause for her performance). And even though the lifelike love between them tried to pry a tear of compassion even out of me (not a surprise really, being the watery sucker for drama that I am), it doesn't really offer anything new, just the old story of the beautiful doomed love, in which one person must sacrifice him/herself for the other... sob.

It is my deep belief that great romance stories can be told without decorating unnecessary and pointless acts as suicide attempts with glory and heroics. I am also sure that a highly educated person, however depressed he is, can realize that he is a greater asset to society and can contribute more than being dismantled to provide spares and that if he lives, works and is devoted to the cause with all his heart, he can save how many people, 70? 700? 7000...? An engineer is supposed to know what efficiency means. Likewise, the fat-ass overpaid movie moguls are supposed to sit and think what kind of message they are conveying and what kind of images they are promoting.

Australia - yuck!

As strange as it may sound coming from me, 'Australia' is a must see - for all the wrong reasons. I caught myself gloating while I watched it, as I couldn't help but think I'm going to rip a three-digit number of new assholes in it. It's literally a masterpiece as I don't think anyone can make a movie this bad accidentally - no, it takes skill, experience and probably a good measure of strong will not to allow anything good to slip in.

The credit for this abomination goes to Baz Luhrmann, the Master of the Kitsch himself, the second most overrated director (Terence Malick being the first), who is also responsible for crimes against humanity such as the neon-ridden insult to Shakespeare 'Romeo + Juliet' and the unbearable 'Moulin Rouge'. This movie should be preserved for the generations to come and shown in cinema schools as the perfect example of celluloid abuse and a showcase of what must not be done under any circumstances. No, really... this is downright the worst movie of the last decade and it deserves a place on a pedestal of fossilized dung in the darkest corners of the Hall of Fame's toilet, and it almost made me feel like apologizing to the makers of all the movies I reviewed before.

Trying to describe what's wrong with it is a painful experience. It's a huge mess of panoramic aerial shots (which explains somewhat its outrageous budget), bad CG special effects, static fugly matte painted sets that rightfully belong in the 50s, all intermixed with the corniest dialog one can imagine, and with thrown in for local color kangaroos, boomerangs, crocodiles and whatnot, sometimes interrupted by Hugh Jackman's hairy chest. The all too evident usage of blue screen doesn't help either - what's so hard about setting your lighting right? This whole pretentious drivel is syruped up with huge enough to cause diabetes measure of the cheesy 'Somewhere over the rainbow', cheesy violins, cheesy voiceover and recurring cheesy close-ups of a half-native kid, most often uttering heartbreakingly 'I sing you to me'. Add to that Nicole Kidman's permafrost face, so expressionless that she must be either overdosing on Botox or suffering from severe brain damage, several shots of native people doing no one knows what, and no, don't edit it (Baz Luhrmann obviously didn't either), just drop it on the floor, pick random scraps of film and glue them together. If it comes under two and a half hours, add more scraps, because if it's not long enough and feeling even longer, your delusion of grandeur may suffer. 

Watch it, by all means... It's a once in a lifetime achievement and in the case some miracle happens and the Hollywood executives start see him as the fraud he is, it will definitely be Luhrmann's last before he gets his tar and feather treat - so don't miss your chance.

Gran Torino - PC over the top

Sadly, after a long streak of very impressive (if not hands down brilliant) and successful movies, it seems that Clint Eastwood has decided to take the easy way and to destroy in less than two hours all the respect he'd been building patiently for decades. 'Gran Torino' is the unconvincing story of an old man who discovers in his last days that people from other races deserve respect and affection - whoa, what a revelation... can I have some 'Hallelujah'? 

As evidenced by the mediocre 'Crash' not so long ago, a bad movie can still get overhyped and even get a couple of Oscars, if it focuses on racism as a central point. This is a safe way to keep critics at bay, as everyone will tug what they perceive as the PC line for fear of being labeled as a racist. As much as racism is a serious problem that needs addressing, hammering the message with a blunt tool into the heads of the audience seems counter-productive to me. Unfortunately (and it pains me to say it), 'Gran Torino' is definitely such a blunt tool and Clint Eastwood's worst ever. 

Every single character bar none is lacking persuasiveness. The hard-ass (Korea veteran, that's how hard-ass, capisci?) main character, who never managed to connect with his own children and the only one who can love him is his old dog, but pile some exotic food on his porch and watch him mellow - for better softening effect add the cute girl next door and stir. The cute girl in question, the constantly chirping Sue herself with her near-suicidal not knowing when to shut up - one would think that being cornered by several hostile acting guys should constitute a clue. The annoyingly conscious priest with his two phrases who doesn't get intimidated and insulted despite being shooed off like twenty times in ten minutes. Don't even start me on the credibility of secondary characters as the old hmong lady who of all things is chewing tobacco, the greedy grand-daughter and her clumsy attempts at wringing grandpa’s hands, the stereotypical gang members regardless of race and cultural heritage or the absolutely laughable white guy with his baseball cap backwards, rap gestures and 'bro'... 

The story also runs flat often, not offering enough justification for anything. Why would the hmong gang need Tao in the first place? The shaman prophecy was totally unnecessary and had 'phoney' all over it. The only reason behind Kowalski's sickness (deliberately not named, but we can guess) was adding some drama and drawing the line - see, he's terminally ill, so his life doesn't matter much more to him. Oh, and of course, his name is mispronounced in the hospital so that he can see first hand what it's like. There was no reasoning at all behind the rape, it was just thrown in for the drama and to trigger the final events. 

With all due respect to Clint Eastwood, he should have passed on this one... Unless he just wants another Oscar, which he'll probably get - this movie is definitely Oscar material, it treats its audience like retards and spoon-feeds them shit.

RocknRolla - same shit, different wrapping

The new full-length feature of Guy Ritchie serves only to confirm something which was already evident around the time we got hit with 'Revolver' - which by the way I still haven't seen, because it inevitably puts me to sleep in a matter of minutes. The guy (pun not intended) only knows one trick and he is depleted. While 'RocknRolla' isn't bad per se, most likely ticking off the similarities with his previous successful movies will spoil the pleasure for you. Let's break it down: small-time wanna-be gangsters - check... caught between a rock and a hard place - check... the rock being local influential mobster - check... hard place being ruthless big time criminal mastermind - check... Russians, stubbornly refusing to die after being shot with several clips worth of bullets - check... Enough already! Not only that, all Ritchie trademarks are also here - character introduction by narration, sudden changes in frame speed, everything is just as before...

Ok, there are some differences in the details, so instead of the pigs in 'Snatch' we have crayfish, big fucking deal. Doesn't change the fact that I've already seen this movie - three times, counting 'RocknRolla', and the prospect of watching its self-announced sequel brings a waterfall of cold sweat down my ass-crack. Sure, there was a couple of funny moments peppered around, like squeezing the cleverly edited sex scene in three seconds, the whole Handsome Bob subplot, the crazy Russian dudes comparing their scars and their naked drinking sado party with the Russian punk rock, but the next time yours truly will steer clear of any shit Madonna's ex comes up with until someone whose judgment I trust says it's safe and it's not 'Snatch V' or whatever sequential number comes next. That is, provided that certain Russian billionaire whose name ends in 'movich' isn't lacking in the humor department and takes it easy.

To me personally most of the fun came from the thick British accents, that should be saying a lot.

Burn after reading - not funny at all

Over the years the movies written and directed by Coen brothers have become in a class of their own and credits to the brothers themselves are considered (and rightfully so) a good enough reason to go and see a particular movie. That's especially true after 'No Country for Old Men' so it's only natural the expectations of its successor were high. Here comes the bad part though - 'Burn after reading' is a comedy. Sort of. And while I really like Coen brothers' dark, twisted and scary movies, I still can't get myself to laugh at their supposed-to-be-comedies - blasphemous as it may be, 'The Big Lebowski' included. No, I'm not completely devoid of sense of humor, yes, I perfectly well identify the 'laugh now, motherfucker' moments even without being cued with the fake sitcom laughter, I just don't find them funny.

Even though the history is original, unpredictable and kept my attention, I didn't find any of the characters interesting or compelling enough to immerse completely in the plot. This is by no means the actors fault, they were all flawless in their respective roles. Frances McDormand and John Malkovich in particular were great, I will even omit George Clooney from my Boo-list, seems like the Coens can put him to good use. I still wonder though, why did Brad Pitt take his simpleton role - it's not like he has to prove something, after '12 monkeys' there are no doubts he can act. The problem is that the characters themselves were conceived as caricatures only, soon that becomes quite obvious, and then they don't develop anymore.

In theory everything is in its place, screenplay, acting, directing, no technical mistakes (at least none that I noticed), it just fails its primary purpose - to be funny. I'm sure there will be plenty of people laughing at the streak of bad luck hitting Cox and culminating with his coma, what can be funnier than a coma. Or at the rocking-fucking chair, that must be hilarious - to prepubescent teens, maybe. Besides, who doesn't like axe murders of innocent bystanders or accidental face shots? You get the picture...

While all these events (leading to the so desired but elusive plastic surgery) certainly add up to the grotesque, the comedy value is quite overestimated. One would expect much better from the Coens and seeing as anything from their back catalog is worth far more, I'd recommend forgetting about this movie.

P.S. The next upcoming Coen's feature, 'A serious man', is labeled 'black comedy'. Oh my.