1/2-Ass Reviews

My foresight is somewhat amazing. Realizing Tuesday that we might be snowed in for a day or two I buggered over to Blockbuster and rented four nifty movies. I was proud of myself, until the intermittent power outages threatened to put a cork in our cinema-fest. A more astute individual may have stopped at the store and bought a bushel of candles, a palate of books, an arsenal of scented markers, and a tub of model glue for huffing. These items don't require electricity yet still provide plenty of amusement. Renting the movies wasn't all for naught; despite the blackouts we successfully watched all four movies. In traditional Shenry-style I present you with weak reviews and my standard disclaimer:

Quite a few critics are paid real money to provide thoughtful and intelligent reviews. I am not one of them. If you want a useful review use a search engine. If you want a half-assed review then I'm your man.

The Powerpuff Girls Movie

I love these little girls, not the love between a man and his wife but more like the love between a man and three tiny-bodied, big-eyed cartoon children. When El-Sea was three-years-old she demanded that everybody call her Bubbles. She would then cast Silver Queen as the bossy Powerpuff, Blossom, and me as the violent one, Buttercup. ...and all you bastards can all shut the fuck up because I'm not fucking violent. Got it?... Despite my love for these adorable superheroes, 90-minutes is too much, especially when the story is the sugar + spice + Chemical X rehash. Three girls and one evil monkey can be combined in innumerable plot twist. The porn possibilities alone are mind-boggling.

DVD Extras: The DVD extras are rather creative. Interviews with Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom are entertaining. It's quite trippy watching the voice actors speak their parts.

The Future: In fifteen years Blossom will be indicted for corporate fraud, Buttercup will guest star on Fox's Celebrity Boxing, and Bubbles will appear nude in Hustler Magazine.

Eight Legged Freaks

As a connoisseur of fine cheese, such as Flash Gordon and Barbarella, I appreciate this flick. It is what it is, and it makes no apologies for being nothing but a campy pulp monster movie. There is no character development. It's not scary. It's barely funny. It's cliché. Yet, I found the movie palatable. As I watched Eight Legged Freaks I wondered how much better it would've been if the special effects gurus would've skipped the digital crap and used stop-action animation instead.

DVD Extras: Skip all of the filler extras and go directly to Larger Than Life. It's a 15-minute short film that is everything Eight Legged Freaks pretends to be.

The Future: Eventually, this DVD will be re-titled Larger Than Life and Eight Legged Freaks will be demoted to a DVD extra.

Shanghai Noon

Okay, I'm a couple of years slow on this one, but I felt it an appropriate choice with the sequel, Shanghai Knights, now showing in the currently saturated character/culture conflict genre. In Bringing Down the House, Steve Martin and Queen Latifah clash. Then there is that movie where Chris Rock shakes the white establishment in Head of State. In Bulletproof Monk, that guy from Dude Where's My Car? costars with the esteemed Chow Yun-Fat. Much like Shanghai Noon, none of these movies will be funny. Sure, I might chuckle once or twice, but that doesn't make the movie a success. Skip Shanghai Noon and rent an old Edie Murphy flick (Beverley Hills Cop, The Golden Child, or even Coming to America) if you wan a funny character/culture conflict.

DVD Extras:Typical sorry-ass extras. Deleted scenes are deleted for a reason. Directors and producers ramble on about nothing and congratulate each other for making money on the film. And, nobody want to watch an hour of The Making of Shanghai Noon.

The Future:An anonymous group of individuals will travel from movie store to movie store, covertly re-shelving all copies of Shanghai Noon in the “Special Interest” aisle. Thus, all those who purposefully seek out Shanghai Noon will be spared.

Gummo

Huh?! I can only describe this movie as a mock-umentary about small-town white trash. Kids kill feral cats and sell the bodies to the local butcher who re-sells them to the Chinese restaurant. Lots of glue huffing. Um, there is this one kid who wears pink rabbit ears. And...Um... There is no plot, just snapshots of people being people. Gummo is not a movie, it's an experience. I wouldn't recommend the movie en masse. Most people would open a case of whoop-ass on me after seeing this movie based upon my recommendation, but there are a few dudes and dudettes who might actually thank me for it. I just don't know about Gummo.

DVD Extras: Definitely checkout the still photos with the accompanying director's commentary. After I finish watching Gummo I felt disoriented and irritated, but those feeling were lessened after listening to a few explanatory words from the director.

The Future: Gummo will become a cult classic for glue huffers everywhere, but I will never know whether or not I like the damn movie.
...and so it was written, shenry at 3/22/2003 11:50:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .