Predators, Winnebago Man & The Girl Who Played With Fire
PREDATORS
I’m sorry, but I don’t share the same enthusiasm that most people have with the Predator re-boot. I mean it’s better than the one with Danny Glover or any of those Alien vs. Predator movies, but it aint as great as a lot of critics and movie-goers are making it out to be. If Predators, sequel to the original, actually had a beginning and a completely re-worked 2nd half, this would’ve actually been a damn good movie. Unfortunately Predators is a kind of a mess. However at times it’s a fun mess (if that makes any sense). The plot is just another re-hashing of the 1920’s short story & film The Most Dangerous Game (humans being hunted like animals in a secluded jungle). We’ve all seen this theme explored before in other movies like; Surviving The Game, Hard Target, Naked Prey and Battle Royale. In this version of Predators, the Aliens are now abducting who they feel are the best killers on planet earth, and dropping them off on their planet so that they can be hunted for sport. The group of abducted killers is pretty similar to any other ragtag group you’d find in a Predator/Leviathan/Aliens-type movie; The white guy who automatically takes charge (played by Adrian Brody doing his best Snake Plisken/Christan Bale Batman voice), The black guy (take a wild guess at how long he lasts), The tough latin chick (played by Sofia Varga. I guess Michelle Rodriguez was busy…), the quiet and mysterious Japanese Yakuza assassin, The Russian guy, The Mexican guy, etc. Once they all realize why they were abducted and whats going on, they join forces to fight the Predators. And just like any other movie of this genre, each member in the group gets taken out one by one (and if you consider that a “spoiler”, name me a Predator movie where that’s never happened before). There’s also a pointless subplot that involves two different Predator species at war with one another. Like I said before the movie is a fun mess at times. So no matter how hard you try to make sense out of stupid parts in the movie, chances are you’ll still enjoy yourself when you see it. You may even find yourself laughing at parts that I’m sure weren’t intended to be funny. There are some nice references to not only the first Predator film, but other classic films ranging from Aliens to Seven Samurai. In fact, I found the best scene in the film to be the one-on-one samurai fight between the Yakuza guy and one of the… predators. Never in a million years would I have expected a predator movie to reference a Samurai film by legendary director; Akira Kurosawa. So check this out if you just wanna be entertained and amused at the same time. If you’re expecting something on par to the original Predator, you’ll be disappointed.
WINNEBAGO MAN
Along with Best Worst Movie, this is the best documentary I’ve seen so far this year. Winnebago Man follows former Winnebago salesman; Jack Rebney, and documents how “the worlds most angriest man” deals with his newfound popularity as a “youtube celebrity” after an old embarrassing video of him surfaces on youtube and becomes a big hit. The video, for those of you who haven’t seen it, are hilarious outtakes of Jack Rebney, cursing and swearing between messed up takes of a commercial he’s trying to make for the Winnebago company. What sets the Winnebago man video apart from others like; Tay Zonday or The Star Wars Kid is that not only is it one of the earliest videos to become famous on youtube, but it was also a pretty famous video on the underground vhs tape trading circuit along with other stuff like faces of death, which was around long before youtube. Early on in the film, we see that the same guy from those Winnebago bloopers is just as angry today. Jack Rebney is easily one of the most unique and interesting people I’ve seen explored in a documentary. EVERYTHING agitates him, any little thing sets him off, every other word he speaks is either; fuck or shit and he hates almost everything about modern-day society ranging from; politics, Dick Cheney, technology and pretty human beings in general. At times his behavior almost seems like a mild case of tourettes syndrome. Now, I mentioned Best Worst Movie earlier, because these 2 documentaries really go hand-in-hand in with one another. Both films document “ordinary” people dealing with a (sometimes unwanted) cult status, but eventually coming to terms with it. Both films also follow their subjects around to festivals and screenings dedicated to them, as well as document the interaction they have with their fans. The only difference between Jack Rebney and the subjects of Best Worst Movie is that Rebney is much more difficult to deal with than the easy going cast members of Troll 2. My one and only issue with this documentary is that for a character study that this film is, we don’t really get much info about Rebney’s past, mainly due to the fact that he absolutely refused to discuss any of that. But what the film lacks in information about Rebney’s past, it makes up with just about everything else. There’s hardly a boring moment, and as corny as it sounds, it may even make you wanna reflect on your own life or someone you know like Jack Rebney.
THE GIRL THAT PLAYED WITH FIRE
This sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is really different. All of a sudden Lisbeth, our heroine from the first film, goes from skilled computer hacker to the female Jason Bourne overnight. While the first film was a well paced thriller/drama/neo-noir, the sequel is a gun shooting, espionage, action film that doesn’t go together well with its predecessor. In fact this film reminds me more of a sequel to something like District B-13 or Ronin than it does to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In The Girl Who Played With Fire, we pick up with the same characters a year later. In this new adventure, Lisbeth is being framed for murders she didn’t commit that are tied to a Russian prostitution ring, and the only person who can help clear her name is her former partner in crime; Michael Bloomkvist, who hasn’t seen or spoken to her in a year. In this film, not only does Lisbeth have pretty good fighting skills all of sudden, but it seemed like half of the characters in this movie just randomly knew karate. Sounds pretty different from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, doesn’t it? By the end of the movie, it gets totally unbelievable. I mean, how is it possible for someone to get shot 3 times, buried and still manage to dig themselves out and escape? Yeah, I dunno either, but stuff like that happens this movie. Weather this film stays true to the book it was based off of or not, its still not that great. After this movie, I’m not really looking forward to the third and final part (The Girl That Kicked The Hornets Nest).
-Marcus
September 5th, 2010 at 8:59 am
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