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2009 Winter Video Roundup, Vol. I

1/1/09

"Jonestown:  The Life and Death of Peoples Temple"

Uhh, let me see if I've got this right--a white guy born poor in Indiana hates his racist town so much that he sides with black folks and moves to California, where he starts a church with thousands of members by the mid-1970s, he dongs hundreds of male and female parishioners, he runs for and wins the director job for the San Francisco Housing Commission, he goes totally insane, and somehow convinces nearly a thousand people to move to a remote part of South America where he establishes his own community and then...gets all of them to commit suicide?  Yeah, you need to see this!  Good stuff, just not exactly a pick-me-up.

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"Taxi to the Dark Side"

Well, with "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" and any number of other dirty-Americans-in-Iraq documentaries, you should know that we are really doing a great job of fucking up our international reputation.  This one won an Oscar for its storytelling, so it does an even better job of highlighting how many things we have done wrong with our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how badly we are treating civilians and prisoners in general...case in point is this film's focus on a taxi driver who is wrongly imprisoned, tortured, murdered and then nearly covered up by dirty U.S. military handlers.  God Bless America...

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"Planet B-Boy"

Entertainment in the multiplexes is hit-or-miss, but in this documentary, you get it all--Olympic-style dance battles between nearly 20 different countries for the right to be known as top dog in the b-boy/break dancing/battles universe.  Covering the influences on this style of dance, hip-hop culture in general, and how bad-ass Korean and Japanese dancers really are (nice job, U.S.A.!), "Planet B-Boy" is a ton of fun and Meg and I both loved this soundtrack so much we used the Interweb to find out how we can get ourselves a copy.  Don't worry--you don't even have to know how to dance to love this film.

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"Home of the Brave"

This straight-to-video product is hilarious in its awfulocity.  Case in point--Jessica Biel, a non-actress in my humble opinion, plays a U.S. soldier in Iraq who just happens to be great at basketball, until her hand gets blown off in an IED attack the day before she is set to return home (shocker #1).  Shocker #2: she gets home and in EVERY SCENE, does something where her new plastic hand falls off or fails her in a way that, sadly, WILL make you laugh out loud.  Samuel L. Jackson also stars as a returning U.S. doctor who witnessed atrocities while in Iraq; shockingly, he, too, is suffering from hallucinations, sleep deprivation and the occasional violent outburst.  50 Cent also stars as a soldier who has anger issues that he can't control after losing a buddy in Iraq; he has three scenes after he returns from the war.  In the first, he loses it during a counseling session.  In the second, he visits an old girlfriend, who rejects him because he has anger issues.  In the third, he loses it, and gets shot by the cops.  I wonder why this never made it to theaters?

Rating:  Hard Vice

"Samurai Champloo"

This funky hip-hop ninja cartoon is like "Afro Samurai", except it doesn't suck.  Combining lounge and funk music with cool artwork and a never-ending story concept (two wandering ronin and a shopkeep's daughter wander Japan looking for another samurai), "Samurai Champloo" comes in a 20-minute-per-episode format and the first five discs are pretty cool and occasionally very funny...but, by disc six, you can tell that ownership changed hands because the stories aren't as interesting and the artwork changes a bit...so, rent the series, and stop watching after 20 episodes.  Good stuff, so thanks to whoever it was that made me add this to the queue many moons ago.

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Bangkok Dangerous"

The Pang Brothers directed the homegrown version of "Bangkok: Dangerous" a few years ago, and it was okay, but nothing that warranted a remake of their original.  But, Nic Cage and the Pang Brothers came together to remake it nevertheless last year...uhh, no.  First, in the original, the main hook was that the hitman was deaf, so that made his sneaky kills somewhat cool because he relied on his other senses to make the hits.  In the remake, Nic Cage not only has access to all of his senses (but, he does have a bad haircut), but he even has a ladyfriend who works in the local pharmacy...and, naturally, SHE is the one who is now deaf in the remake.  (???)  The action is not bad, but the stuff in-between those sequences really, really sucks and you can almost see Cage cashing his check as he "works" through his scenes.  Can this guy fall any further?

Rating:  Rental

"In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"

On the advice of Dave Bell, I had to know--just how fucking bad can a movie be?  Uwe Boll, one of the worst directors of our time, somehow got Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, and even that guy that played Sallah from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to show up in this absolute dogshit film, released quietly in January of last year...wow, you almost need to watch this just to know what a true train wreck looks like.  Wow, this is fucking atrocious!!!

Rating:  Hard Vice

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars"

Talk about lather, rinse, repeat--in this animated film version of events that happen in-between the "Star Wars" prequels, Anikin and Obi-Wan fight against Count Dooku mainly by deflecting red laser bolts, slashing robots, then changing battlefields to do it again.  This goes on for 80 minutes and then the movie ends.  You get terrible kid-based humor, lame attempts at rivalries, lots of heads getting lopped off (mostly robot heads, anyway), and at least five scenes where those robots that can roll and unfurl with shields show up.  Lucas had nothing to do with this film and now I can see why...straight atrocious, but it does look decent on Blu-ray.

Rating:  Hard Vice

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)