Henry Poole is Here and Death Race reviews
Okay. This weekend I saw 2 very different movies. On Saturday I saw Henry Poole is Here starring Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza and George Lopez in a small role. Now I loved this movie. It made me cry (which is usually a good thing but as my sisters will tell you I cry at anything) and it made me laugh at a few points. Now if you've read about this you would know that Henry is a guy who has a short time to live and buys a house to pretty much drink non-stop until he dies. The real estate agent played by Cheryl Hines (who, thankfully, is only in it for a few minutes because she just annoys the CRAP outta me!!!) has the house repainted and stuccoed. Unfortunately for Henry it's not a very good job and a face-shaped stain appears on one of the walls. Can you see where this is going? Now with this type of movies you mostly get 2 types of people. Ones who say that the movie is pure propaganda and then there are others who say that the movie doesn't push but lets the viewer decide what to take from the movie. I can see both sides but I tend to lean towards the letting the viewer decide side. For me it's almost like Dogma but without the dick and fart jokes. Yeah miracles happen but as Rachel Seiferth as the almost-blind checkout girl Patience says, "I chose to believe." But mostly for me the movie is about having hope and this is going to sound so damn corny but it's good to have a little hope nowadays. Little tidbit - keep an eye out for Ty Pennington and Jessica Walter from Arrested Development. They pop up in a very unexpected place! I kept having to look pretty hard going "Is that...Naw, it can't be! Holy crap it is!"
On Sunday I saw Death Race and I had fun at that one as well. It's kind of a re-imaging of Roger Corman's cheesy Death Race 2000 and this new one is actually produced by him as well. Now I know what some of you might say - "That Jason Statham, behind the wheel of yet another car, scowling away, NO SHIRT and kicking ass." Well isn't that one of the reasons we love him? He just does all that so well! Now I won't go into many details about the plot because, hey, didn't I say this is a Jason Statham movie? Who truly cares about plot as long as his SHIRT'S OFF!!! WHOO HOO! Well anyway ol' JS is good as Jensen Ames, a glowering former race car driver in prison for the murder of his wife. And he is good compared to some of the other stuff he's done. But it's the supporting cast that really makes this great fun! Joan Allen is scary as the ice queen of a warden of the prison he's sent to. There is some part about him pretending to be the fan favorite Frankenstein but I wasn't paying too much attention, because he had, well you know, NO SHIRT! Tyrese Gibson is Frankie's rival Machine Gun Joe who is gay but that remark is just tossed out there and pretty much completely forgotten about so why was it even mentioned at all? Who the hell knows! I just adored Ian McShane is Coach, the head of Jensen's pit crew who agrees that Jensen is innocent of his crime. He has some of the best lines and his voice just rocks! Jacob Vargas and Frederick Koehler (I remember him as Jeri Blank's son in the finale of Strangers with Candy!) also round out the pit crew. You also have your diverse group of baddies that get quickly introduced then killed during the race. There's racing, shooting, cars being blown up and cars getting crushed. And sometimes NO SHIRT! So for me this was just a take-your-brain-out-and-leave-it-at-home fun bloody movie that with a strong supporting cast that make a cheesy movie like this better than it should. Little tidbit - Robert LaSardo, who you might recognize from episodes of CSI, CSI:Miami, General Hospital, Life, Nip/Tuck, Bones, Cold Case and almost EVERYTHING ELSE. He's Grimm, the guy who in the commercials says "Can't kill me. You can burn me. You can shoot me. But you can't kill me!" and them promptly gets killed. (Now don't complain about that being a spoiler because it's featured in almost all of the trailers and commercials and you KNOW when someone says something like that in a movie like this he or she is shuffling the mortal coil right quick!)
Next week we have Disaster Movie, Babylon AD, Traitor coming out and Hamlet 2 coming into wider release. Hopefully I will be able to see one of those movies and have a review next week. Out on DVD this week is Nightmare Before Christmas on blu-ray, Redbelt and What Happen In Vegas.
I really need to try to get back into writing so I am going to try to do a few reviews a week. It'll be a mix of new movies, video releases and ones I think you flat out should see. Maybe do my top five favorite movies of all time of top five movies I have to watch if it's on tv or whatever. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions, comments or questions? Hopefully I don't suck completely but I have to say I am so not aiming for a Pulitzer any time soon!
On Sunday I saw Death Race and I had fun at that one as well. It's kind of a re-imaging of Roger Corman's cheesy Death Race 2000 and this new one is actually produced by him as well. Now I know what some of you might say - "That Jason Statham, behind the wheel of yet another car, scowling away, NO SHIRT and kicking ass." Well isn't that one of the reasons we love him? He just does all that so well! Now I won't go into many details about the plot because, hey, didn't I say this is a Jason Statham movie? Who truly cares about plot as long as his SHIRT'S OFF!!! WHOO HOO! Well anyway ol' JS is good as Jensen Ames, a glowering former race car driver in prison for the murder of his wife. And he is good compared to some of the other stuff he's done. But it's the supporting cast that really makes this great fun! Joan Allen is scary as the ice queen of a warden of the prison he's sent to. There is some part about him pretending to be the fan favorite Frankenstein but I wasn't paying too much attention, because he had, well you know, NO SHIRT! Tyrese Gibson is Frankie's rival Machine Gun Joe who is gay but that remark is just tossed out there and pretty much completely forgotten about so why was it even mentioned at all? Who the hell knows! I just adored Ian McShane is Coach, the head of Jensen's pit crew who agrees that Jensen is innocent of his crime. He has some of the best lines and his voice just rocks! Jacob Vargas and Frederick Koehler (I remember him as Jeri Blank's son in the finale of Strangers with Candy!) also round out the pit crew. You also have your diverse group of baddies that get quickly introduced then killed during the race. There's racing, shooting, cars being blown up and cars getting crushed. And sometimes NO SHIRT! So for me this was just a take-your-brain-out-and-leave-it-at-home fun bloody movie that with a strong supporting cast that make a cheesy movie like this better than it should. Little tidbit - Robert LaSardo, who you might recognize from episodes of CSI, CSI:Miami, General Hospital, Life, Nip/Tuck, Bones, Cold Case and almost EVERYTHING ELSE. He's Grimm, the guy who in the commercials says "Can't kill me. You can burn me. You can shoot me. But you can't kill me!" and them promptly gets killed. (Now don't complain about that being a spoiler because it's featured in almost all of the trailers and commercials and you KNOW when someone says something like that in a movie like this he or she is shuffling the mortal coil right quick!)
Next week we have Disaster Movie, Babylon AD, Traitor coming out and Hamlet 2 coming into wider release. Hopefully I will be able to see one of those movies and have a review next week. Out on DVD this week is Nightmare Before Christmas on blu-ray, Redbelt and What Happen In Vegas.
I really need to try to get back into writing so I am going to try to do a few reviews a week. It'll be a mix of new movies, video releases and ones I think you flat out should see. Maybe do my top five favorite movies of all time of top five movies I have to watch if it's on tv or whatever. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions, comments or questions? Hopefully I don't suck completely but I have to say I am so not aiming for a Pulitzer any time soon!