Killer Klowns from Outer Space

My first by request movie review. Thanks Chris for suggesting the movie.
So what if Giorgio Tsoukalos was right and Ancient Aliens did visit us in the past but instead of gods they were clowns? And what if they came back in their big top tent spaceship and started killing people?  That is the question that Killer Klowns from Outer Space asks (I love that there is actually a quote about ancient aliens in the movie).  Obviously this movie is just another cheese fest from the 80's. 

As the title promises the movie is about killer clowns from outer space.  After seeing a meteor crash while making out two teenagers go and discover that it really was a space ship that looks like a circus big top.    After further investigation they find out that the clowns that live inside the space ship are there to kill people.  Using tracking balloon animals, killer popcorn, and cotton candy cocoons to kill their victims the clowns unleash mayhem on the town.  Debbie and Mike with the help of Debbie's ex-boyfriend Dave who is a police officer set out to save the town.  Dave figures out the only way to kill the clowns is to shoot them in the nose.  With the help of two idiot brothers who drive an ice cream truck they manage to save the town.

The movie is silly and funny with very little gore and not very scary.  With a rating of PG-13 you can barely consider this a horror movie.  But it was obviously meant to be just a wacky movie. Unlike a movie like Troll 2 which was made to be a serious horror movie but failed at it.  I love that the space ship is a circus tent, the fact that the popcorn kills people, and the crazy way Dave destroys the head clown at the end. The premise is extremely out there but the movie does not take itself too seriously and can be enjoyed for the pure silliness that it is.  This is the perfect movie for people who like those really silly horror movie and it is probably best enjoyed with a group of friends who love the same.
 

Two Cent Tuesday: Red State

Two Cent Tuesday where I review a movie I recently saw.
This week I got to see Red State on Video on Demand.

Red State is the newest movie by Kevin Smith the writer and director of movies like Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma.  The story about the making of the movie has almost as much drama as the movie itself.  From the start the movie was filled with controversy. Then at the premiere at Sundance the movie had protesters and Kevin Smith decision to self distribute was more of the talk of the festival then the movie himself.  After taking it on tour to different states the movie was finally released on VOD before a limited release in theatres later this month. 

The movie is about an ultra religious cult who decide that they need to do more then just protest gay funerals.  Led by a charismatic preacher Albin Cooper (Michael Parks) who everyone calls father.  When three teenagers go on the internet to find a women to have sex with they get lured into a trap set up by the cult.  After being taken captive they realize that they have to fight for their lives.  They witness someone else that was taken captive executed for being a homosexual then they realize they are next.  Meanwhile the  ATF is called in after a sheriffs deputy is shot.  The head of the unit is Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) who wants to take down the compound peacefully, but gets orders to take it with force so the ATF does not get embarrassed again.  An all out firefight ensues with an ending that is unexpected. 

As my friend told me before I saw it the movie is like Mallrats in Waco.  This is not your typical Kevin Smith movie. Some consider it a horror movie but it was more of an action thriller.  Which was pretty well written and directed for a guy who usually makes really ridiculous comedies.  The movie starts off as a typical Smith comedy about these three teenagers looking to score.  But takes a drastic turn to craziness.  The movie has some big stars including Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, John Goodman, and a small but great role for Kevin Pollak.  A lot of talk was given to Michael Parks for his crazy preacher I think John Goodman stole the movie with his ATF agent who is forced to question his morals and follow a direct order.  And of course the ending is something I never saw coming.  I love it when endings surprise me and love it even more when good endings surprise me. 
Overall: B+

Two Cent Tuesday: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of a movie I have seen recently

My mom was still in town and this time instead of seeing a Best Picture Oscar contender I dragged her to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. When I first heard that this movie was coming out I thought great another Planet of the Apes movie and thought it sounded stupid but when I saw the first preview I changed my mind and knew I had to see it. The movie won't be nominated for Best Picture but might get a nomination for special effects.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes or ROTPOTA as I like to call it is a direct sequel to the original Planet of the Apes. Although if you never saw the original this movie is a spoiler to the end. But if you saw the original and ever wondered how the apes conquered Earth this movie explains it. While trying to find a cure for Alzeimers Diesese a scientist (James Franco) test a new drug on some apes. It turns out the drug works too well and not only reverses the diesese but increases cognitive function in normal brain cells. He brings home Ceasar a son of one the chimps the drug was tested on. He shows incredible intelligence a becomes like a pet. When something happens and Ceasar is placed in a ape refuge he is mistreated he organizes an uprising that grows to more then just the refuge and they end up taking over San Francisco. At the same time a deadly virus is released that only affects humans. Leading to what will probably be another sequel.

The movie was pretty good despite being a little slow in the beginning. Of course you are waiting the whole movie for the apes to actually rise up. But once they do it is a treat to watch. The action is amazing and the apes look cool. It is one of the best action movies of the summer. The motion captured actors playing the apes did a great job especially Andy Serkis as Ceasar. I also liked how they tied it in to the original except for the part when the guy says the most classic line from the original "take your hands off me you damned dirty ape" no one can say it like Charlton Heston.
Overall Rating: B+

Two Cent Tuesday: The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

 Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently

In one week two people told me I should watch the documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Since it was on Netflix Streaming I decided to give it a try. What a crazy movie this was. Definitely one of the most outrageous documentaries I have seen in a while.

The movie follows the White family from West Virginia for one year. The White family is one of the most notorious families in West Virginia. A family of criminals the Whites live a very outrageous lifestyle. The head of the clan is Mamie White who introduces the family at the beginning of the movie. Mamie father was D Ray White who was mild celebrity for his tap dancing. After he was killed there seemed to be tragedy passed down to the rest of the family. Jesco White Mamie's brother is now a tap dancer and was the subject of a short documentary (by the same director) called The Dancing Outlaw. As we get introduced to the other people in the family we learn that violence and drug addiction is the norm. One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when Kirk White crushes up some pills and snorts them while in the hospital just after giving birth. To see how completely dysfunctional the family is and how much they embrace the outlaw status they have is jolting. It's just a typical day for them to go and pick someone up from jail or go to the bar and do drugs. The movie does not shine a very good light on West Virginia as one of the people they interview says that someone from the area came out of the tough life and went to M.I.T. why isn't anyone following him around with a camera? I am not sure why that is but the movie definitely makes me want to stay out of West Virginia. Is the movie making celebrities out of these people, it does feel like that a little. The end when Kirk finally checks herself into rehab is one of the more sobering parts but you get the feeling not much is going to change with anybody.
Overall Rating: B

Two Cent Tuesday: Rubber

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently

I read about this movie in some independant film magazines I got at Sundance.  They praised this movie for being unique and creative.  So, I was excited to see that it was currently on Netflix Streaming. 

Rubber is about a tire who has a mind of its own.  He wakes up in the desert and starts rolling around. He realizes that he has these powers to blow things up with his mind.  He starts by blowing up glass bottles then moves on to a rabbitt.  When he gets to a hotel he watches some TV and when the maid throws him out of the hotel he blows her up too.  Then the police are on the case and begin to hunt him down.  The whole time there is this audience watching from a hill top with binoculars. 

Well it is fair say it is one of the most original movies I have seen recently unfortunately it is one of the worst movies I have seen in a while.  It starts off kind of cool with a guy explaing to this audience  that all movies don't make sense and things happen all the time for no reason.  Then the audience starts watching the movie with the viewer and making their own comments.  Up to this point the movie kind of works for me.  But it gets real boring real fast.  It basically is a tire rolling through the desert.  I kept falling asleep it was so boring. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen but nothing did.  I guess I expected some great chase sequences or some sort of action but nothing. 
When I was in college I was known for making people watch bad movies.  Glad I didn't make anyone else watch this one. It ranks up there as one of the worst movies I have seen.
Overall: F

Two Cent Tuesday: Cowboys and Aliens

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently
Last weekend I saw Cowboys and Aliens on opening day. In fact I saw it at the first showing in the morning and watched it with a whole crowd of senior citizens. Guess I am getting old.

Someone asked me what Cowboys and Aliens is about. I said it is right there in the title.  It is about aliens invading the old west.  Simple but different concept.  I love the concept.  I have always loved alien movies while and have always been fascinated by the ancient alien theory which says that aliens have been visiting us since Biblical times.  So, it only makes sense that aliens had visited the old west and cowboys probably had seen them.  In the movie the aliens are not friendly and are kidnapping people from the old west town and stealing all the gold.  The only person who can save the town people is the fugitive Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) who has a mysterious gadget on his wrist.  He teams up with a rancher and ex war hero Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and a mysterious women(Olivia Wild) to fight the aliens.

There has been a lot made about this being James Bond meets Indiana Jones but people forget that it has happened before in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Sean Connery played Indy's father.  But it is still cool to see these two iconic stars in the same movie.  The movie is exactly what you would expect fun with some cool effects. Daniel Craig looks very cool in the movie but Harrison Ford doesn't look as comfortable playing an aging cowboy.  Ford grunts and growls his way through the movie. They should have got Clint Eastwood to play the cowboy no one can grunt through a movie like him.  But overall the action was cool and it is a great concept.  And I highly recommend checking out Ancient Aliens on the History Channel great show with some crazy theories. In fact the first episode of Ancient Aliens Season 3 was about UFO's in the Wild West. Ancient Aliens Official Website
Rating B

Two Cent Tuesday: Bridesmaids

I know this movie has been in theatres for a while now but I finally got around to seeing it.  Glad I did not only is it one of the funniest movies in a while but it is one of the few movies to take place in Milwaukee. 

While the movie is usually described as The Hangover with women I think it is more similar to Judd Apatow's The 40 Year Old Virgin which shouldn't be too much of a surprise since Judd Apatow produced this one.   The reason I think it is more similar to The 40 Year Old Virgin is that now only does it have the crude humor at its core it is a love story and a story of friendship. In the end you end up caring for the characters. 

Obviously from the title the movie is about a group of bridesmaids.  Lillian is getting married and has her best friend Annie as her maid of honor and 4 other girls as her bridesmaids.  Annie is going through a difficult time in her life and has a job she hates and no boyfriend of her own. So when Lilly says she is engaged it makes Annie feel like her life just isn't going anywhere.  But she is Lilly's best friend so she agrees to be the Maid of Honor and tries to do everything she is supposed to do.  But of course anytime you get a bunch of people together personalities clash and crazy things happen.  Annie feels that Whitney is trying to move in on her best friend and take over as Maid of Honor.  It turns into a battle of the two women trying to one up each other and since Whitney has a lot of money and always outspends Annie.  Meanwhile Annie loses her job, gets kicked out of her apartment, and ruins the first promising relationship she has had in a while all in hilarious fashion.  While you might be able to predict the end of the movie you will never expect some of the stuff that they do on screen.

Besides Kristen Wiig from Saturday Night Live who co-wrote the movie and is absolutely hilarious they breakout star of the movie is Mellisa McCarthy.  She plays the most outrageous character in the movie and absolutely cracks me up.  When they are discussing a bridal shower theme and she suggests a "Fight Club" theme where they all just start beating up  Lilly is one of the funniest parts of the movie. 

I read recently that this is the highest grossing R rated female comedy of all time.  What an odd category. It seems sad that we cant just say that it is a funny movie and it is making a lot of money. We have to say it is a female comedy.  Not sure why we need there to be male comedies and female comedies.  I guess I think funny is funny it doesn't need to be qualified with what gender.  I think what surprises most people is that two females wrote the movie and I guess females aren't supposed to have this kind of humor. My Rating -A

Two Cent Tuesday: Paranormal Activity 2

 

So here is my two cents on Paranormal Activity 2.

I was pretty excited to watch this movie as I loved the first one which was really creepy and an original take on the haunted house genre.  Typical with sequels this one failed to live up to the first one.

This was more of a prequel to the first one as we see the same characters from the first one before they experience their haunting.  This movie focuses on the family of the sister of the girl from the first movie.  If you have seen the first one you know the basic plot of this one. A family sets up a security camera and ends up capturing weird things happening in the house.

Now I don’t know if it is because I saw the first one in the theatre and I watched this on DVD during the daylight, or that I was kind of tired when I watched the movie, but this one seemed much slower than the first one.  I know the first one built up the tension and it was just little things that happened at first but this one seemed to take longer to get to the bigger stuff or the little things that happened just weren’t scary(oh no the pool vacuum cleaner is haunted scary).  Like I said I was tired when I watched but this movie didn’t help  I had trouble staying awake.  And even when things started to really get going it still didn’t have that punch the first one did.  Basically the only scary part was with the dog and you didn’t get to see anything.  I did  like how they tried to explain what happened in the first one and even left the movie open for another sequel which I am pretty sure will come out this Halloween but overall I felt this one was just boring and didn’t have the tension the first one did.  Rating D.

Two Cent Tuesday: Super 8

Welcome to Two Cent Tuesday where I give my two cents on a movie.  This week I will give my two cents about Super 8.  The new movie directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg.

Super 8 is about a group of kids in 1979 who are trying to make a movie using their parents Super 8 camera.  They sneak out one night to try and shoot a seen at a train station where they end up witnessing a horrible train accident.  After his accident weird things start happening in there quiet little town and they may have evidence of it on their camera from the accident.  It is up to these kids to figure out what monster was inside the train and has been unleashed on their town. 

The movie is a lot of fun.  It is meant as a throwback to early Spielberg movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET and Jaws.  For me it reminds me of another movie Spielberg produced and I loved as a kid The Goonies.  Just about ordinary kids going on this incredible adventure. In The Goonies it is after pirate treasure in Super 8 it is after an alien.  Still lots of fun. The kids in the movie are really cool.  Each has their own personality and while they may be stereotypical they are still a lot of fun.  The creature is OK it doesn't bring anything really new to the alien genre and the ending is a little cheesy on how they finally defeat the alien.  But the movie is really about kids having a good time and the adventure they go through.  During the credits they show the zombie movie the kids are making during the rest of the movie.  It is definitely worth sticking around for.
Overall a fun adventure movie that reminds me of the movies I loved as a kid.  B+

Movie Reviews Week Ending 5/29/11

Well I hadn't been to a movie in the theatre in almost 4 months but this week I made up for it. I ended up seeing three movies in three days this week plus a few more on Tv and DVD. I figured I would give a mini review and wrap up.

First on Wednesday I got free passes to a sneak preview of Attack the Block. An independent British sci-fi movie. The movie was recently released in the UK but has no release date in the US yet. To generate buzz for the movie they had a one time showing in 25 cities across the country. Luckily for me Chicago is close enough to drive to and I was able to get tickets. I enjoyed the movie. It was a lot of fun and really entertaining. The movie is about aliens that invade inner city London and these kids that try to fight them off. I love the movie because it doesn't take itself real seriously. There is a lot of silly drug humor and more then a few things that don't make sense but they are easily overlooked. The action is fun and exciting and the alien creatures are very cool looking. This movie is being compared to The Goonies one of my favorite movies of all time. Besides being about kids I don't think the two movies have much in common. Goonies is a feel good adventure movie where nobody gets killed and Attack the Block is a sci-fi movie where there are lots of people being killed.

On Thursday I saw the first of two documentaries this week that had their debut at Sundance. POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. This was directed by Morgan Spurlock the guy who made Super Size Me. And like Super Size Me this is an entertaining documentary. Spurlock has an over the top personality that is perfect for these documentaries. In this one he explores the world of product placement in TV and movies. He decided that he will make a documentary completely funded by product placement. The movie follows Morgan as he tries to get sponsors for the movies (not surprisingly no fast food place will do it). As he gets more sponsors he interviews directors and spokesman for products to find out how much influence advertisers have. While the topic isn't as serious as the one he tackled in Super Size Me he manges to make it fun even if in the end we are not really sure what he learned.

On Friday I managed to see the second film on my opening weekend must see list The Hangover Part II. This movie pretty much follows the same exact formula as the first but takes the jokes up a few notches on the gross factor. I guess if the formula isn't broke don't fix it because I laughed so hard during the movie. One of the few sequels that lived up to the hype.

Saturday I took the ay off from going to the theatre and watched the Netflix movie I have had for a while Love and Other Drugs. Being a pharmacist the story about drug rep intrigued me also when I found out that Anne Hathaway was naked a lot in it I had to see it. It wasn't too bad even if it had a sappy ending. Both Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhall were good in it and the story moved along pretty well even if there were some parts that were a little over the top.

Sunday morning I woke up and HBO was showing the documentary How to Die in Oregon. The movie won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance this year and wanted to check it out. The movie is about the controversial Death with Dignity law in Oregon. This law allows doctors to prescribe medication to terminally ill patients that will hasten their death. Basically an assisted suicide law that gives full control to the patients when they want to die. The movie follows one terminally ill patient as she decides to get the medications and her and her family's struggle with the decision of if and when to use it. The movie also show the struggle of a women who's husband died a very slow painful death to pass a similar law in Washington state. The movie brings up a lot of difficult issues and as my wife pointed out not the most pleasant movie to watch on a Sunday morning. I love documentaries that challenge me and can't wait to see it with other people to get their opinion.