I rarely, and I mean rarely ever give modern comedies glowing reviews, because most of the time, comedies really suck, they suck like Paris Hilton on prom night, and then I saw “Harold & Kumar”. I’ll admit, I expected this to be really bad, I was dreading watching this, and I just expected it to be as bad as “Dude, Where’s My Car?”, but when I was finished with this movie, I didn’t hate it. As a matter of fact, I loved it. You may not know it by the trailers but this is a rather intelligent comedy, and as much as it tries not to be, it’s an original comedy. Harold and Kumar are a lot like Beavis and Butthead, except smart, like Cheech and Chong sans the hippy lingo, and our two spotlight characters are stoners who happen to be rather intelligent educated people who really just smoke pot to relax after the pressures of life take hold.
Tag Archives: Romance
Drop Box (2006)
Imagine if a spoiled rich brat like Paris Hilton made a sex tape (I know, it’s a real stretch, but stay with me here) and, in one angry tirade went to cool off and dropped in her rental tape at the local video store and in her frustration, gave them her sex tape instead? Now you know the plot of “Drop Box”, a hilarious observational comedy about a video stores clashing with a pop princess (Rachel Sehl). Except the brat in question is not Paris Hilton, but a bitchy celebrity. But before the actual plot kicks off “Drop Box” is an utterly hilarious story revolving around an irate video store clerk, and from the beginning it’s clear that directors Anesty & Spiros Carasoulos has an actual grasp on what the term comedy means.
Constantine (2005)
While I was interested in watching “Constantine”, I didn’t really get what I was expecting. I never once read a comic of “Hellblazer”, but I know the general gist of it, and despite my disappointment with the miscasting of Reeves and the loose adaptation, I did get more than I bargained for. Constantine was essentially a story that takes place in the UK, but despite the Americanization, it ends up becoming a really solid adult thriller in the end. Constantine is a demon fighter who has been diagnosed with cancer and is now seeking to buy his way in to heaven, and through that journey, director Francis Lawrence who is shockingly a music video director, surprisingly gives some grade A direction for what is rightly a stylish yet very murky supernatural thriller.
The Dreamers (2003)
“The Dreamers” is a film that was hardly seen upon its initial release, and I think it’s a crime that it was hardly shown to the public. The fact that this film was shun by the MPAA and swept under the rug is only the clearest of indicators of how close-minded we are. Bertolucci gives us a rough and tumble look at sexual acts between friends and never adds cheesy background music to sound like porn, it’s natural, and that’s why “The Dreamers” is such a beautiful film. The film takes place in 1969 where the free loving is at an all time high and the Vietnam War is in the midst.
Retire These F*cking Songs, Already!
Now for the record, I love trailers. Some are good and some are bad and usually they’re just slapped together sloppily to promote the movie. But the best trailers are the ones that don’t give the movie away. “The Exorcist”, “Night of the Living Dead”, “Psycho”, those are trailers that didn’t give the movies away, and the most essential part of a trailer like the movie is the music. Compiled is a list of songs I’m begging Hollywood to retire from movie trailers that decrease the value of the movie and ruin the experience. Let me tell you what triggered my meltdown. I was at home watching “Cinenews,” a program I watch to keep up with upcoming movies. It’s a great show, and at the end of the program they feature a trailer for a movie coming soon. Up comes the trailer for “Monster-in-Law” and during the trailer on comes a commonly used song and something just snapped. These songs need to be retired for the love of humanity, I mean I’m not saying these songs suck, as a matter of fact, some of the songs I’m about to list, I love–but god retire them before they start sucking! Does modern music suck so bad they just have to keep re-using this stuff again and again?!
Before Sunset (2004)
It’s like they never left us. It really is. It’s as rare as a meteor to watch an engrossing romance that’s also very intellectually stimulating, but wouldn’t you know it, with Richard Linklater once again taking reigns of his film, you get what you expect, and I ultimately got what I expected, a fascinating, charming, and beautifully written romance drama starring two people who just have incomparable chemistry. All my fears were put to rest thirty minutes within the film as that magnetic chemistry between Delpy and Hawke becomes all the more volatile on-screen two fold. They have it here, and it works so well, I was just breath taken. This is a movie that could have easily been mishandled, and botched, but it ultimately works so well as a standalone and as a sequel. Only Linklater could commit such a feat.
Along Came Polly (2004)
Out of the entire movie, the only person that leaves unscathed is the person who doesn’t get a lot of the spotlight: Hank Azaria. It sucks he doesn’t do a lot more roles because this man is hilarious and truly steals the beginning of the movie with his role as a scuba diver nudist who steals Stiller’s character’s wife away. He’s such a funny man, and it’s a shame we never see more of him, pun not intended. So this is what comedies have become. Mediocrity at its finest. Throughout the entire movie you take two people, the male a comedian, the female a straight man, and all of it is just so mediocre while the movie is touted as funny as hell, you can see throughout the entire movie, while not laughing once, the writers are screaming at you from behind the camera, “This is funny! This is Ben Stiller! How can you not be laughing?! Are you mindless!”