A very unglamorous view of the Italian mob, and maybe Italy in general. I don’t know if the decaying world that we see in this movie is representative of a small or large area, hopefully it’s just one city (or smaller area even), but it seems like the Camorra reaches far beyond a single city.
I had heard very good things about this and it didn’t disappoint. It still is a little distracting to watch a movie in a foreign language, you spend more time trying to read/understand the dialogue rather than getting into the movie, but oh well.
This is a collection of stories, but they don’t interconnect. Each story isn’t even necessarily complete, but it’s part of a bigger picture. They all show how the Camorra manages to control pretty much everything and how lots of peoples lives get fucked up in the process. The drug trade is getting big, power struggles are getting people killed, and the managing and dumping of toxic waste is sickening hundreds of people. There is no main story but the one that sticks out the most is the one of two kids who want to play gangster when they happen across a weapons stash. You know this will not end well from minute one. They end up robbing an arcade, hitting up strip clubs, and then finally they think they are noticed by the crime boss. Nope, he’s luring them in the kill them because they stole the weapons. The movie’s last shot is their dead bodies being carted away, so that story sticks in my mind.
There’s also the little delivery boy. You see him with an older woman and they haver a nice little relationship going. But then he is forced to be part of her murder, because she trusts him he is able to lure her out towards the mob guys. She’s a total innocent too, it’s just revenge/to send a message, but the kid knows that he will die if he does not cooperate. Not a great deal of time is spent on this story but it stands out as one of the stronger ones.
The decision to open the movie with a classic gangster movie scene of some hot shot guys being murdered in a tanning salon (the tannign salon could be anywhere guys hang out, it just happens to be a tanning salon here) is a good one. It’s the most cliched moment of the movie but it draws you in, with a slow start I may have just turned this off because I had other stuff to do that day.
This was non-fiction but it read like a thriller novel. I liked it a lot. There were some bits that the author said were blacked out by the Department of Defense, but based on how the sentences around it were written I’m calling a little shenanigans here. It just didn’t sound right, maybe he was just trying to make it more intriguing. Maybe not, not really a big deal.
The point of this book was to show how new techniques involving creating a bond with detainees and talking to them rather than physical torture was far more effective in getting reliable intelligence. In the cases the book covers this is true, much to the dismay of the old schoolers who pretty much hate this new guy, but he gets results and that’s what matters.
This was a little better than I expected, a cute romcom but it was actually pretty funny. Robert Duvall was good. Nothing was really spectacular but also nothing was terrible, a solid 3/5.
As expected, things got even more crazy this season. Not always in a bad way though. “Who Pooped the Bed?” was great, as was the two-parter “Mac and Charlie Die”. A few episodes went a little too far, like “The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition” and “Paddy’s Pub: The Worst Bar in Philadelphia”. Both put the Gang into situations that were just too far removed from reality and that should have had far more serious consequences. Sure it’s a comedy where everything should just be reset at the end (as it was with these episodes), but sometimes it’s just a little difficult to get behind the ridiculous shit they do.
“The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell” was interesting. I wasn’t really into the whole 1776 flashback thing, but the moments at the end when they kill Cricket and Dee flies away on a broom (one of the funniest moments in the series I think) made up for it. “The Nightman Cometh” was also very good, it’s great to see Charlie get really involved in the episode’s plot (he is often kind of a side character doing silly shit rather than a key player), especially his song at the end.
Even with a few weak spots, I still loved this season. They really just need to stay at the bar more, it seems like whenever they leave the bar or aren’t doing something directly related to the bar, the show loses a little steam (with the exception of season 5’s road trip episode, classis). Absolutely worth a purchase on DVD, though I’ll probably wait for a full-series set.
I very much enjoyed this. Great script and great acting. Colin Farrel has completely fallen off my radar, I like that he did this relatively small film and kept his own accent. He’s like a different person. And Ralph Fiennes was awesome, everything he said and did was perfect.
Every time Colin’s character talked about the city was great. Fuckin’ Bruges!?! Oh and the girl in this is the girl who played Fleur Delacour in Harry Potter 4 (we also have Mad Eye Moody and Voldemort for those keeping count), she’s super cute.
The story was very well written, it didn’t go exactly as you expect it even though it finds itself in pretty familiar situations, I look forward to whatever writer/director Martin McDonagh does next.
It was actually good. With a title like that I gotta admit I was skeptical. But, it was creepy and The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper was pretty good. I definitely did not think there would be flesh eating demon-type things coming out at the end, but hey, it worked perfectly. Vinnie Jones is creepy as always, no talking the whole time (for a reason too, not just to be creepy, save for one or two words at the end).
Sometimes I like a happy ending. Okay more than sometimes. But then sometimes a very unhappy ending works much better, and having his fiancee die and he himself become the butcher was the only satisfactory ending I could see, I’m glad they stuck with it. Though I should have known, this being a Clive Barker story, it was more like after it was over I realized that I should have seen the supernatural element coming.
Too bad this movie got totally screwed over because of some executive bullshit at the studio. They had it made and ready but then a new CEO or some such came in and started throwing his weight around, and Midnight Meat Train was a casualty, being dumped into dollar theaters for two weeks. I hope it does well on video, but it probably won’t. With a proper release this probably would have at least made back its budget (I don’t imagine it was very much).
I watched this a few weeks ago and just never got around to writing anything. It was good. Denzel’s character is a great movie gangster. It was pretty long too but it worked, a really good story and all the actors did a great job.
The Coens make really good comedies or really good dramas. This one falls into the comedy side but just barely. It’s like there was a bit too much seriousness, the tone was never really settled. As a parody of spy thrillers it worked great, but just on its own it’s easy to get lost and realize that it’s all really pointless and doesn’t make sense (as JK points out in the last scene), but still the characters were interesting to watch.
I was spoiled going into this, which is too bad because I think the dildo chair would have been a fall out of my chair laughing moment, and Brad Pitt getting shot would have come completely out of nowhere. About that, too bad he got killed but someone always needs to get shot in the face in a Coen Brothers movie. He was easily the best character, a stuck in the 90s gym employee who just loves to boogey and is pretty much a total moron. Maybe the other characters should have been played a little more fun like Brad did. Or maybe their seriousness just made him that much better.
When it started out I wasn’t too sure about it, it seemed to be going down the path of forced, lame jokes. But they managed to push it past the realm of seriousness with lots of cameos and just enough ridiculousness in the story that I accepted it as cool and funny rather than just dumb. I especially liked that they referenced the fact that Episode I sucked, even if it was just a throwaway line at the end. They were pretty hard on Trek but as they said in the movie, Paramount threatened to sue if they used their likenesses, so I think they probably ramped up the hate after that.
Gory and violent, as Punisher should be. Solid flick, lots of fun. Good action/fights, decent script, no real complaints. Well I tried to like Julie Benz but she was pretty awful in this. Ray Stevenson is mighty fine Frank Castle, as good as Thomas Jane (more kick ass actually, less crying). Dominic West did a great job as Jigsaw, very over the top in a good way.
