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August 24, 2010

Review: Piranha 3D

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Ryan Klemek @ 9:47 am

All movies about a killer animal/monster in the water should be no more than 15 minutes long, and they should all end the same way. After the first person is killed by the shark/piranha/super eel/giant turtle, everyone else should just decide not to go swimming in this body of water.  When people don’t have the sense to figure this out, it is hard for audiences to have any sympathy for them. This leaves us rooting for the sea monster to teach the idiot protagonists a lesson about avoiding obvious danger that most 5-year-olds in the real world already know.  If the sea monster is charismatic and witty, then these “danger lessons” can make for a fun movie. The problem with Piranha 3D is that the fish don’t have anything amusing to say. If, for example, the fish said something like “Let’s see you fuck John Stamos’s ex wife now, fat kid from Stand By Me!” as he bit off Jerry O’Connell’s nuts, it would have actually been an interesting scene. Instead, O’Connell just says “Darn. That fish just bit off my nuts.”, which totally takes the intensity out of the moment. Without snappy dialogue, these campy movies don’t have much to offer.

Fortunately, Piranha 3D is saved by a bizarre turn of events. After getting his junk mangled, O’Connell has re-constructive surgery to become Elizabeth Shue. Shue then uses kick-ass karate moves she picked up while dating Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso to beat the crap out of all the fish. You wouldn’t think hand-to-hand combat would be the way to go with a school of hungry piranhas, but Shue makes you believe in baddass miracles. By the time she’s back on the dock feeding her disciples with endless amounts of bread and slaughtered fish,  the audience is back in her corner. I know what you’re thinking. The endless fish is accounted for, but where did she get all the bread? Same place Jesus did: her MIND! Piranha 3D is worth seeing if for no other reason than Richard Dreyfus’s cameo as Jesus Christ himself.  He appears during the celebratory feast to tell Shue: “You’ve done well, my son..er daughter..er whatever you are.” This is the only decent line in the entire movie and it comes when it needed the most. Oops, I just ruined the movie for you by telling you the only funny line in it. Oh well.

August 17, 2010

Review: Eat Pray Love

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , , — Ryan Klemek @ 2:16 pm

Upon seeing a teaser trailer for Eat Play Love about a year ago, I wrote it off as just another boring, unwatchable Julia Roberts movie. Well, for fans of erotic cinema, nothing could be further from the truth. Many of you will be surprised to learn, as I was, that Eat Pray Love is actually a re-make of the 1978 adult classic Debbie Does Dallas. The setting has been updated, and some plot details have been changed, but the overall theme remains the same. Kudos to Julia Roberts for coming such a long way from the days of Pretty Woman where she needed a leg double for the canned love scenes. This time, she not only bares it all, she DOES it all. When she’s not using her famously enormous mouth to swallow James Franco whole, she’s using her famously sweet voice to deliver some of the raunchiest dialogue a mainstream audience will ever hear.

Set in a romantic Italian village, it doesn’t take long for America’s Sweetheart to be corrupted by the lustful locals. Roberts travels abroad to find herself, but she doesn’t even make it out of the airport before she loses all of her inhibitions. Javier Bardem plays the customs agent who performs the extremely thorough full-body search which kicks off a two-month long sex romp. This flesh binge doesn’t end until all the village men under the age of 60 sigh with exhaustion at the site of Roberts approaching.  This weariness, I want to be clear, is not shared by the audience. Eat Pray Love is nothing but scene after scene of acrobatic sinning, yet it never gets tiresome. The novelty of a prudish, aging movie star slutting up the countryside never wears off. In taking this daring role, I can only hope that Julie Roberts has set a precedent that might be followed by more attractive actresses in the future.

August 10, 2010

Painting Progress

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: — Ryan Klemek @ 12:40 pm

I would say I am about 75% done with Angelina Jolie vs. A Basket of Kittens:

Review: Ghost (Remake)

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Ryan Klemek @ 9:32 am

The behind-the-scenes drama that occurred during the production of the Ghost remake is much more interesting than the movie itself. If the studio is willing to absorb the humiliation, they should release a documentary chronicling these misadventures. In fact, I am so sure this is what the studio should do that I almost hesitate to describe what happened. Fortunately, documentaries are rarely ruined by spoilers.

The story of the remaking of Ghost starts with executive producer Whoopi Goldberg. It was Whoopi who outlined the slightly updated script, it was Whoopi who sold it to the studio, and it was Whoopi who convinced them that she could summon Patrick Swayze’s real ghost to play the lead. It’s hard to belief that the execs really thought she could commune with the dead, but then again, it’s hard to believe that anyone would let Whoopi Goldberg into their office in the first place. I’m told she’s extremely flatulent and sometimes enjoys lighting her farts on fire while in the middle of making a pitch. Not only is this smelly and dangerous, but it’s also really distracting. It’s possible that the only reason they green-lit Ghost in the first place was to get her out of the room faster.

If someone has actual footage of Whoopi’s seances to bring back Patrick Swayze, that documentary I mentioned earlier will win an Oscar. All that has been leaked to the press so far is that she suffered nervous breakdowns and was often seen around town crying, drinking, and talking to herself. She even started a fight in a bar one night. When questioned, she said she was trying to recreate a scene from Roadhouse, hoping Swayze would show up to stop the brawl. He never appeared, and Whoopi ended up spending a night in jail. That’s where the studio execs stepped in to take back control of their movie. They signed Ed Norton to play the lead, Queen Latifa to replace Goldberg, and Jessica Alba to play the Demi Moore role. Rumor has it that Norton was reluctant to join the cast without Goldberg’s approval, siting a deep respect for her original choices. This explains why he claimed to be possessed by Swayze’s ghost when he was signing his contract. In fact, Norton never broke character in Goldberg’s presence during the entire production. This included both the premiere screening and wrap party. It’s hard to say whether or not Whoopi believed him, but she clearly appreciated the effort.

Of course it will all be for nothing, as this movie is going to TANK! Seriously, who has the patience to watch Jessica Alba on screen when she so stubbornly refuses to show her boobs? I know there was no topless scenes in the original movie, but that was one of the “updates” I was expecting in the remake. If she wants people to stop asking her to take off her top, she should become a better actress so that her acting will be good enough distract us from the lack of nudity. Unfortunately for the rest of the hard-working cast, Alba single-handedly destroyed the Ghost remake. For the sake of Patrick Swayze’s legacy, we should all forget this ever happened. If you want to see a pottery love scene, watch the original. If you want to see a pottery love scene featuring boobs, then splice in scenes of nude Demi Moore from Striptease.

August 3, 2010

Review: The Expendables

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Ryan Klemek @ 2:22 pm

In making The Expendables, Sly Stallone had a mission: To assemble the world’s greatest action stars and make the world forget that these men can barely walk up a flight of stairs anymore, let alone jump from a rooftop into the back of a flaming pick-up truck full of zombie soldiers with Uzis. He accomplished this goal by leaving out the truck, the undead monsters and the fire-arms. As a result, the pace of this film is somewhat slower than one might expect.

Stallone and Jason Statham star as a couple of insurance salesmen who long to throw off the shackles of corporate life and open up a Chinese restaurant. They know how to run a business and they have the capital to get it off the ground, but neither man is Chinese. That’s where Jet Li comes in. Stallone and Statham find Li in an alley feeding rancid tuna to stray cats. When they notice that Li is Chinese, they decide to hire him as their head chef. The only problem? Li can’t cook to save his life. When he was was a small child, he accidentally dropped a huge pot of boiling water on his head while trying to make breakfast for his mom. Since then, Li has been too terrified of stoves to even set foot in a kitchen. Still optimistic, Stallone and Statham decide that all Li needs is a little therapy and some culinary lessons. Bruce Willis makes a cameo as Li’s psychiatrist, and Dolph Lundgren plays the uptight master chef who teaches Li how to cook. In one hilarious scene, Willis confronts Lundgren with a wooden spoon because he feels the grizzled chef is being too hard on Li. For the most part, though, this movie is very serious.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a health inspector sent to evaluate the new restaurant. Anyone who thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t have the acting chops for drama needs to see the scene where he realizes he has been poisoned and is about to die after Li accidentally serves him rancid tuna. There was not a dry eye in the theater when, with his dying breath, Arnie forgives Li and tells him to never give up his dream of being a chef. All those other actors that you’ve heard are in the movie play customers who are also accidentally poisoned by Li. It’s pretty anti-climactic, actually. Still, if they’re not going to get Van Damme or Steven Seagal, who really cares what happens to Eric Roberts or Mickey Rourke or Randy Couture. I don’t even know who Randy Couture is, actually. Did I even spell his name right? I’m too lazy to check. Anyway, I think this is a pretty good movie. Especially if, like me, you’ve always wanted to open up a restaurant but were too afraid that you might accidentally kill people with your cooking. Inspiring stuff.

July 27, 2010

Review: Goonies vs. Ghostbusters

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Ryan Klemek @ 2:01 pm

I’m going to cut to the chase here. Goonies vs. Ghostbusters is probably the best movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Unfortunately, because of contractual disputes, I may be the only person who ever gets to see it. As we were leaving his private screening room, director Sean Astin told me he plans to burn the only copy of the film before Hollywood big wigs can get their mitts on it. He fought hard to keep every brilliant, yet controversial word of Dan Ackroyd’s screenplay, and he was not about to let the studio dumb things down for mainstream audiences.

Because this masterpiece will be destroyed before it ever sees the light of day, I can give a detailed account without worrying about spoilers. Let’s start with the cast. On the Goonies side,  Astin returns as Mikey, with Josh Brolin, Ke Huy Quan, Kerry Green, and Martha Plimpton all reprising their respective roles as well. Noticeably missing from the troop were actors Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, and of course the deceased John Matuszak who played Sloth. As much as these guys are missed, the recasting for their roles was brilliant. Jason Bateman was tapped to replace Feldman as Mouth, The portly Jonah Hill took over as Chunk, and John C. Reilly plays Sloth. In the Ghostbusters camp, none of the original actors returned to their roles, which was disappointing but not unexpected.  Settling for proven Hollywood ringers, Astin decided to borrow the cast of the A-Team movie and fit them into the Ghostbusters roles. Liam Neeson plays Bill Murray, Bradly Cooper plays Dan Aykroyd, The guy from District 9 plays Egon, and B.A. Baracus plays Winston.

The story begins with a Goonies reunion that has a tragic outcome. As the gang takes out their pirate ship from the Goon Docks, they are attacked by a real band of Japanese pirates. Their treasure is taken, their ship is sunk and all of the Goonies are brutally killed. Unfortunately for the people of Astoria, death does not stop the Goonie’s mischievous antics, as their ghosts soon begin terrorizing the locals. Chunk does the Truffle Shuffle during a church service, and tarantulas crawl out of his naval. Data’s spirit  possesses a toy robot and attacks a child. Mouth pulls down the pants of a stand-up comedian in the middle of his set, causing him to piss on his audience due to nervousness. The mayor eventually decides that he needs to summon the Ghostbusters.

The Ghostbusters arrive on the seen in dire straights themselves. Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd had become lovers but went through a bitter break-up, making it extremely difficult for them to work together. Egon is no longer a genius, thanks to a lab experiment that accidentally shrunk his brain a little. Winston is in the middle of a custody battle over his St. Bernard that he shares with his third wife. To make matters worse they’re all raging alcoholics, and they haven’t busted a ghost since 1990. They show up in Astoria hoping  this job could the be the catalyst that turns their life around. Unfortunately, they don’t get off to a good start. During their first encounter with the Goonies, they accidentally cross the streams,which turns Sloth into a giant retarded ghost version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Then, just when it seems things can’t get any worse, they stumble upon a diabolical conspiracy headed by the Mayor himself!

The tide eventually takes a favorable turn when the Goonies have a change of heart. Upon learning that the Japanese pirates were a part of the Mayor’s plot to destroy the Goon Docks, they join forces with the Ghostbusters to stop him. The mayor is finally defeated when the team throws a sack over his head which is decorated to look like a giant Baby Ruth candy bar wrapper, and he is eaten by Giant Stay Puft Ghost Sloth.

This film has all the action, comedy and heart you’d expect- times infinity! I truly can’t express the sympathy I feel for all of you who will never be enriched by this doomed piece of cinema.  I can only hope that this short review has effectively stimulated your imaginations to a level of minor satisfaction. Perhaps, using my brief plot summary, some die-hard fans can reconstruct an amateur version and share it with the rest of us on Youtube.

July 26, 2010

Angelina Jolie painting progress

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: — Ryan Klemek @ 1:21 pm

This is after about a week of work, although I really only painted a few days. Hope ya like it so far!

July 20, 2010

Review- Salt

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , — Ryan Klemek @ 12:49 pm

I admit that I slept through the middle two-thirds of this film, so take this review with a grain of salt. I can say, though, that the opening 20 minutes were so bland, and the ending was so formulaic, that I can easily infer all that happened during my nap. I generally think of action movies as nothing more than star vehicles, with little originality or artistic vision. This one stars an actress I’ve never even heard of, which makes it a complete failure by genre standards. When I learned that this Angelina Jolie is the wife of super-hunk Brad Pitt, I was even more frustrated by the possibilities that this film ignored. If you want to have a female spy, why not just put Brad Pitt in drag? Or, if the movie gods  insist on launching Jolie’s career, why not do a picture which stars both her AND her much more talented husband? How about a picture where they play a married couple of spies, and neither knows that the other is a spy, and they are asked by their respective agencies to kill each other? Perhaps Hollywood thinks that such a complex plot would be too confusing for the typical American audience. Perhaps Hollywood is concerned that, during the making of such a movie, Brad Pitt might cheat on Angelina Jolie with Jennifer Aniston or something. Whatever Hollywood’s motivation, the film that COULD HAVE BEEN is much better than the film they decided to make.

The opening act of the film, which I did not sleep through, is one of those scenes which tells you all you need to know about the main character. We learn that she got the name “Salt” during her first week at Spy Camp, when the class clown decided to unscrew the salt cap so that way too much salt poured onto Salt’s spaghetti. More importantly, we see that right away, Salt is the top kick-boxer in her class, but that she also has a weakness which will be exploited by the villain in the final act. The absurdity of this weakness provides pretty much the only bit of entertainment in the entire movie. Salt’s Achilles’s Heal is getting pepper in the eyes. Now, nobody likes getting pepper in the eyes, but when it happens to Salt, she immediately evacuates her bowels and collapses into a quivering heap on the floor. It is not difficult for the villain to figure out a way to make this work for him. In the end, though, Salt manages to overcome her weakness and save the world. What she does with her soiled leather pants is foul enough to make even John Waters sick. Actually, Mr. Waters might want to keep this Angelina Jolie in mind for his next twisted tale of depravity. Her high-profile marriage to a movie star will not be enough to maintain her doomed career, and this makes her perfect to follow in the footsteps of other self-parodying pop-culture has-beens that end up in John Waters movies.

July 18, 2010

Angelina Jolie vs. A Basket of Kittens

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: — Ryan Klemek @ 6:14 pm

I can’t take all the credit for this one. A friend of mine told me that he was having a conversation with an Angelina Jolie fan he knows. This fan summed up his loyalty to Jolie by stating the only way he would stop loving her is if she punched a basket full of kittens. So my friend decided that I should do a painting of this scene. Lately, I have been having trouble staying motivated, but I think I’m off to a good start. The pencil sketch probably took me about an hour or so:

It then took me over 40 minutes just to mix some paints. But then, in about an hour and a half, I made the following amount of progress:

Hopefully, I will not get lazy. I am looking to finish this in about 3 weeks. I will post updates along the way.

July 13, 2010

Review- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Filed under: Movie Reviews — Tags: , , — Ryan Klemek @ 9:36 am

While this film isn’t quite a remake, it does qualify as one more unoriginal Hollywood adaptation. This time, the source material is the 1940 animated Disney film Fantasia. Of course, with childhood-nostalgia-destroyer Jerry Bruckheimer producing, and hack National Treasure director Jon Turtletaub directing, you can expect such a departure from the inspiration that you won’t even recognize the characters. Probably the worst example is that Mickey Mouse, played by Jay Baruchel, doesn’t have big black ears or wear red pants with two horizontal white buttons. In fact, he isn’t even a mouse! In another miscalculation by Disney, Nicholas Cage reprises his role as Ghost Rider, only this time he doesn’t have a flaming skull and he isn’t riding a motorcycle. Comic book fans were initially wary when Disney bought Marvel Comics, but not in their worst nightmares did they expect the corporation to so blatantly misuse their new property. It just goes to show how dangerous cultural monopolies are, and how they destroy all artist integrity.

Plot-wise,  Apprentice offers pretty much the standard Hollywood formulaic dribble. You have an awkward kid who gets picked on by the other kids at school because he doesn’t know how to shoot fireballs. The kid accidentally saves the puppy of a great sorcerer, and sorcerer repays the kid by teaching him how to shoot fireballs. The kid finds out that the bullies at school are actually dark wizards, and then its up to the kid and the sorcerer to stop them. Using fireballs. Is it more interesting because the kid is Mickey Mouse and the sorcerer is Ghost Rider? Surprisingly not. There was potential here for one of the most amazing team-ups in all of fiction, but it was ruined by the studio’s disregard for the source material. This disappointing waste of digital camera battery is yet another example of why Disney should stick to what it is good at: nothing. It should stop doing anything. It should stop making movies, it should stop making rides and amusement parks, it should stop extending copyrights. Disney should just stop existing.

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