Retro Week In Cinema: May 09-15, 2013

I’m pretty sure that lifting my house up into the air with balloons would not solver our plumbing issues!

Some animation, a little bit of incest, and some robot porn,

Up (2009, Pete Docter & Bob Peterson, United States Of America) ****

It’s not on the level of WALL·E, but it’s still great. There were a few things that are still rattling around in my brain that I’m undecided on, so maybe I will return to this later. But, it looked great, had great characters, was funny, touching and tied the story and everything else together with the theme very nicely.

Lone Star (1996, John Sayles, United States Of America) ****

I really, really loved this movie up until the finale at the drive-in, then my mind was just blown. I did not see that coming until the truth telling in the bar, but even then I didn’t think John Sayles would actually go there. But he went there, and he didn’t even “ewwww” go there, he went “we don’t give a shit how sick it may be, we are going to keep banging each other” there. Besides that awesome shock factor, it was a brilliantly constructed movie, the way the past was integrated into the story was always great to see. But, more than anything this movie made me realize two things,

1) Elisabeth Pena is a really good actress, why was I not aware of her being this good?

2) Chris Cooper can never be bad, in anything, it’s just not possible, and he’s an easy finalist for most underrated actor of all time.

Me And You And Everyone We Know (2005, Miranda July, United Kingdom/United States Of America) ***

I don’t know, I’m still up in the air about this one. It was a little too indie for my liking, creating scenarios and people that were too fake for my liking and then asking us to feel emotion for them when all of a sudden the fake veneer is dropped for a realistic one. I do really like John Hawkes though, and it had moments that I found really funny, or well acted, or sort of cute, or weird in a good way. But, it was terribly uneven, and some threads seemed to exist just to pile on to a message that didn’t need any piling on, so I still don’t know.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009, Michael Bay, United States Of America) 1/2*

I laughed a few times, and when she hides her toe thumbs Megan Fox is quite nice to look at. But the stupidity of the entire thing and Michael Bay’s unrelenting movement of the camera was just too much to get around.

You have a small scene, a tender moment if you will, Megan Fox and Shia Lebouf are discussing love right before he leaves for college, and the camera circles around them as fast as possible the entire time, just stop the god damn camera already, give your damn film some room to breathe. Then there were the action scenes, where once again half the time you can’t tell what is what, who is doing what, why anything is happening, etc..

I believe this pearl of wisdom from Megan Fox says it all, “We’re here, under the sky and the stars, and three of the most beautiful pyramids.” As opposed to what Megan Fox, the two other ugly pyramids that we don’t know about. Then again, apparently for thousands of years no one noticed what was really going on with the pyramids. My brain hurts.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004, Quentin Tarantino, United States Of America) **

What a waste of time, so freaking boring. Let’s talk, and talk, and talk some more, hey, there’s Michael Madsen to make things interesting for fifteen minutes. Goodbye Michael Madsen, hello more ludicrous and stupid training/fighting. It’s time for the great finale, oh hey, let’s talk some more and bore Bill to tears. Oh yeah, let’s just steal shots wholesale from Sergio Leone, the Shaw Brothers and other people who actually made great movies, that will help this movie. Ugh, boring and stupid.

Wrap-Up:

Lone Star made a strong push, but in what was an interesting week to say the least Up takes home retro movie of the week honors. I’ll be back next week with five more retro capsule reviews!

Cheers,
Bill

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