Tombstone

Tombstone rules. If you haven’t seen it, see it. If you have seen it, see it again. It’s about kick-ass cowboy dudes slugging it out the old-fashioned way, with Colt-made smokewagons. And they don’t do it for the hell of it. They do it for the honor, or for the “reckoning” that comes from the anger of being born and having life’s impositions deposited upon them until they erupt in a lead-slinging rage. Hell yeah that’s deep. But it gets better. In the haze of testosterone, you can easily miss the subtext. Apparently, a lot of cowboys were gay even before Brokeback Mountain. Yep, the “Cowboys” in this movie wear red sashes, watch off-broadway shows, clap for showtunes, and experience deep, meaningful moments when they’re not blasting each other (literally, not figuratively). I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain but why should I? A cowboy movie without a shootout (involving firearms)? I don’t think so. They can be gay all they want, but if they invoke the cowboy image, I want a “The Good, The Bad, The Fabulous” showdown. Tombstone: watch it, again, and absorb everything it exudes.

The Green Berets

John Wayne? Green Berets? This kicks ass on levels you cannot comprehend. You probably don’t know this, since you are unlikely, statistically speaking, to be awesome, but John Wayne had a real affinity for the real green berets, and vice versa. His foundation contributed to a memorial for fallen green berets. It’s all manliness at a core level. Anyway, this movie rocks because of the symbiotic relationship of John Wayne’s coolness interacting with that of the green berets. See it, enjoy it, and understand that if you call yourself a man, you have at least that in common with the people portrayed in this movie.

Resident Evil (I, II, and III)

I’ve seen the first two but not the third; nevertheless, I’m going to go ahead and review them all in a group. These movies are immediately excellent because they start with the premise that the world’s population is being reduced quickly (yeah, I think we’re overcrowded). Second, the only sure way to defeat the evil is to be a hot chick with a rock-hard abs, smoldering eyes, and taut, defined legs. Plot? Character development? Those are crutches for movies that don’t have everything going for them like the Resident Evil series does.

Kung-Fu Hustle

I don’t have to review this because certainly you’ve seen it by now, right? This movie is everything you wish you could be: stylish, well-paced, action-packed, funny, intelligent, and original. Watch it and maybe you’ll be a better person. The movie involves a small village that just happens to be populated by kick-ass kung-fu experts who don’t reveal that fact until a gang happens into the village bent on doing bad. Yeah, there’s more to it than that, but your life has few enough positive surprises in it for me to ruin one of the few coming your way. Watch this and you won’t regret it. If you do, send me the bill and I’ll look at it.

Dawn of the Dead

This movie starts with a powerful proposition. The writer proposes a world where most of the evident population is either dead or effectively dehumanized by an uncontrollable force. In this setting, a small band of people try to survive. I love this, because it harkens to a time when the world is not overpopulated. Instead of an army of drones killing your soul in a local mall by their mere existence, the army of drones tries to kill you outright. It’s honest and straightforward. And the reaction of the heroes is honest and straightforward too: they must survive by destroying the drones. There is nothing more to the movie and nothing less. Clearly this is a must see. An intrepid band of survivors struggles to maintain their humanity in a world turned upside down. Enjoy.

28 Days Later

See Dawn of the Dead

Day of the Dead

See Dawn of the Dead.

Shaun of the Dead

See Dawn of the Dead, but add humor.

Night of the Living Dead

See Dawn of the Dead

Flightplan

This movie stars Jodie Foster looking for a kid lost on an airplane. Here’s the rub: the airplane is airborne! And it’s dark outside! She just can’t find the kid in this cavernous aircraft, but thankfully she helped design it, so she knows the places kids can hide or be hidden. Oh, but it’s not that easy. SPOILER ALERT! When Ms. Foster tells the captain she’d like to crawl through small spaces filled with flight-critical equipment so she can look for her kid, he is sympathetic but skeptical. You see, the Captain is fully aware that Ms. Foster has been outed as a lesbian (she was the only woman in hollywood to refrain from injecting her lips with balloon-making collagen, a dead giveaway), so he doubts she has a kid. He’s kind of that rigid, conservative sort of captain who doesn’t know lesbians can adopt or have surrogate sperm donors. No, he just stands in his long, hard cylindrical tube that is thrusting through the atmosphere, rocking back and forth through the turbulence, vibrating in time with the soft humming of the engines, and he looks at Ms. Foster. And he thinks, “We lost a good one. I bet I could convert her.” But, there’s no script for that; she stays with the other team. Instead, Ms. Foster, must explore every contour of that tube of her making, climbing, straining, grabbing, feeling, contorting, weeping, sweating, and all the while she’s fully aware that if the excitement builds too much, it just might explode (there’s a bomb on board). I won’t tell you the ending, but it’s a happy ending. Watch this movie just before taking a discount fare for a transcontinental flight.

Note: Ms. Foster, whether a lesbian or not, is a fine actress and hot to boot.

Liar Liar

This movie stars Jim Carrey as an attorney in a high-powered law firm focusing on litigation. He routinely lies and manipulates the system. He disregards his family in favor of deadlines that produce high billable hours. And he engages in office sex romps at random times. All of this makes him a self-centered bastard, and in this respect the movie is a documentary of big firm life. However, it is also funny. It is very funny. Now, I have tried cases before juries, cross-examined witnesses, dealt with surprise evidence, and argued cases in courts high and low, so I get it. If your legal experience is derived primarily from Law and Order viewing, you may not get every joke in this movie, but you will still enjoy it. This movie ranks as one of the most humorous creations of all time.

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