Uncle Northcott’s Movie Reviews

Well 2007 is over. I spent the year emulating monks thru quiet contemplation. I now realize that monks are full of bean ‘n franks, so the word for ‘08 is “binge”. Eating, drinking, body modification, heck everything. I think monk is short for monkey and who wants to spend their days throwing poop and chattering incoherently. Even I stopped that a few years ago.

Anyway, here’s my best/worst list for ‘07.

Good: Pan’s Labyrinth and Hot Fuzz. Pan’s Labyrinth is beautiful and sad while Fuzz was funny and over the top.

Better: Daywatch. Excellent good vs. evil sci-fi.

Best: No Country For Old Men. Great film from top to bottom, and should get many Oscar nods. A must see.

Whats brown and sounds like a bell? DUNG. That also describes the next few turds.

Messengers was a boring, non-scary horror film. Seraphim Falls was an incoherent mess. Children of Men was nonsense. My 2nd worst rectal cramp is Sunshine. Badly written, badly acted, and the single stupidest ending I’ve seen . . . maybe ever. Any other year, this thing would have taken the top spot.

And the big loser is: Spiderman 3. How do I hate thee?Let me count the ways.

1. Overlong.
2. Complete waste of a great villain, Venom.
3. Toby dancing like a gay West Side Story reject.
4. A copout plot device where a bad guy turns good at just the right time for the hero. Yes folks, this truly was 10 pounds of horse manure in a 5 pound bag.

How about some more good stuff to wash away the bad taste?

Best book: The Road by Cormac Mccarthy.

Best concert: Muse.

Best CD: Highway Companion by Tom Petty.

Best new T.V. show: Reaper.

Best cable show: Flight of the Conchords.

Best older show I just discovered: Corner Gas.

Great shows that ended: Tie between Black Books and Extras.

Best Porn: Made you look, naughty reader. You should be punished by spanking and tickling. You’re naughty, and thats what I like about You.

In all, an ok ‘07. Heres to an even better ‘08.

Hey, Dan Folger! Jack Black called, and he wants his DNA back.

Folger gives a pudgy, wild-eyed, twitchy performance where he’s obviously channeling Jack Black. Folger plays a ping pong prodigy who as a child goes to the olympics, where his dad bets on him. He fails, and the mobsters kill his dad.

Flash forward a few years and he’s doing ping pong tricks in Reno in a dingy theater were he’s recruited by the FBI to infilterate a ping pong tournament run by the same criminals who killed his dad. The crime lord is played by Chris Walken who chews so much scenery that he could crap out enough props for a broadway play.

This comedy is a parody of Enter The Dragon and The Karate Kid. The funniest stuff are the training scenes with the great James Hong as a blind ping pong master. The hot Maggie Q plays the love interest but has little to do.

Is it me, or has Walken stopped acting and now he’s the worlds greatest Christopher Walken impressionist? What happened to the Dear Hunter True Romance guy? The man has an Academy Award and all he does now is parody himself. I guess with the films he makes now he doesn’t have to stretch himself. Being in multiple Adam Sandler movies is like putting a badger in your pants–you’re going to get a few scars to your talent. Balls Of Fury is an ok comedy, short, not too vulgar, and if you liked Dodgeball, you’ll like this one.

Prepare yourself for the sacrilege boys and girls, but this one is better than the original. Yes, yes, the original is a classic, but this one has an advantage . . . nothing supernatural.

Michael Myers, Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, Shia Labeouf are all unstoppable, unkillable evil machines. This makes the killers uninteresting and their films repetitive. Same thing over and over. You know, repetitive. Over and over. Killer wakes up, kills teenagers (no problem here, I work in a mall so I know) 1 or 2 survive the carnage and the killer is burned, frozen or whatever till the next installment.

Yawn.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween has a more psychological storyline: Child abuse=animal abuse=serial killer. This seems to be the pattern when I read about maniacs in the newspaper. This and “He was a very quiet man, very quiet we didn’t expect him to snap.” No kidding.

The first Halloween showed little of Michael’s childhood, whereas this one shows how Michaels environment created the killer. A far more realistic telling of a serial killers path. Some scenes from the original are used in the new one, but a whole new take on the subject is in effect here. This Michael picks and chooses his victims logically. Daeg Faerch, who plays young Mikey, is suitably creepy, by turns sympathetic then violent.

Good performances, sad story, violent and scary. If you like horror films, don’t miss this one.

Next:Balls of Fury

“War what is it good for absolutely nothin” Except a good movie that is. What happened in it, you say?

FISTFIGHTS! GUNFIGHTS! SWORDFIGHTS! EXPLOSIONS! FIRE!FAST CARS! NICE SUITS! JET LI! JASON STATHAM! SUPRISE TWIST ENDING! THE YAKUSA! THE TRIAD! TATTOOS! PLASTIC SURGERY! THE HOT LATIN CHICK FROM MY NAME IS EARL! ONE RANGE ROVER! EXPENSIVE ART! THE HOT ASIAN CHICK FROM SIN CITY! BIG BANG BOOM! CHECK IT OUT! NOW!

Go on, we’ll wait. pow

Kidman-Craig=BORING. Discuss