Movie Scum

Written by: PBF Less Than Zero is a film adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. I have never read the book, but from what I can gather, the film takes many liberties, and much of the book is changed or left out entirely. So much so that when the movie was released, Ellis even refused to see it. After many years, Ellis changed his opinion of it, even stating that it would be a good idea to make a sequel to the film, based on his sequel to the novel called Imperial Bedrooms . The beginning of the film shows three friends, Clay (Andrew McCarthy ), Julian ( Robert Downey, Jr. ) and Blair ( Jami Gertz ) as they are graduating high school. They live in California and come from wealthy families. Clay and Blair are a couple. Clay goes to college, while Julian stays home to become a record producer. 6 months later, Clay receives a phone call from Blair asking if he will be home for Christmas. He tells her yes, and then has a flashback in which we learn that Blair al

With over a dozen films written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (not to mention the several dozen nominations and awards as well), it is fun to go back and watch their first venture into filmmaking and see the same traits that make their movies stand out now implanted in film over twenty five years ago. One of the most powerful movies I have watched over the past few years was the Coen’s No Country For Old Men and even with two decades separating them, I saw a lot in Blood Simple . that would come into play again and again in their films. The title comes from the novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett to describe the behaviors and actions of a person after a particularly traumatic experience. The first half of the movie is a slow burn as we are introduced to Ray and Abby, two budding lovers much to the chagrin of Abby’s husband who happens to be Ray’s boss. After Marty, the husband, receives confirmation of their adultery from a private investigator, he decides to have Ray an

Written by: Digger Duncan Jones ’ Moon is a science fiction story in the purest sense of the term. It concerns the plight of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) working alone on the moon running a facility that mines Helium-3 for an energy company back on Earth. Inside of the first scene the audience is crushed by the sense of isolation shown to us as Sam has only GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) the station Artificial Intelligence with whom to communicate. Through the simple premise of a man alone on the moon, this film explores speculative technology that leads Sam and the viewer on an emotional and introspective journey of what it really means to be human.

Here we are at one hundred reviews on Movie Scum and I thought it fitting for the honor to go to a Christopher Nolan film. Don’t like Christopher Nolan? Go away now. Anyway, we may actually be over that number due to dual reviews and other posts that may have been mislabeled but it is the thought that counts. And what a film to be at such a milestone as just like every other Nolan film I have watched, The Prestige is expertly put together and a thought provoking tale that demand multiple viewings to get a sense of the care taken in creating the story. As it stands currently on IMDB’s Top 250 at #72, The Prestige is a movie far better than I would have expected the story to allow. Based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest, the script is adapted by Christopher and his frequent collaborator, brother Jonathan Nolan and features many traits common to other Nolan films, most notably the lack of linear storytelling. I have found that normally filmmakers use an abnorma

Written by: PBF If you have ever seen the films of Kevin Smith , you will notice that he usually works with a lot of the same people in each one. Most, if not all of them are his friends, and it is quite apparent that they all have a passion for film. Smith's production company View Askew , has given us a few films that were made by some of these friends, and A Better Place , written and directed by Vincent Pereira , is one of them. Barret ( Robert DiPatri ) is a new student and is pushed around quite a bit. While he doesn't really fight back, he does somewhat defend himself verbally, and pretty much all of his altercations are stopped somehow before they progress. A teacher may come in to a classroom, or in one case because Ryan ( Eion Bailey ), steps in. Another student, Todd, is pushing Barret around, and Ryan expresses his concern that Todd never picks on someone his own size, and challenges him to a fight. Ryan ends up breaking Todd's nose, whereas he only gets

Twilight is one of only a few movies that I like in spite of the underlying story. As I am not a seventeen-year-old girl or a woman-of-a-certain-age or any other female in between, the bulk of the movie just does not appeal to me in the same fashion as other forbidden-romance movies do not. I watch movies to see things I cannot see otherwise and an angst-ridden love story can be found many times over without the fawning of females or the ire of everyone else in the middle.

Um, yeah. So, Gummo sure is a movie. If you got 100 people drunk to the point where they became “philosophers,” and then showed them this film, then allowed them to discuss it with one another, World War III would erupt. People seem to either violently like it or violently hate it. Gummo implants you in to a town called Xenia, Ohio after a tornado has devastated it, killing a lot of the residents (and their pets according to the half assed narration).  We watch several different characters as they meander through life, and I assume dealing with their losses, some more outwardly than others. These people are poor, filthy and some demented, the latter possibly a result of the aftermath of the tornado. The film is a bizarre mix of “home footage,” live action, and some folks even directly addressing the camera. There really is no plot as such; we are simply taken for a ride through this miserable existence, and left to glean whatever we like from it.

Written by: PBF The title of this film coupled with my categorization of "horror" might throw you off a bit. Those two words in reference to a film may conjure up images of really horrible acting and demons killing priests or something. You will not find that here. This, in fact, is probably not comparable to any other film you have seen. Here is the basic plot of Antichrist , as there is a lot going on. A married couple, whose names are never revealed, are making passionate love, when their young son Nic, falls out of a window to his death. The wife, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg , is incredibly grief stricken, and spends a month in the hospital. Her husband, played by Willem Dafoe , is a therapist and decides that she is not getting the help she needs and takes her home and makes her his "patient." She acts out violently through sex, is generally inconsolable and has sudden attacks of anxiety. Her husband decides that she must face fear and be exposed to it di

A few episodes ago, PBF and I talked about movies inspired by true events and I was rather dismissive of this film. Yes, The Blind Side is at its core a film more oriented towards female viewers that goes over the top with sentimental gestures of faith and love. But it does feature football and statistics have shown that approximately 94% of men either love or are interested in football. So, how does a sure-fire date movie turn into a Best Picture nominee? Michael Oher is a wayward young who has bounced from home to home after being separated from his mother several years earlier. He comes to study at the Wyngate Academy, a private Christian school attended mostly by the families of upper crust in society. His presence is an annoyance to his teachers due to his academic challenges and he stays mostly isolated from his affluent, caucasian classmates. After Michael is befriended by her young son, Leigh Anne Tuohy realizes that Michael has nowhere else to go and brings him home. Ove

Written by: PBF What a surprise, I am reviewing a Coen Brothers ’ (Joel and Ethan) movie. The hell you say! Movie Scum is nothing, if not consistent. A Serious Man is a glimpse in to Larry Gopnick’s ever unraveling life. As of late, he has been plagued with quite unpleasant yet sometimes amusing (to us) events and he is struggling to figure out “what’s going on.” This is a re-telling of the story of Job, set in the 1960’s. Job’s faith is tested through a series of events (stemmed from a wager between God and the Devil) and though he may question why he is being tested, his faith remains intact. You will need to watch the film to see how Larry fairs. In the library of Coen films that exists, I have seen much better. The film is still “good” in the sense that the acting was extraordinary and the story was very interesting. But somehow, these did not mix together into a what should have been an awesome picture (despite the Best Picture nomination). I think the film was directed

Written by: PBF Rule of thumb when making a film about drug addicts: I have to care about someone for it to work. I don’t really have to like them or feel sorry for them, but I should not feel indifferent toward them. Cocaine Angel has us following Scott, who is a drug addict, as he wanders around town looking for Mary and drugs. We basically are thrown into his life, stay for a spell and watch him (though a very shaky camera) interact with a few characters (all addicts, with the exception of his ex-wife and daughter), and then taken back out of it. It really is no different from the dozens of other movies that exist about this subject. The last point in the above paragraph is part of the reason that I didn’t really care for this film. It does nothing to distinguish itself in a sea of addict movies. Another reason that I did not like it is because I didn’t care about anyone. Not even Scott’s daughter. The acting was certainly not good enough for me to be anything but indiffere

As we had discussed in a previous episode, I had a general distaste for movies that were Best Picture nominees as they seem to be pretentious and boring, much like another George Clooney movie that I did not care for. This movie, much like the director’s previous effort Juno , make me rethink Up In the Air but with reservations. As we are introduced to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, we are thrust into his world of constant motion. He works for a contracted firm to break the bad news to workers that they are now unemployed. This job requires frequent traveling to the point that a vast majority of his time is spent in airplanes and hotels. He is for all intents and purposes a voluntary vagrant and he enjoys it. This is all threatened when fresh graduate Natalie Keener tries to revolutionize his industry by telecommuting and saving all of the travel expenses. As Ryan takes Natalie on the road to show her what she is getting into, he meets Alex, another wayward traveler with the same pench

Written by: PBF Law Abiding Citizen is cool. I did not expect to enjoy it that much, but I rather did. It’s not necessarily the type of movie I would seek out. Someone suggested that I watch, and so I did. I will first post this: *****SPOILER ALERT***** I do this because this movie has a certain progression and some events that would be a surprise to you might be ruined by this review. I don’t know that for sure, so I post that alert just in case. Read on if you like, but if you do and get pissed, it is now your own fault. Clyde Shelton ( Gerard Butler ) is the victim of a home invasion in which he watches his wife and daughter die. The men are arrested and are prosecuted by ADA Nick Rice ( Jamie Foxx ), who has a 96% conviction rate. Not convinced that he would win by prosecuting based on evidence and Shelton’s testimony, Rice arranges for one of the men to testify against the other, in exchange for a 10 year sentence, while they seek the death penalty for the other. Shelton

Written by: Digger Peter Jackson's directorial career has been one strange roller-coaster ride. I became aware of his work in the late 1990's when I and several of my friends discovered his early gore-fest movie Dead Alive (also titled Braindead ) and became instant fans. My classmates in high school were always yelling lines like "He's got, THE BITE!" in between classes. It was like the first drop on a rickety old wooden monster of a coaster; rough, and a little nauseating, but a hell of a lot of fun. After that I road the shaky turns of Bad Taste and The Frighteners still enjoying every minute. Then, in 2001, I sped into the smooth, polished, metal loops of a whole different monster with The Fellowship of the Ring . Don't get me wrong, it was still a great ride, just a different kind of ride. After that trilogy concluded, the coaster started to slow down with Jackson's somewhat underwhelming remake of King Kong and then the coaster sunk i

Written by: PBF I bet if I were to poll a small group of people, and ask them to list 5 or so Ben Stiller films, Permanent Midnight would probably not be on many of those lists. It does not follow the usual mildly amusing, wafer thin plot, same character in every film formula that Stiller employs. He plays a heroin addict. Ben Stiller plays Jerry Stahl, a real person, who wrote the book Permanent Midnight, a memoir of his descent in to and climb out of heroin addiction. This film is of course, based on that book. Stahl has written for the television shows Alf, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Moonlighting and CSI among others. In fact, he wrote the 100th episode of CSI, which is apparently is regarded as one of the best episodes of that series. He also wrote the screenplay for Bad Boys II . The time period of this film takes place when he was working on Alf and Twin Peaks. That being said, the film is a glimpse in to that part of his life, in which at some point he has a $6000 a

Like many people, I have a few "Top 5" or whatever denomination lists. Movies, music, tv shows, etc. Most of them, especially the music one, changes very often, sometimes by day. My movie list, everchanging as well, has always, since 2000, had Memento on it, usually at #1. I had read about this film before it came out and was quite intrigued at the concept. Bascially, it is about a man, Leonard ( Guy Pearce ) who cannot form new memories, and is trying to solve his wife's murder. The movie tells his story backwards, where each new scene you watch ends where the previous one began. He must keep notes and pictures and in some cases tatoos, to remind him of certain things and people. He usually forgets what is going on after about 5-15 minutes. He has normal memory up until the point of his wife's murder, an altercation in which he was injured, thus leaving him in his condition. I had never seen a movie like this before I entered the theatre that day. I was lucky enoug

My love affair with the movie Hannibal is long and twisted. At the time before its release, I loved its predecessor Silence of the Lambs for many reasons but primarily due to its legendary villain, Hannibal Lector. During the pre-production phase of Hannibal, it seemed to be dealt several marks against it from Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster dropping out as well as a general disdain for the ending of the book. I was still excited at the prospect though and even went so far as to go to an open casting call for extras as it was filming in my hometown. And then, on opening weekend in 2001, I saw the film with a friend of mine ... and I freaking hated it. I can't remember exactly why I did not care for it. At the time, and even more so now, I liked Julianne Moore but she just seemed rather out of place as Clarice. Perhaps it was also due to a drastic shift in tone or pace from the first (technically second) Hannibal adventure. But bottom line, I was ready to write the film off and