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Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

Zack and Miri Make a Porno, starring Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks, and Jason Mewes, brings a classic Kevin Smith back to fans.

Zack and Miri are longtime friends and current roommates who have fallen into a financial rut – Miri works at the mall and Zack is a barista. Reality of their sad situation sets in right before their 10 year high school reunion. In a memorable scene, their water gets cut off while Miri is mid-shower the night of the reunion, and she resorts to using toilet water to finish the job. The only solution to make the reunion tolerable is to get really drunk. With bills to pay and a Miri’s recent fame as “Granny Panties” on Youtube, they decide that they could make quick cash writing and starring in amateur porn. During production, Zack and Miri wonder if their relationship could advance beyond a platonic professionalism.

The evolution between the relationship of Zack and Miri is indeed predictable. Due to a really witty script, it still is entertaining to watch it unfold. This movie shows the evolution of Kevin Smith. It is just as vulgar as his previous films, yet still manages to get the audience involved with the main characters. It also has the most disgusting scene involving constipation and anal sex that you will ever see in an R-Rated movie (and partially why this movie nearly received an NC-17 rating). Really, I cannot reveal too much of the plot without spoiling some of the more memorable moments. 

As typical of a Smith script, be careful to laugh at the first joke, because you will miss the second and third one to follow. This movie is really golden with jokes, and created porn titles such as Star Whores III – Revenge of the Shit never gets redundant. 

A View Askew production never disappoints with the cameos, either; porn legends Traci Lords and Katie Morgan rounding out the supporting cast. Another memorable cameo is the appearance of Justin Long and Brandon Routh as a couple at the high school reunion. 

The movie is completely thorough, too, in its quality. The soundtrack to the movie includes songs from Bronski Beat and Jermaine Stewart. 

Kevin Smith has created a hit that will not only appease his current fans who love him in a cult-like way and will instantly escalate this film as a hit, but also bring on a ton of new fans who will find the controversial name, the consistent hits of Seth Rogan, and a sweet yet disgusting script appealing.

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Dark Knight follows the continuing adventures of Batman.

In this installment, Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman (played by Christian Bale), is still fighting crime in a cleaner Gotham City.  In a large-scale operation, Batman, along with Lieutenant Gordon (played by Gary Oldman), D.A. Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart), and Mayor Anthony Garcia (played by Nestor Carbonell) decide to put the squeeze on a slew of organized crime families.  The heads of these families (notably Salvatore Maroni, played by Eric Roberts, who sports the WORST goomba dialect I've heard in a while) band together, and take a new criminal, know only as The Joker, up on his offer to off the Batman.

The Joker lives for chaos.  He wants to see what makes the Batman tick, and humanity at large, as well.  In doing so, he pushes all to the brink.  Staging murders to draw the Batman out from behind his mask, inticing the public to scream for his de-masking, placing John Q Public in horrifying situations to show what their really made of, and forcing 'White Knight' Harvey Dent off his high horse, and causing him to live up to his knickname of Two-Face.  The Batman and The Joker find themselves pushing and pulling against each other through innumerable scenarios, thus birthing a love-hate relationship that can never be kicked.  "I think you and I are destined to do this forever," The Joker says.  At least in another incarnation.  Also in this film is the usual cast of characters played by Hollywood A-Listers.  Seriously, too numerable to mention.

This movie had me bouncing in my seat in the theater.  The action arc of this film was so perfect.  Christopher Nolan was a maestro in pulling the right strings.  This film's 152 minute running time had absolutely no affect on me whatsoever.  Not a wasted moment, not a wasted character, no fat that could have been trimmed.  Seriously, my only qualm about Nolan's handling of the film was his use of Christian Bale's raspy Batman voice.  Otherwise, he's orchestrated a phenomenal piece of cinema, and done very well in the super-hero genre.

This was really an ensemble picture.  What, with so many A-Listers it kinda had to be.  Every actor played so well in the whole.  A lot of people are talking about Heath Ledger's performance, and rightly so.  Oscar nod?  Dunno.  I think he was phenomenal, but I feel it would be too sentimental if it was awarded posthumously.  Maybe I'm wrong, and there won't be a stronger performance to come out this season, but unlikely.  Winter hath not fallen.  What was interesting to note is that an earlier version of the trailer really gave the feel that Ledger was channeling Jack Nicholson's Joker.  Later versions totally put that to dust.

As an action film, this is top notch.  Seriously, I was strapped into the ride and screaming like a maniac at every twist and turn.  As a super-hero film, this one had so much depth.  Lots of character progression, perfect handling of new villians, and a great balance of comic lore.  

So far, this has been the best movie I've seen this year.  This bad boy is worth watching, and rewatching.  More trinkets each time, and the action never gets old.

Personal Best (1982)

Personal Best follows the "true" story of two Olympic-calibre athletes as they meet, fall in love, train for the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Olympic games in Moscow, fall out of love, and learn to live as friends.

Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, if the movie weren't such poison to my queer sensibilities.

Okay, so Mariel Hemingway plays young up-and-comer Chris Cahill, who is spotted by seasoned pro Tory Skinner, played by Patrice Donnelly.  Tory, who has a good eye for talent, takes Chris under her wing, and helps convince her super-coach, Terry Tingloff (played by Scott Glenn) to train Chris as well.  And, like any good U-Haul lesbian, Chris and Tory are living, training, and essentially spending every moment of their lives together.  This causes some tension, fueled by ruthless Tingloff, who pits them against each other, rather than nurture a healthy rivalry between the two.  In the lead up to the Moscow games, Chris suffers an injury, which Tingloff helps to blame on Tory.  This, as well as the usual relationship drama, helps to put the kibosh on their relationship.  Chris then finds herself shacking up with with ex-Olympian swimmer Denny Stites, played by Kenny Moore.  Come the final qualifiers for Moscow, Chris and Tory find themselves back in each others' orbits and competing against each other for a spot on the U.S. pentathlon team.  They are able to put their drama behind each other, Chris helps Tory get a spot on the team, and Tory ends up making a crack about Chris's boyfriend being "okay, for a guy."  (cue laugh track, and applause)

Oh, Robert Towne.  Such a great legacy of scripts!  What a friggin' goose egg this one was.  Maybe I should cut him some slack on this one, as it was also his directorial debut, but, hey, if you're gonna make the leap, you'd better make it big.  Couldn't you have given your leads a little more direction?  Given them a little more than bland characters to go off of?  Come on, if you really wanted to be true to life, prolong the angst!  Twist the knife with these four!!!  That's lesbiana.  There were ample opportunities, and I'm sure artistic liberties would have allowed.

And, oh, Mariel Hemingway.  So young.  So whiny.  Did your character have any real depth?  Nope.  Nothing that came off as genuine, at least.  Same goes for Patrice Donnelly and Scott Glenn.  Oh, so cookie cutter.  The ingenue who learns that there's more to life than just winning, the helpful partner who is at heart a jealous lover, the hard-nosed coach who can be nice some of the time, but really is just out for his own personal motives.  Ugh.

One semi-interesting sidenote:  Patrice Donnelly was once the third ranked pentathlete in the world, and Kenny Moore was an Olympic runner.

Some might have the gall to call this movie a great step forward in queer cinema, highlighting that it was risky for its time, was bold enough to follow the women's relationship in full, blablabla.  I, instead, like to focus on how far back it actually set queer cinema.  If it shows us anything, it shows us that it is safer, and less dramatic to be in a heterosexual relationship, and that everything will turn out rosy in the end because of it.  I try to stay off my high horse with things like this, but this is just another stellar example of how little quality queer cinema there really is.  I'm just sayin'.

Motel Hell (1980)

I do not believe that there is a more appropriate horror movie for BBQ season than Motel Hell, a classic cult film from the 80’s. Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) and his sister, Ida, (Nancy Parsons) run the Motel Hello. The establishment is an inn in the countryside that is also famous for its “Honest to goodness all natural” smoked meats. Could this meat be pork, cow, lamb, human flesh?

A man has got to make a living – Vincent does not victimize the tourists in his bates-like motel. Instead, he sets bear traps and various creative deploys along the country roads nearby his motel. His victims are planted in his garden with their vocal chords removed so that they cannot scream. They are fed gruel through a funnel until Vincent feels that they are ready to be harvested and turned into lunch.

Terry and her boyfriend Bo are riding near the motel when their motorcycle tires blow out due to one of Vincent’s booby traps. While Bo is planted, Vincent takes a shining to Terry. He tells her that her boyfriend has died, and that he buried him himself with a makeshift tombstone. Terry, thinking she has nowhere to go, stays at the farm, where Ida and Vincent take care of her. Both Vincent and his younger brother Bruce (a sheriff who is completely unaware of what happens on the farm) both pursue Terry. Bruce takes her to a kissing cliff where they can watch a drive in movie through binoculars and listen to it through his police car intercom. Ultimately, it is the old farmer that she falls for. He proposes to her and promises to teach her how to smoke and cure his meat.

Eventually, Bruce starts to get suspicious of the farm, as well as increasingly frustrated with Terry’s rejection. Ida also becomes extremely jealous when Vincent proposes to Terry. She attempts to drown the young bride-to-be. Eventually, the purpose of the farm becomes apparent when some of the victims somehow escape from the ground and seek revenge on Vincent and Ida.

The more popular victims of his farm include a rock band called “Ivan and the Terribles,” whose tour bus gets caught by bear-traps on the side of the road. They are all put to death by first being hypnotized and then having their necks snapped by ropes attached to a moving truck. You might spot one of your favourite “Cheers” characters, by the way, as a member of that band.

For such a lowbrow movie, the acting for the most part was extremely credible and well played, especially from the late Rory Calhoun. While his character was written full of clichés, Calhoun turned Farmer Vincent into a charming, creative murderer taking a cue from Jonathon Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal.” Vincent actually believes that he is doing the world a favor by creating natural meats from a renewable source. He takes care of overpopulation and world hunger at the same time. “It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters” justifies his use of eclectic meats.

This movie truly embodies everything that is great about cinema. There is a family love triangle, murder, mayhem, beef, brief female nudity… Also, its inspirations appear to come from a literary classic and the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” It is not really a scary movie per se, but it is definitely creepy and entertaining. The movie stuck with me from the first time I saw it in second grade until I was finally able to find the DVD release recently. There is one frightening moment (if you don’t count a tacky drive-in movie date scene). That is when Vincent makes his confession during his violent death that he “used preservatives.” The FDA would have a fit!

That Labor Day BBQ just all of a sudden got less tasty, eh? I will see you at the veggie tray.

La Vie En Rose (2007)

La Vie En Rose stars Marion Cotillard as famed French singer Edith Piaf. The film gives us a glimpse into her life, dating back to her youth in a brothel and circus, later as a young woman singing for money on the streets of Paris, then being discovered before the onset of WWII by Louis Leplee (played by Gerard Depardieu), to her rise to fame playing the music halls of France, touring the U.S., falling in love with Middleweight World Champion Marcel Cerdan (played by Jean-Pierre Martins), illness, addiction, failed performances, career rebirths, et all.

I went into this movie having no solid background on the history of Edith Piaf. I have heard her songs plenty, knew she died young, and is beloved in France. Due to my lack of historical knowledge, and having to rely on subtitles to understand the dialogue, I found it confusing at times trying to keep track of what exactly was the health related problem affecting Piaf in the current scene. The movie also jump around chronologically, so it kinda compounded the problem for me.

Marion Cotillard was absolutely fabulous in this film. Wow-y-wow-wow. She really charted Piaf's life and navigated it so well. And even as much of a bitch as Piaf could be, Cotillard still kept her so likeable. She had these moments in scenes from Piaf's time singing in cabarets and on the street, and she would turn her head away and look to her side while singing, and those moments are just ingrained in my mind. Her eyes stay with you. Cotillard is also a bit of a singer herself, so I know she must have sang some parts of the movie, but I don't know which ones. Other moments sound just like recordings I've heard before, so I know they must have also used source material.

P.S. - Pauline Burlet, who plays 10 year old Edith has some WICKED pipes on her! Her a capella La Marseillaise kinda blew my mind.

I liked the cinematography of this as well. There's a grittiness inherent in scenes from Piaf's youth, and this beautiful gloss to scenes later when she's gotten hugely famous. It really helps to define the movie, and executed quite well.

Some points played a bit melodramatic for me (and I guess that might have just been par for the course for Piaf's life), but overall the movie leaves you with a really haunting feeling. Painful, almost. You know how it's going to end (and I guess this is one reason it stayed on my shelf for a bit), but the journey is so worth it. The ending number, Non Je Ne Regrette Rien, was astounding. It pulls all the right heart strings, and kudos to director Olivier Dahan for doing it justice. It didn't go over the cliffs of sappiness.

All in all, give this one a watch. It's an excellent ride, and well worth any tears that might be shed. No one will judge you.

Iron Man (2008)

Let me first say “Thank you. Thank you, Jon Favreau. While you had ample opportunity to stuff this summer action flick with enough cheese and patriotism to fill the bellies of America, you did not. Iron Man was topical and intelligent - as well as entertaining. You directed a fantastic Marvel-character movie. Also, thank you for not using the Black Sabbath version of “Iron Man” a billion times in your film; you limited it to an abridged instrumental version in the credits.”

Iron Man is based on the Marvel comic created by Stan Lee. In the film, billionaire Tony Stark is the leading weapons developer and head of Stark Industries. Stark is a brilliant engineer who goes to Afghanistan to promote his latest and extremely advanced missile, Jericho. Before he can head back home to have sex with more Maxim models, he is kidnapped by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings who hold him hostage and force him to build them a Jericho missile of their own. However, during his kidnapping, he sustained an injury caused by shrapnel near his heart. Luckily, fellow captive, Dr. Yinsen, created an electro-magnetic device that attached to Stark’s chest, preventing the shrapnel from reaching his heart and killing him. Being resourceful as he is, Stark used the supplies meant for the Jericho missile to create a miniature arc reactor to power the device keeping him alive. He also designed the first Mark 1 “Iron Man” armor (also powered by the arc reactor) complete with missiles and rockets to escape.

While back in the US, he renounces his service as weapons developer, and wants to take Stark Industries in a different direction. Instead, he was blocked out of his company by the board, including his partner and friend, Obadiah Stane. Feeling a sense of mission, Stark secretly begins to build a more advanced version of the Mark 1 suit; however, the remnants of his original design are discovered by the Ten Rings. Stane takes the initiative and constructs his own version of the Mark 1. When it is discovered that Stane had a hand in Tony Stark’s kidnapping, that generated a substantial enemy for Stark/Iron Man.

Robert Downey, Jr. could not have been a better Tony Stark/Iron Man. He filled out that “titanium-alloy” suit perfectly. Rather than portraying the character with farce, and making it, well, like a comic book character, Downey played the Stark like an actual human, especially during the transition from Stark being a bombastic playboy to superhero. The character itself was not changed – just the motives and mission.

Gwyneth Paltrow played Pepper Potts, Stark’s assistant and potential love interest for the sequels. The character came to Paltrow with extreme ease, and while it did not appear to be the most taxing character to create, she was beautiful in that role.

Of course, Jeff Bridges was fantastic as the super-villain and former partner of Stark, Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger. It was a typical friend turned foe role, but you almost did not see the sleaziness creeping up.

The script itself was tight. The plot flowed, the jokes fell into place effortlessly, and while some of it predictable, it never was cheesy. It was a believable film – the events were topical, the effects plausible, and the heroes and villains were ultimately human. Those were the aspects that made this film so successful.

We know that a ridiculous amount of money went into the special effect for this film. Gratefully, it didn’t overwhelm the storyline. Also, the massive amounts of effects were convincing, rather than cartoon-like. This movie should make greater strides for comic-book action flicks in the future to up the quality of their effects.


Iron Man is what a summer flick should be – violent, well produced and smart. There were few slow moments in the film – even where they were, the film was never boring. This film is geared more towards the adult audience, definitely, but could not offend children Oh, and I learned AFTER waiting through five minutes of credits (I always like to give props to the little guys), that I should have stayed longer. There is a cameo at the very end of the credits that has garnered almost as much attention as the movie – at least on the nerd circuit.