That’s right folks, Snow White And The Huntsman is the hot new release this week. There’s also What To Expect When You’re Expecting, so it’s a big week for ladies with poor taste in movies, I guess. There’s also films starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sean Bean, Ray Liotta, Sean Astin, and Tom Sizemore. We’ve got movies about militant Mexicans, ill-advised adoptions, teen prostitutes, and super hero party clowns. There’s even some non-super heroic clowns, but they still look like they party!
The DVDs:
Snow White And The Huntsman
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
Lola Versus
Girl In Progress
Goats
6 Bullets
Cleanskin
Bad Karma
For Greater Glory
Adopting Terror
Elles
Stealing Las Vegas
Game Of Life
Rosewood Lane
Letting Go
Super Hero Party Clown
Scary Or Die
Beyond The Black Rainbow
After The Triumph Of Your Birth
Future World: City Of Mass Destruction
Want to know which film is written and directed by a convicted child molester? Continue reading. Want to know which film is NC-17? Continue reading. Want to skip right to the boring Netflix suggestions? Click here, but you did notice I mentioned teen prostitutes, right?
Back in June, Vince wrote a rebuttal to an article declaring this flick a ‘triumph of feminist storytelling’, but that was all before Kristen Stewart got caught f*cking the director. Of course, the real-life actions of the film’s director and star do not necessarily have any bearing on the film’s status as a feminist work of art, but it does give one pause. Is it empowering for a female to use her sexuality to advance her career? Or is it degrading to whorishly sleep with the man who was, more or less, your boss? Does their sexual relationship have anything at all to do with the flick, aside from it being the reason they met in the first place? I just don’t know. What I do know is that if you rearrange the letters in ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’ you get ‘He Shags With A Whiny C*nt’. That can’t be a coincidence.
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What To Expect When You’re Expecting
The book that every first-time expectant parent receives and then never reads is now the movie that no one really wants to watch. Like Battleship and its board game, this is another film that tries to sell itself as an ‘adaptation’ of something that isn’t really adaptable. Also like Battleship, this film co-stars Brooklyn Decker. Despite her breasts participation in these films, I will not be seeing them. That can’t be a coincidence.
Indie actress and occasional mainstream actress Greta Gerwig stars in this rom-com about a recently dumped woman embarking on a series of wacky adventures in the hopes that it will help her come to terms with her being almost 30 and still single. So to recap this week’s DVDs so far, if you have a vagina and aren’t slavishly worshipped (and hated) for being the most beautiful woman in the land, you had better at least be makin’ some babies –the experience of which you aren’t equipped to handle without consulting a book of generic advice that can’t possibly cover every unique situation in which one might find themselves, but will surely make you aware that you are doing it wrong and are RUINING YOUR BABY’S LIFE. Failing getting knocked-up, at least make sure you have a man to handle you and your emotional instability, because if you get too old, your tits will sag and no one will ever want you. To be fair, I’m betting good ol’ Lola learns that she’s just fine without a man in her life. Or maybe not; maybe she ends up finding a man –and just in the nick of time. I could honestly see it go either way, because both outcomes are way over-used in rom-coms and this movie looks nothing if not formulaic. This film’s director, Daryl Wein, who, it must be noted is a 28-year-old man, co-wrote this flick with a woman named Zoe Lister Jones (who only turned 30 on September 1st). She’s also on Whitney, another paragon of insulting ‘feminine’ comedy. That can’t be a coincidence.
Eva Mendes plays Grace, a single-mom struggling to become the mature woman her too-eager-to-grow-up daughter needs her to be. She thinks she has to teach her daughter everything, but she comes to realize that even kids can teach adults a thing or two about life. Oh goddammit, DVD gods, why have you forsaken us? For f*ck’s sake, it’s already 9/11; everyone’s supposed to be all somber and contemplative and sh*t and you give us one crappy chick flick after another. What do you want from us? And don’t think I didn’t notice that the 3-D blu-ray of Titanic came out yesterday. I don’t know what your game is, but I’m on to you, with all these awful lady-films coming out on the same day –and on the anniversary of one of history’s greatest tragedies. That can’t be a coincidence.
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Goats
Whew. At least this one has some dudes in it. You may remember this one as that wacky comedy where David Duchovny plays a wacky philosophical goat farmer and Vera Farmiga plays a wacky hippie, and Ty Burrell plays a wacky absentee father. Holy hell, do I hate movies like this. You’re supposed to recognize the goat man as good and the father as bad, the mother as checked out, and the teen protagonist as not quite as mature as he assumes himself to be. By the end, the teen sees that his parents love him –but, like all people, they are also flawed and needing a bit of grace. Just so, the goat man, while full of wisdom, has obvious issues that he himself is running from, but that’s all OK because we are capable of love and understanding and forgiveness. Everyone’s happy –if still a little crazy. ;) The only problem is, you’re also all insufferable twats. Seriously, watch the trailer and I guarantee you will want to punch every single character that speaks. We have here a movie full of gaping assh*les and they called it Goatse. That can’t be a coincidence.
Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in this straight-to-DVD action flick. The synopsis:
An ex-mercenary known for finding missing children is hired by a mixed martial arts fighter whose daughter has been kidnapped.
F*ck and yes. Now we are talking. For a while there, I thought I was getting my first period, but I realize now it was just the usual rectal bleeding from my anal fissure. (Did you just click that link? What the hell is wrong with you? I bet you clicked that ‘goatse’ link, too.) For real, I don’t need to know any more about this movie to know it will be both terrible and awesome. Those being said, check this out: Van Damme’s 6 Bullets co-star is a dude named Joe Flanigan, who appeared in 99 episodes of Stargate: Atlantis. That show was a spin-off of Roland Emmerich’s film, Stargate. Prior to Stargate, Emmerich directed Universal Soldier, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. That can’t be a coincidence. Well, yes it can, and it almost certainly is, but nuts to that, I’ve got a theme going so I’ll just say it again. That can’t be a coincidence.
Sean Bean plays a British secret service agent tasked with personally tracking and eliminating a cell of terrorist suicide bombers targeting London. Funny thing about actors; one role can completely change how audiences look at you. Sean Bean used to be a character actor who specialized in playing duplicitous guys who end up betraying the protagonist and end up getting killed as a consequence. Then Game Of Thrones came along, and now we all think of him as the overly-virtuous noble hero that wouldn’t think of stabbing a foe in the back, and ends up getting killed as a consequence. So, thanks to his role as Ned Stark on that show, he can now star in films like this, where instead of being disgusted by the blatant racial stereotyping against people of Middle Eastern heritage, we can all say, ‘F*ck those bad guys up, Mr. Bean!’ which puts a wholly different (and awesome) image into our heads. Until we realize they tried that with the Johnny English films, and then it doesn’t seem so awesome. But this film does! It’s got Sean ‘Barfight’ Bean setting bad guys on fire. Plus, it co-stars a young lady named Tuppence Middleton, which may be the most British-sounding name since Benedict Cumberbatch, who –get this- was born in London…where Sean Bean currently resides. That can’t be a coincidence.
Ray Liotta plays the standard former-criminal-turned-honest-man who gets pulled back into a life of crime by an ex-con friend. You know the drill. The flick’s Australian, if that makes a difference. What’s the deal with Ray Liotta’s career? He makes plenty of awful looking movies like this one (let’s not forget, he was in that 50 Cent-has-cancer movie, All Things Fall Apart), but at the same time, he still lands roles in awesome looking films like Killing Them Softly, a Brad Pitt-as-badass-criminal flick, The Iceman, a Michael Shannon-as-badass-criminal flick, and The Place Beyond The Pines, a Ryan Gosling-as-badass-but-reluctant-criminal flick. Who is managing his career? Liotta claims Martin Scorsese offered him Mark Wahlberg’s role in The Departed, but that he turned it down. Why? To make some movie directed by one of The Kids In The Hall? Bullsh*t, Liotta, bullsh*t. You were in a Uwe Boll movie. And Wild Hogs. You claim that you’re just in high demand and get offered great roles that you can’t pass up, but it’s simply not true; the roles aren’t that great. You have six movies slated for 2013, with seven film credits for 2012, 2011, and 2010. Each. Nobody who is judicious in their role selection works that much. Even if all the roles were great, and again they aren’t, that’s not simple chance. That can’t be a coincidence.
Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Peter O’Toole and Bruce Greenwood star in this flick, about which Vince has already provided us with a nice blockquote:
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government’s attempt to secularize the country.
Yup, it’s a true story (did anyone else just get heartburn?), and ostensibly, a Christian one at that. Obviously, I was curious what The Dove Foundation had to say, but it seems as if this has slipped past their watchful eyes. So instead I checked out their review of Beverly Hills Chihuahua. They gave it four Doves, but do warn about the following: “male dog wants to lick inside female dog’s ear”, “the word ‘fool’ is uttered- twice”, “a man is hit by a door”, and “a ‘Day of the Dead’ is held which is really simply a day to honor ancestors of family members who are now deceased”. Given my presumptions regarding The Dove Foundation and its xenophobia (don’t dwell too much on my own hypocrisy here, thanks), I’m guessing that’s essentially what they would’ve said about For Greater Glory as well. I mean, they both take place in Mexico and have Andy Garcia in them. That can’t be a coincidence.
This made-for-TV movie aired on the Lifetime network. Normally that would be all I need to know to not bother even mentioning it, but this Lifetime flick is a true story (as one should assume) that stars Sean Astin and the dad from Family Ties. Oh, and it’s also from the Asylum. So now you know why I’m mentioning it. Sean Astin plays a dad to a newly-adopted child whose birth father is stalking the new family. As is the case in these absolutely true stories, the court system and police are powerless to act, so Sean Astin decides to man up and there are lots of hilarious shots in the trailer of him waving around a gun. This movie must be important to Sean Astin, as he too was adopted by his father, John ‘Gomez Addams’ Astin. Why else would the Oscar-nominated star of And They’re Off accept a role in such a sh*tty film? There cant’ be any other reason. That can’t be a coincidence.
There are a bunch of foreign films coming out today, so here’s a quick breakdown: Where Do We Go Now?, a film about Lebanese women attempting to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims. I’m not featuring it because I’m pissed the synopsis says ‘Lebanese’ and not ‘Lesbian’ like my stupid brain initially read. Also, clever move, marketing geniuses who decided to release this film on 9/11. Next up is We Have A Pope, a wacky comedy about a newly-appointed Pope, and his inability to do the job. They get him a shrink and he goes out undercover and rides the bus and plays volleyball and sh*t. For real. Then there’s Karate-Robo Zaborgar, which looks boring as hell for being about a karate-fighting robot that transforms into a motorcycle. I watched the whole damn trailer and never once saw so much as a single schoolgirl with an ass-rifle or squid tentacle creeping out of her panties. BORING. So that leaves us with Elles. Why am I featuring Elles? Well for one, it’s the only one of the lot to star Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche. Also, it’s about an investigative journalist researching the world of high-class teenage prostitution. Plus, it’s NC-17. Hmm. A bunch of foreign films, and the only one I bother to embed a trailer for is the one with explicit sexual content (but sadly, not in the trailer). That can’t be a coincidence.
Remember Ocean’s Eleven? Remember how Julia Roberts was in it? Well this knockoff stars her brother Eric. The twist this time is that the thieves are all disgruntled employees of the casino. So, it’s sort of like Ocean’s Eleven meets Tower Heist. Eric Roberts is the evil casino owner who screws the employees out of their pensions. The thieves all have jobs as janitors, florists, and repairmen, in other words, they are all low-level laborers. Low-level laborers who resort to theft, but justify it as sticking it to the white man exploiting them. Not to sound racist, but the film’s co-writer/director is a dude named Francisco Menendez. That can’t be a coincidence.
Tom Arnold, Tom Sizemore, Heather Locklear, and Beverly D’Angelo star in this drama about racial and class divisions. The story follows five Los Angeles families, with their children’s soccer team as the common thread among them. This film’s writer/director wrote this script way back in 1990, finally got to shoot the damn thing in 2007, and it is now getting a release in 2012. A 22 year journey and for what? A cheap Crash knockoff with Tom Arnold getting top billing. Even the title’s dissapointing. I half hoped it was going to be an ‘adaptation’ of the board game: Tom Sizemore’s driving around in a bright green car, having kids left and right, participating in art auctions, and landing on payday while Tom Arnold’s in a bright yellow car, having kids, needing car repair after an automobile accident, neglecting to buy insurance, and generally sucking at life. Oh, and they both periodically try to spin a giant goddamn wheel in the middle of town, only for it to not spin at all or come flying off of its mount and knock everything over. One could be a doctor and the other could be a journalist, if I remember the game correctly. The movie ends when one of them is the first to buy a big mansion at the end of the road, and they both decide to count their money to see who is richer (and therefore better at the game of life) but instead they both get bored and don’t bother just like I’m not bothering to have a point to this paragraph. That can’t be a coincidence.
Here’s the latest film from writer/director Victor Salva. You know Salva, don’t you? He’s the auteur behind the Jeepers Creepers films (with a third Jeepers Creepers flick on the way, naturally). He also wrote and directed Powder, that awful movie about the albino teenager who could control lightning (or something). He also wrote and directed Clownhouse, a horror film about three young boys getting ‘menaced’ by escaped mental patients dressed as clowns. Oh yeah, and while he was filming Clownhouse, he molested one of the child actors. For real, he went to prison and everything. In fact, Powder is –metaphorically- about his time in prison. He openly admits it. If you can, track down a DVD of Jeepers Creepers 2 and watch the special features. Salva’s constantly calling the male teen actors baby, sweetie, and sweetheart while giving them direction. It’s far creepier than the actual film, which, by the way, sucks and should be avoided. As for Rosewood Lane, it’s about a woman being tormented by her paperboy. That’s it. Oh, I guess at this point I’m obligated: It stars Rose McGowan. Rose McGowan…Rosewood Lane. That can’t be a coincidence.
If you have a dog wearing sunglasses on your box cover, you had better make f*cking goddamn sure you have a dog wearing sunglasses in the trailer. I’m too angry to even bother with the ‘coincidence’ shtick.
What a great title, huh? It just screams ‘please kick the ass of everyone involved with this flick’. Then there’s the synopsis:
Eugene Stimpson is a superhero… At least he plays one at birthday parties. When his high school nemesis Todd gets a job playing a rival superhero, Eugene must struggle to keep his identity secret while competing with Todd for the affections of the same girl. Can he keep his identity concealed long enough to make his move and defeat Todd, or will the mounting lies be too much for him to handle?
Yup, that sounds like a movie that needs an ass kicking. And that dude’s costume looks kind of like the costume from Kick-Ass. That can’t be a coincidence.
Speaking of clowns, here’s a horror movie about ‘em. I gotta admit, the trailer for this looks kind of good. Of course I’m an easy sell, because clowns terrify me -as they would anyone who watched the original broadcast of IT as a nine-year-old. (It had Jack Tripper from Three’s Company and Judge Harry Stone from Night Court –I thought it was going to be funny. True story.) Anyhow, if clowns scare you too, then this movie is for you, assuming you like to be scared. Plus it stars High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu. (What do you think is his favorite chicken recipe? If you say fried, you’re racist.) If you can’t handle clowns, today’s other new horror flicks include The Loved Ones (An Australian film about a psycho chick who tortures the guy who won’t take her to prom. Who knew Australians had proms?), Entrance (A girl thinks she’s being followed. Turns out, she’s right. Or is she? Maybe she’s the crazy person torturing her friends? Oh, that would be original.) Vile (A low-budget Saw knockoff starring Maynard James Keenan of Tool), and Dead Soon (Not soon enough, amirite?). Back to Scary Or Die, though, what the hell does that title mean? And what is Corbin Bleu doing in this movie? He’s a Disney man, for Christ’s sake. He should be in Nicolas Sparks flicks, or committing crimes while in a bikini like his former co-stars. What’s the deal, does he just have a thing for clowns? What kind of film maker says ‘I need the black kid from High School Musical for my scary clown horror flick‘? Who produced this thing? Oh, I see. Corbin Bleu produced it. That can’t be a coincidence.
And here’s another one with a completely nonsensical title. What’s a black rainbow? Rainbows are colorful, if one were black would it even be a rainbow? How could you tell? I needed answers, so I looked up ‘black rainbow’ in the Urban Dictionary, and it states that ‘black rainbow‘ is a freshly caught rainbow trout used as a vibrator. So is that what this movie is about, some kinky sex with a fish? Well, having watched the trailer several times, I’m still not sure. This movie looks weird, but also oddly fascinating. I’m down with weirdness-for-weirdness sake sometimes -I have to admit, I would totally watch this. Plus things get weirder: Beyond The Black Rainbow is the writing/directing debut of Panos Cosmatos. His dad is the late George Cosmatos, director of Tombstone, Cobra, and Rambo: First Blood Part II. You want to know what happens when you spend your formative years around Sylvester Stallone? Well, you can’t ask Sly’s son Sage, so instead check this film out. It alleges to be ‘a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons’. Dude spent his childhood around Rambo and now makes a f*cked-up drug hallucination fever dream set in the 1980s. That can’t be a coincidence.
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After The Triumph Of Your Birth
I really do like weird movies by the way. I’m genuinely interested in Beyond The Black Rainbow. I find weird movies endlessly entertaining, and that’s why I got excited by this film’s synopsis:
Eli Willits’ life compressed into a seven day, philosophical/geographic quest, from the barren emotional state of the high desert to the hypothetical promise of the ocean. Using a forgotten Los Angeles as a backdrop, four story lines converge in a film that examines the crossover between desperation and tenderness. Midway through the journey, a six inch tall female asks the questions: Who are we? What are we doing? A five inch tall female with wings provides an answer.
I couldn’t care less about the first part, but once they mention six inch tall people and wings, they had my full attention. It’s a shame that the trailer is such a let-down. Beyond The Black Rainbow looks like a film made by a genuinely insane person, whereas this looks like the self-satisfied video art-installation of somebody who thinks they are more clever, profound, and artistically attuned than anyone else alive. It looks like the ‘aren’t I amazing?’ work of somebody who is so smug that they even refuse to release their movie according to the standard Tuesday DVD release schedule, and instead delay it until Friday. ‘It makes a statement about consumerism, man.‘ Incidentally, this film is not out on DVD today, but is rather getting released on Friday, September 14th. That cant’ be a coincidence.
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Future World: City Of Mass Destruction
We’re closing out this week’s DVDs with a doozy of a plot description:
Set in a post apocalyptic landscape 28 thousand years into the future, “Future World: City of Mass Destruction” is an amazing vision of the last city on earth. After four atomic holocausts and the second Ice Age, only one city remains on our ravaged planet – a city on the edge of insanity, overrun by mutants and madmen, and largely controlled by the tyrannical Devoz Corporation. This dying metropolis is mired in the throes of a power struggle amongst the city’s final three corporate dynasties. The surviving corporation must in the end turn to a tribe of Amazon warrior women it once tried to destroy to save their dying planet. Visionary director Daniel E. Falicki guides you through a world of lesbian warriors, insufferable Grugs, a vicious Spider Queen, and a Blue Genie with loads of “smokable” fun! Are YOU ready to party like it’s the year 30,000? Then take a trip to FUTURE WORLD…
That synopsis gives me such a boner, you guys. Does the trailer live up to it? Well, I put this movie in the last spot -the spot usually reserved for the most awesomely terrible film I can find each week. That can’t be a coincidence.
There’s really not a lot going on in the world of Netflix instant streaming this week. The service has added only two films we’ve covered upon their DVD releases: Marley and Girlfriend. For this week’s suggestions, I thought we’d focus on a couple films from Snow White And The Huntsman’s Charlize Theron and also consider a couple films starring Cleanskin‘s Sean Bean. As is usually the case with these Netflix suggestions, I will focus on how much nudity the films provide.
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Aeon Flux
Charlize Theron is Aeon Flux (pictured above), a sexy assassin in this futuristic mish-mash of god knows what. I saw it and all I can remember is that Marge from Fargo had a really strange hair style. Still, if you like seeing Charlize Theron in skin-tight outfits, you won’t find too many better films.
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Reindeer Games
This is that Ben Affleck movie where he wears a Santa suit and tries to rob an Indian casino. Charlize Theron plays his girlfriend, and I have to be honest, the film isn’t very good. If you are in the mood for a deliciously horrible movie full of people who should know better (Gary Sinise is in this too), this may be the film to choose. Plus it’s got Danny Trejo. If Theron’s outfits in Aeon Flux weren’t revealing enough, check this flick out. (She shows her breasts.)
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Ca$h
I haven’t heard of this flick from 2010 until now, but it seemed worth mentioning because it stars Sean Bean and Chris Hemsworth (who plays this week’s titular Huntsman in the Snow White flick). Hemsworth is the honest man struggling financially, and Bean is the corrupt dude who lures Hemsworth into a life of crime. I have no idea if either of them go topless, but it is Rated R, so there’s some hope. Plus, the whole ‘$’ in place of the ‘S’ in the title is just so original and badass.
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Black Death
Sean Bean plays a medieval knight tasked with investigating rumors of a woman bringing the dead back to life. I saw this flick a while back and I remember being surprisingly entertained. That being said, I don’t remember if Sean Bean goes topless, but if you are really that hell bent about seeing him that way, check out Game of Thrones. (*Wink, Wink*)