Time Wasters Inc.

About two weeks ago I watched one of the most fucked up seventies movies that I have ever seen

“A Boy and His Dog”(Torrent)

This movie is something that I would usually try to avoid, it’s a low budget seventies sci-fi movie. I was however watching it with some friends, so I decided to give it a shot. I can’t really say that I liked this movie a lot. The acting was ok, considering the story. Don Johnson from Miami Vice is the main character, and he’s actually pretty likeable, and he has a talking dog sidekick which I also enjoyed for the most part. The rest of the actors are pretty average and their characters are not likeable at all, so it’s hard to judge the performance that well. The special effects are mostly non-existent and stupidly bad when they do appear. The story is somewhat interesting, but there’s really not much of an arc, if you consider it deeply at all. The ending has a nice little joke, but that’s about it. I really can’t say that I’m happy I watched it, but I can’t say that I’m incredibly angry either. It was just seventies fluff, and I guess I don’t appreciate that very much, unless it has something above average to draw me in.

(5 and 1/2 out of 10)

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About 2 weeks ago now, I watched what many people consider to be the most realistic time travel movie ever made.

“Primer”(Torrent)

This is by far one of the most confusing movies I have ever seen. It is the story of two entropeneuring engineers who accidentally build a time machine in their garage. It was made by first time non film makers and was done very well considering the circumstances. The acting is not really acting, but just these guys being themselves for the most part, it seems like they just acted the way they would if they had actually just traveled through time. The story while very interesting, is a storm of confusion with no end. I honestly can’t tell you what happened in the last 10 minutes of this movie. So that really detracted from the movie for me, but everything else was excellent indie movie fair. I liked it, I just wish that I understood it more.

(6 and 1/2 out of 10)

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About a week ago, I checked out the new Pixar film in Digital 3D.

“Up”(No Source Yet)

Overall I have to say that this was one of the best pixar movies that I have ever seen. It is definately on the same level as something like Toy Story, or Monsters Inc. The story was simply moving, there’s no better way to put it, I was sad and feeling deeply for characters 10 minutes in. The animation style is also one of my favorites, it’s very realistic, but it still feels somewhat surreal. I also very much enjoyed the 3D aspect of the movie, it was not distracting and it really added something to the action sequences. The only complaint that I had was that story was not in depth enough, but it’s a minor gripe. This may be the best film of the summer, at least the best family film. I would definitely recommend this one.

(9 out of 10)

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About a week ago I decided to check out the other movie that was made centered around the character of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

“Where the Buffalo Roam”(Torrent, Streaming)

I find it very hard to judge this movie as fairly as I could have if I had reviewed it before Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I do think that I would still believe this is the inferior of the two, but having seen Fear and Loathing, this seems to be much, much worse. The way that Dr. Thompson is portrayed overall, just seems very silly, and very self serving. Also the film makers seemed to only focus on the crazy parts of his life and none of the actual serious political parts of the stories he wrote. The main problem is that they didn’t want to adapt a single story and make it with range, instead they chose to take the craziest aspects of a bunch of different stories he had written and wrap them all into one loose story to illustrate how crazy this man’s life suppossedly was. So in this respect the writing fails miserably. The other aspects of the writing are ok, they do take some dialouge directly from some of the books, but for the most part, it’s not too great. The acting is what I would call slightly above average, Bill Murray does an excellent job with his portrayal, especially the voice, but it is still hard for someone of my generation to lose myself in a performance of Bill Murray’s without thinking of things like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, the man is now an icon, and it just detracts from what he’s trying to convey in a role that was made for a character actor. The guy who played Lazlo did allright, although I don’t have anything especially good to say about him. The rest of the cast was pretty much background noise for those two and as such they don’t try very hard.

This is an average movie, that comes from far more than average source material. It is ok, but should be so much better. I would really only reccommend it to people who are big Hunter S. Thompson fans.

(5 and 1/2 out of 10)

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Over the past few days I have seen this movie, which is based on a T.V. show that I never cared about, twice.

“Star Trek” (2009 Film)(Torrent)

This film has done the impossible. It has turned me into a Star Trek fan. I never really liked the original show, and had in fact mocked the super fans of the series, as I was a very big Star Wars fan. But this movie redeams every aspect of the series in ways that I could not even imagine. The story is one of the greatest sci-fi efforts of the past ten years, it even manages to account for the original series and keep itself in continuity, which is one of the biggest hurdles that had to face for many people. I won’t comment much on the story except to say that it is very well written, with the exception of what I found to be some slightly cheezy dialouge. I don’t want to spoil the plot, just trust me, it’s awesome. By far, the best part of this movies is the acting. The performance of Chris Pine as Kirk is the biggest breakout role of this decade. That guy has star written all over him, and hopefully he will reach success far beyond Kirk in a fashion the opposite of William Shatner. Sylar did a good job as Spock too, although I will always have trouble with the fact that I’ve seen Spock go insane and kill people with mind bullets on Heroes. The rest of the cast is also very good, the other ones worth mentioning seem to be Simon Pegg and John Cho. I have always loved John Cho since his performance in American Pie and the short lived WB show “Off Centre”. Most people became familiar with him through the Harold and Kumar films, not that it matters, what does matter is that he has finally been entrusted with a serious role in a major film and he completely pulled it off and then some. Simon Pegg is somewhat the oddball of the group as he is the only one who is obviously doing a direct impersonation of the original actor from the series. But it doesn’t matter much, as his excellent Scotty impression provides comic relief in a unique way.

I urge anyone who thinks that they will hate this movie because of the title to check it out, I promise you won’t be disappointed, at least not too much.

(8 out of 10)

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Over the past few days I first read a book by one of the most celebrated journalists of all time, and then watched the movie based on that book.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”(Film Torrent, Book Torrent)

This is quite possibly the best piece of journalism ever written, in my opinion at least. Almost everyone acknowledges that it can’t be entirely true, but it is still very compelling and interesting. It is the story of a Journalist named Raoul Duke, who is actually Thompson, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo. They basically decide to trip on almost every drug known to man, as well as drink and smoke pot, in a weekend in vegas where Duke is supossed to be writing stories about a motorcyle race and a police officers sumit on dangerous drugs. This story is one of the best executed forays into surrealism that anyone has ever recorded. It is just the right amout removed from the real world, it’s very crazy, but not so crazy that it’s boring or confusing. I won’t ruin any of the aspects of the actual story, but the main theme of the book and the movie to a somewhat lesser extent, has nothing to do with the actual story. The book is subtitled, A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, and on that note it definitely delivers. Most of the book is about the vegas story, but some of it is memories or just plain rambling. The entire time the characters say that they are looking for the American Dream. But by this time in history it is clear, both through this novel and his other writing in context, that Hunter Thompson was pretty sure the American Dream was either dead, or dieing. The most powerful part of the book, which I’m not sure is also true of the movie, is the chapter about San Fransisco in the 1960s, and the way the world was moving. Hunter is so sentimental for 1960s San Fransisco that it makes even people from my generation stop for a moment to mourn the loss of what our fathers generation had or might have had.

In short the movie is a crazy thrill ride, and the book is an intellectual sleeping giant that will change the way you think of the world in one way or another. It usally takes me about 3 months to read books, I read this one in 3 days. I would strongly urge anyone who hasn’t seen or read this story to do both. I watched the movie years ago, then read the book, then watched the movie again, and I was very satisfied. So I would say if you have to watch the movie first, you will still enjoy it. But I would have to recommend reading first, then watching, so you can pick up all the little things that slip by so fast in the movie.

Book(10 out of 10)

Movie(9 and 1/2 out of 10)

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Last night I watched the movie that is the adaptation of the book I reviewed about a month ago.

“Eragon”(Torrent)

This is most blatent and outragious raping of a book to turn it into a movie that I have ever seen. I think my friends assesment that I mentioned in the book review is extremely accurate. Everything is either changed to the point it’s not recognizeable or is so horribly out of order that I was yelling at the screen. This is just a horrible abortion of a movie, and visual design and acting do not do anything at all to improve it. I would not watch this again…. for any amount of money.

(1 and 1/2 out of 10)

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Last night I watched Danny Boyle’s follow up to one of my favorite movies, Trainspotting.

“A Life Less Ordinary”(Torrent)

I think this was a pretty good movie. It seems to me after watching many Danny Boyle movies, that they can either go one of two ways, either they are totally grounded in reality, or they are mostly grounded in reality with a fantastical element or two. This would be one of the second order. And the main downfall of this movie is that the fantasy elements just don’t work, at least for me. To me those elements in this movie are too abstract and they interfere with the main plot too much for me to ignore them. The acting is one of the better qualities of this one. The cast is almost nothing but stars, either present or future from when this movie was made(1997). Overall I’d say this one is ok, but don’t expect something great out of it.

(6 and 1/2 out of 10)

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I just got done watching a John Leguizamo movie directed by someone who usually directs stand up comedy.

“The Pest”(Torrent)

This is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. It is pure 90s fluff to the fullest extent. It is very reminiscent of Mad TV, and even has one of the actors from Mad TV, Aries Spears. This movie is about John Leguizamo, who plays the character of Pest, a hip, crazy, scamming, annoying, Latino in 1997 Miami, who is kidnapped by an eccentric German man who wants to hunt him and mount his head on a wall. This is nothing but John Leguizamo trying his best to be funny and crazy like Jim Carey… and falling flat on his face. This is the main reason that most people like it, they take the horrible comedy as intentional genius on Leguizamo’s part, I did not. Although the acting is actually the best part of this movie. The place where it really fails is the writing and directing. Every line of dialogue in this movie is either intentionally cheesy, or intentionally stupid for the sake of silly comedy. If this sounds like something you want to endure for about 90 minutes then knock yourself out. As for me, I would rather boil my hands in piranha infested water.

(2 out of 10)

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Last night I watched a little bit of an older movie, that was Ben Stiller’s first foray into directing.

“Reality Bites”(Torrent)

This is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time. I can definately say that I will look forward to the next dramedy that Ben Stiller directs. Having seen his screwball side in all of the other movies that he has directed (Tropic Thunder, Zoolander, The Cable Guy), I much prefer this side of his directing. He does it so well, and it’s sad that he’s almost totatlly abandoned that in recent years for very silly comedies that he has stared in. This movie is the story of college graduates trying to find their place in the world in the early 1990s. This movie captures the feeling of not knowing what to do with your life so perfectly, it’s scary. I’m still in college, but the fear of the real world is still slowing creeping up on me. And I know that this movie expresses that feeling genuinely, because I feel it right now. But it also goes deeper than just that, it deals with basic human emotions. This is one of the movies that could be shown to other cultures to express how ours feels about love, and the mystery of life. I can’t recommend this movie enough, if you don’t like it, then you and me probably wouldn’t get along very well. Nothing personal, but the attitudes this movie conveys strike so close to home with my own ideals that I have to feel that way.

(9 out of 10)

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