Recent Viewings, Aug. 22, 2007

Hot Fuzz

I LOVED this movie! I laughed out loud so much my wife kept asking what was so funny (I was watching it downstairs because it's too graphic for the kids to even hear some of it).

Essentially, Hot Fuzz is the This is Spinal Tap of cop films. It walks that molecular strip on the very tippy-top edge of the razor blade of being both a parody and a legit offering of the genre all at the same time.

The violence is shockingly over the top. I haven't been so gob smacked by ultra-violence since my first viewing of Robcop. I think I called for the Lord out loud when one guy is offed by a falling church stone.

This is the first movie I've considered having a copy of in a long time.

Make sure you catch this one.

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Wild Hogs

Damn but I wish John Travolta wasn't a Scientologist. It's ruined it for me the same way the gerbil story about Richard Gere did. I think Travolta is just a great actor. Truly tops. But dammit, I just can't get past the Xenu thing when I see him in a flick. [Sigh.]

Anyway, Wild Hogs is a sitcom of a movie comedy with recycled jokes as obvious as a gigantic white-headed zit on the tip of your nose, but it entertains. Make it a cheap rental, free library checkout, or wait for it to hit TV, and then waste the hour and a half.

Travolta's still fun to watch. He always brings something, ya know?

And the actor who plays Dr. Cox on "Scrubs", John C. McGinley, plays a gay highway patrolman who mistakes the gang for fellow gay players; the results are a snort.

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The Prestige

This is a well-done movie with a lot of fun bluster. Worth a view if you've got the time.

However, it takes about 40 minutes too long to get to an ending that's telegraphed about half way in. If you're not opposed to fast-forwarding through needless stuff, then you can start skipping at about the time Tesla reveals what's really happening with the hats.

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Cashback

Roger Ebert is reviewing again (huzzah!) and had a review of Cashback recently which peaked my interest. So I borrowed the collection that contained the original short version. (I'm into brevity with such things, if possible, these days. Kinda tired of movies that gratuitously pass the two-hour mark. I'm looking at you, The Prestige.)

Cashback commits to celluloid a fantasy every red-blooded guy I know has had: freezing time and going around pulling off the clothes of woman to see them nekkid, then re-dressing them and starting time again, with the victim unaware. Yes, men are pigs, doo dah doo dah. But, this is just one of those universal things, apparently.

The nudity is brazen and prurient, as it would need to be for the concept. Still, I haven't seen shots this explicit in a movie of this type before (read "non-porn").

And the movie achieves its point. If I actually had the gift to stop time and undress cuties (and let's face it, if I did it at all, I'd undress the plain and ugly ones too), I'd feel pretty creepy about it. I felt pretty creepy watching it occur in the movie, even if fictionally.

Of course I recommend the flick. (The short one anyway; I'll hazard a guess that the full-length version doesn't contain that much more nudity or story points, you just get to see the plot that's merely telegraphed in the short version played out in full; why not save the time ... (get it?)).