Black Swan (2010)

Over the past few years I have come to respect and enjoy the work of Darren Aronofsky; from his little known "Life of Pi" to his more recent "The Fountain."  He has a very characteristic film making style and "Black Swan" is no different.  This film follows the rise to fame of Nina (Natalie Portman) in the ballet world with her appearance in Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake.  Nina's story becomes a parallel of the story of Swan lake on a voyage of self-discovery and the quest to find her true voice in her passion, until she finally looses herself in the role and becomes a metaphorical representation of the the Swan Queen.

Every single aspect of this movie is tied together in a beautiful way with Nina's life descending into the darkness of the black swan after making her debut as the beautiful and technically perfect white swan.  Portman's portrayal of this role was spellbinding in her transformation from the good girl to the bad girl, which is backed up by textbook foreshadowing and symbolism.  Aronofsky uses color traits (white and black) to specifically represent Nina's dark side as she begins to rebel against an obsessive mother and against everything she traditionally thought ballet was supposed to be.

Supporting actress Mila Kunis makes a point of representing everything associated with the dark side that Nina doesn't tap into until the end of the movie.  He transformation is aided in the role of Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the slightly sleezy director of the ballet company who brings out the wild side of Nina.  "Black Swan" is a must see for any Darren Aronofsky fan, and for most other viewers who enjoy his characteristic psychological mystery thriller genre.  "Black Swan" gets 4.5/5.

Thankskilling (2009)

OMG!  I have descended down the road to darkness and into the depths of the abyss.  There are no redeeming factors left in my soul, I'm a terrible person.  I need an intervention.  My name is Jory Tindall, and I'm addicted....to B movies!

I just watched probably the worst movie I've ever seen (if it's not it's close).  What more could you want than a turkey that was created in colonial times by the native Americans to kill white people every 500 years?  Add to that a turkey with a bad mouth and about 1,000 great quotes and you have Thankskilling.  The plot is based on a typical horror movie formula; evil arises and starts terrorizing and killing the characters in some very cliche ways while the cast tries to find a way to dispose of it.  Of course Thankskilling makes use of the optional coda of adding a comeback for the villain after he is presumed to be dead so that he can kill some people before being destroyed for good.  Thankskilling is straight out of the horror movie textbook is this regard.  Terrible acting, terrible special effects and just an overall bad quality movie that is only made bearable  by the hilarious quotes and obvious air of comedy throughout.  You should probably only see it if you can see yourself enjoying quotes like these coming from the mouth of a turkey:

• "You just got stuffed!" (note the thanksgiving reference)
• "Gobble, gobble motherf***er!"
• "Nice tits bitch!"

What a nice couple of gems!  Honestly I have no idea why this movie is on Netflix, but I gave it three stars in the hope that more people would see it.

The Machine Girl (2008)

Been a while since I've posted anything, but it doesn't really matter because nobody reads this anyways!

The Machine Girl is real gem in the recent B movie genre.  It was released in 2008 and retains many elements of American B movies, including some nods at Robert Rodriguez as well as the Kill Bill films, but has a unique Japanese flair to it.  Basically the premise is a boy gets killed by bullies who happens to be the brother of an ass-kicking sister named Ami.  Ami teams up with the mother of another victim of bullying to take down a member of the Yakuza gang (Kill Bill anyone?) and his henchmen.  The spin on this is that Ami's arm gets cut off and she replaces it with a machine gun and a chainsaw (Evil Dead anyone?)!  Ami then proceeds to annihilate everyone in her path in a bloody swath of death and destruction.

The blood in this movie is very Kill Bill-esque in terms of the squirting fashion in which it exits the body, which everyone can recognize and identify with (at least those of you who are fans of Quentin Tarantino).  This leads to every single character being covered head-to-toe in blood (red corn syrup) and a battlefield full of severed limbs and homeless body parts (AWESOME!).  The Japanese twist (also similar to Kill Bill) is the idea of Japanese honor and pride, which isn't necessarily present in most American movies.  Ami goes on her killing spree for acts of revenge with no concerns for her own well-being, compared to acts of violence aimed at bettering ones personal image.  This is so reminiscent of American movies, but taken to the point of extremity that only the Japanese can obtain.  Not to mention that the main character is really hot...especially when covered in blood.  The Machine Girl gets a 3/5.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009)

Oh.  Yeah.  I saw "The Human Centipede."  This'll be short because it's a disgusting movie to discuss.  The basic idea of the plot is a retired surgeon turned mad scientist who gets off on connecting people via their mouths and anuses to create a "human centipede."  So he kidnaps three people and connects them and basically keeps them/it as a pet until things start to unwind and he is discovered for what he really is.

I thought this movie was going to be un-watchable due to the amount of gore and graphic nature I was expecting, but it wasn't really that bad on the gore scale.  In other words I've seen much worse.  The thing that makes this movie what it is is the whole concept behind it, the concept of the human centipede and how screwed up it is.  The acting is not good by any means in this movie, except for the lead role of Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) which fits the vibe of the movie perfectly.  I guess you can't really expect much when you mouth is attached to the ass of another person for the entire movie.  There were a few cringe moments throughout the movie but not really anything to turn away at.  Unless you really have a hankering to see this movie I would skip it just because it's way overrated in terms of scare/shock/horror factor.  "The Human Centipede" gets a 2/5.

Cashback (2006)

We all go through life experiencing a string of moments and points in time.  Some moments we would like to forget.  Others we wish could last forever.  "Cashback" is a movie about making those special moments last into eternity.
The story is centered around Ben Willis, an art student who starts suffering from a severe case of insomnia after his girlfriend breaks up with for, as explained by Ben, small things that shouldn't make that much of a difference.  Ben's case of insomnia causes him to remain awake and without fatigue for weeks without sleep.  He ends up taking a job at a local supermarket during the night shift.  However, rather than trying to get through his shift as quickly as possible, Ben find a way to freeze the world around him.  He utilizes this ability (and his art talent) by drawing the women around the store who are stuck in poses and experiencing the beauty of the woman form.  One thing leads to another and he falls in love with a fellow employee and the rest is pretty standard in terms of the genre.
The reason why "Cashback" is different from any other romantic comedy is because rather than focusing on many different encounters between the destined lovers of the film, it focuses on one or two moments that Ben has frozen so that he can examine his love (who goes by the name of Sharon).  It's a very interesting take on one's life experiences and how we all wish we could make them last forever.  "Cashback" gets a 5/5 because it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :).

Inception (2010)

I saw "Inception" so you don't have to!  Just kidding, "Inception" was actually a pretty great movie!  I'm not a super big fan of Leonardo di Caprio.  I mostly have trouble getting past his voice (he sounds like a bitchy twelve year old).  But other than that "Inception" had a pretty all-star lineup, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Paige, and Ken Watanabe.  All of the actors were basically perfect except for di Caprio, because he's a bitchy twelve year old.

I can't really tell too much of the plot because it would give up too much of the plot, but I do have one complaint; that being that some of the details and events (including the past of the characters and how they came to be) was a little vague at times.  It really wasn't until the very end of the movie that I noticed how everything fit together and the importance/significance of all of the characters.  However, it was shot very well and had a lot of interesting ideas, however, a lot of the ideas presented in "Inception" are not entirely original.  The two movies that stood out to me as being similar along some lines were "The Matrix" and "Vanilla Sky".  Without giving away anything, lets just say that each of these movies are similar to "Inception" in the way that the character's minds/thoughts/dreams are manipulated.

Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed "Inception" and highly recommend seeing, maybe more than once!  "Inception" gets a 4.5, not a 5, for the sole reason that Leonardo di Caprio's voice sucked...and because I don't like his acting style....and because he's a teenage heartthrob and I'm not.... :(

Knowing (2009)

Other than the fact that I hate Nicholas Cage, "Knowing" was a pretty O.K. movie...until the end.  It seems like I've stumbled upon a few movies lately that sort of have a "hidden" (and when I say hidden I mean completely blatant...) religious message.  I recently watched "The Book of Eli" which is the other movie I'm referring to.

I'll just go ahead and ruin it for you since I would hope that after reading this review, you wouldn't see it.  "Knowing" is pretty much a round about way of telling the story of the great flood and cleansing of the Earth and Noah's ark in modern times when everything on Earth is wiped out by a massive solar flair except for a few young children that are saved by what I deemed to represent angels to repopulate and restore civilization.  Pretty standard premise of a pre-apocalyptic world with a ton of foreshadowing but overall very predictable.  All of this was then ruined by Nicholas Cage.

Here is what I see wrong with Cage.  It seems like every single movie he's in, he plays the same lame character; that being the out of luck husband who is a genius on some large topic that is the key to saving the world (even though he doesn't save the world in "Knowing").  Cage's character basically bosses everybody around on his quest to discover the truth behind a lot of strange happenings centered around him and his son.  Of course every character submits to his will and follows him around like chickens with their dicks cut off.  Not to mention he is a terrible actor with absolutely no emotion change (it's all "I'm awesome and here to save the world! Out of my way!")

The only credit that I will give this movie is that it has the guts to completely destroy civilization rather than writing a script in with Nick Cage uses his super-god powers to resurrect the entire human race and survive a massive solar flair.  "Knowing" gets a 2/5 for decent beginning, with a bad everything else.  Go team!