Fast Five - Kyle

There are a few movie franchises that have delivered, repeatedly. Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter, some of the Batman stuff, (new) Bond (though still nervous about this whole Sam Mendes thing), and a few others. I can unashamedly say that no franchise has made me more happy than The Fast and the Furious.

There is an emotion that is evoked in music, film and whatever else wherein the viewer/listener is carried along by an interplay of crescendo and decrescendo. Sigur Ros fires you up, brings you back down, then hits you with the mother load. There comes a point though, when some movies and some other forms of entertainment just hit you with too many high points. It is like, how many times can Predator and Alien top themselves? How many times can Jack Bauer save the world? How many times can Bruce Willis look awesome? Often times, the greats, like Motzart and Sylvester Stallone, know exactly how many times the topped can be topped. This is what makes them great.

So, when I first heard rumblings about Fast Five, I was immediately like, 'OK, how many times can you top the top?' After all, Jack Sparrow is all but ruined at this point. But then... I saw Fast Five. I only needed about 4 minutes of DPL action to know that the top has been topped and immediately started to worry about the making of Super-Fast Six. They topped the topped and I loved every minute of it. I'm nervous about Vin driving cars that fly but I think I am ready for it.

Super 8 - Matt

You like movies? You like movies like The Goonies, ET, Stand By Me, and The Sandlot, with some sci-fi stuff mixed in? Mash 'em all up, add the 2011 version of child actors that convincingly deliever entertaining dialouge, and a winning performance from Coach Taylor, and you have Super 8.

This movie did what the latest Indiana Jones failed to do a couple of years ago...mix some straightforward classic movie adventure with sci-fi and make it enjoyable to watch. The key is to allow only the science fiction characters to be capable of science fictionesque feats. If you wasted your money on that Indiana Jones, you were lucky enough to see Shia Lebouf swing on vines next to CGI monkeys to catch up with army jeeps going 60mph through the jungle...(it was unredeamable at that point). But in Super 8, kids are kids, and the sci fi stuff is sci fi stuff, and they interact in reasonable way.

I reccomend seeing this movie one of two ways...

1) on a Friday night, with someone who likes to be entertained, after killing a Bloomin Onion, Aussie Cheese Fries, and an Outback Special (med. rare)...go ahead and round out the experience by spending extra $ on popcorn.

2) the way that I saw it...out of work early on a Monday aternoon, 12:55 mattinee, 2 cheeseburgers in my pants pockets, 1 small order of fries and a 4-peice Chicken McNuggets in my shirt, and the limited-time-offer Rolo McFlurry in my hand (because I'm gutsy like that).

Midnight In Paris - KJ

*Spoiler Alert*

(For Matt)
Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams carry-over their engagement from Wedding Crashers and pick up the witty dialogue in a less rom-com arena in Woody Allen's newest installment of upper-class folks figuring out life in a major European city. The voice overs and paradigm breakers that make-up a Woody Allen movie are at the base of this one. Owen Wilson plays the disenfranchised searcher. He writes Hollywood blow-em-up features and is engaged to McAdams, the daughter of a Tea Party CEO. She wants a house in Malibu and he wants a loft in a rainy Paris. She likes the pedant (Woody Allen must really hate pedants). Wilson hates the pedant and hates wine tasting and hates the Tea Party. The movie gets exciting and less about crappy relationships and more about awesome relationships when Wilson is taking a walk. The clock chimes midnight o'clock and Wilson finds himself in 1920s Paris. He meets Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, Hemingway and all the other artists that made up his image of a nostalgic Paris. For the first few time travels, Wilson has found his place. It is not until he meets Marion Cottliard, the mistress of a bunch of famous artists. She, herself, wants to be swept back to 1890s Paris. It is there, in the 1890s that they meet other artists that are musing on their nostalgia for a renaissance Paris. It is then that the movie comes full circle. Wilson, the writer and the person, realize what every good writer in every good movie realizes, in the words of Sean from the movie Orange County, would Faulkner have written great novels if he had left the South? Wilson makes peace with himself and dumps McAdams decides to move to 2010 Paris and finish his novel (complete with Gertrude Stine's notes).

I really liked this movie so per Stephen's suggestion I snuck into another theater and saw X-Men: First Class. It was awesome, too.

X-Men: First Class - Stephen

x-men: first class - i just watched it last night online -- holy shit, i think it totally redeems the franchise! brings to my mind questions of violence, autocracy/fascism, mutation as diversity, mutation as the good, thought/mind/ideas (culture) vs biology, governments especially their military industrial complexes as evil, but human nature to recapitulate these evils.

Hundred Reasons For Desperado - JAK

Hashing Out Movies is a creature of the growing kind, composed of 100 opinions, reviews, tributes, and other movable parts. Although aspects of itself often disagree, HOM has always found unification within itself through the singular movement of its being: forward, towards a movie-talking space. As part of the celebration centering around HOM’s first 100 reviews, I thought it would be fun to take this to the atom-level by looking at the top 100 reasons to watch the best movie ever made.

Hundred Reasons to Watch Desperado:*

(*Note: This list is composed of lesser gems culled from my previous “100 Reasons Why Tecate is better than Corona”)

12. Salma Hayek: A frisky, bookshop owner who holds her own not only in the violent chaos of gang-torn Mexico but also in the arms of Banderas. I refer, of course, to that scene with the flame and the spur and the all-too-quick camera cuts.

17. Los Lobos: There are no sexier, more dangerous, just plain cool guitar licks anywhere on the planet.

42. Banderas: He deserves a tribute all his own. See Costner tribute and times it by 2.

43. Steve Buschemi: “….” . “…3”.
44. It’s smoother and has less carbonation.

64. Mexico: Officially known as the United Mexican States, the land mass commonly refereed to as “Mexico” is bordered to the north by the United Sates of America and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. It spans nearly 2 million kilometres and is the 14 ^th largest independent nation in the world. It speaks Spanish and has a vibrant culture.

67. Quentin Terrantino: Teller of the best joke in any movie, ever. It’s all in QT’s manic delivery and bizarre voice.

73. Cheech: The Corsican Brothers was a great film.

77. Robby Rodriguez: According to his autobio, Rebel without a crew, Rodriguez wrote the screenplay to Desperado’s precursor, Il Mariachi, during his months in the hospital, earning money for his film by being a guinea pig for pharmaceutical companies

81. Mariachi Bands: We always knew that it took a bad-ass to put on such a crazy get-up.

91. VHS: This type of movie never made the transition to DVD. It looks like we’ll never be able to rewind to the good old golden days of action movies; which reminds me, never under any circumstances watch Desperado on TBS, TNT or any channel other than Cinemax.

Exit Through The Gift Shop - Tim

Nominated for an Oscar, Exit Through the Gift Shop is either a doc-, mock-, or prank-umentary, depending on who you ask. If it's a documentary, it's about French video-maniac Thierry Guetta making a shitload of money by stealing streetart from the likes of Invader, Shepard Fairey and Banksy himself and totally selling out. The lesson: Capitalism = evil.

If it's a mockumentary, it's about how little talent it takes to make a crapload of money in the world of pop art. The lesson: If you're willing to pay thousands of bucks for a Madonna album cover, it's your own fault.

If it's a mockumentary, it's not so much about how stupid pop art buyers are, but how stupid we are for believing anything as long as it's on a screen (see Fox News watchers). The lesson: Haha, we even fooled the Academy.

Doc, moc, prank - what do I think it is? Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. All I know is it takes the piss out of counterfeit artists and in the most hilarious fashion. Might as well call it a fuckyoumentary.

Nicolas (Coppola) Cage - A Life Doing Work

It is not possible for me to make clear how awesome Cage really is. I'll leave it to others.

"Cage was born in Long Beach, California. His father, August Coppola, was a professor of literature; Cage's mother, Joy Vogelsang, is a dancer and choreographer."

"Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, and the cousin of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola, film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola, and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman."

"To avoid the appearance of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his name early in his career to Nicolas Cage, inspired in part by the Marvel Comics superheroLuke Cage."

"Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared to his mainstream action/adventure roles."

"I feel I've made a lot of movies already and I want to start exploring other opportunities that I can apply myself to, whether it's writing or other interests that I may develop."

"Herzog has found his ideal interpreter, a performer whose truth lies deep in the artifice of performance: ladies and gentlemen, Nicolas Cage, at his finest."

"Cage has created a comic book with his son Weston, called Voodoo Child, which is published by Virgin Comics. Cage is an avid comic book fan, and once auctioned a collection of 400 vintage comics through Heritage Auctions for over $1.6 million in 2002."

"In 1997, Cage broke the auction record for Lamborghinis when he placed a bid on a rare Miura SVJ for US$490,000."

"In February 2011, Cage claimed to have created a new method of acting he calls Nouveau Shamanic. He claims to have used the acting style throughout his career and one day plans to write a book about the method."

"Cage has been married three times. His first wife was actress Patricia Arquette (married on April 8, 1995, divorce finalized on May 18, 2001). Cage later married singer/songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley. Cage is an Elvis fan and used the star as the base of his performance in Wild at Heart. Lis and Cage married on August 10, 2002 and filed for divorce on November 25, 2002; their divorce was finalized on May 16, 2004. The divorce proceeding was longer than the marriage.”

“Cage's third and current wife Alice Kim, a former waitress who previously worked at the Los Angeles restaurant Kabuki, met Cage at the Los Angeles-based Korean nightclub, Le Privé. She is the mother of his son, Kal-El (born October 3, 2005), named after Superman's birth name."

"Cage had a Malibu home where he and Kim lived, but sold the property in 2005 for $10 million. In 2004 he bought a property on Paradise Island, Bahamas. In May 2006, he bought a 40-acre (160,000 m2) island in the Exuma archipelago, some 85 miles (137 km) southeast of Nassau and close to a similar island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw."

"He once owned the medieval castle of Schloss Neidstein in the Oberpfalz region in Germany, which he bought in 2006 and sold in 2009 for $2.5 million."

"In August 2007, Cage purchased a home in Middletown, Rhode Island. The 24,000-square-foot (2,200 m2), brick-and-stone country manor occupies 26 acres (110,000 m2), has 12 bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms, and ocean views and borders the Norman Bird Sanctuary. The estate is called the "Grey Craig". The sale ranked among the state’s most expensive residential purchases, eclipsed by the 2007 $17.15 million sale of the Miramar mansion on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. Also in 2007, the actor purchased Midford Castle in Somerset, England."

"instead of listening to Levin, cross-defendant Cage (Coppola) spent most of his free time shopping for high ticket purchases, and wound up with 15 personal residences", Levin's complaint continued: "Likewise, Levin advised Coppola against buying a Gulfstream jet, against buying and owning a flotilla of yachts, against buying and owning a squadron of Rolls Royces, against buying millions of dollars in jewelry and art."

"Levin says that in 2007 Cage's "shopping spree entailed the purchase of three additional residences at a total cost of more than $33 million; the purchase of 22 automobiles (including 9 Rolls Royces); 12 purchases of expensive jewelry; and 47 purchases of artwork and exotic items."

"One of those exotic items was a dinosaur skull of a Tarbosaurus for which Nicolas Cage paid $276,000 in an auction after winning a bidding contest against Leonardo DiCaprio."

"According to Cage, he owned the "Most Haunted House in America", a home located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana."

"Nicolas Cage remains one of Hollywood's highest paid actors, earning $40 million in 2009 according to Forbes Magazine."

"On April 15, 2011, at 11:30 PM, Cage was arrested in New Orleans in the city's famed French Quarter district for suspicion of domestic abuse battery, disturbing the peace, and public intoxication, after a police officer was flagged down by onlookers after Cage allegedly grabbed his wife's upper arm, while appearing to be under the influence. Cage was held in police custody until $11,000 USD bail was posted by Duane "Dog" Chapman."

I think Cage is one of the best of all time. The Rock, Raising Arizona, Port of Call, Adaptation, Con Air; I mean Face Off, Gone in 60 Seconds. I love them all (save 8mm). Ebert agrees:

"There are often lists of the great living male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson and Pacino, usually. How often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively.... He always seems so earnest. However improbable his character, he never winks at the audience. He is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him."

The Adjustment Bureau - KDJ

Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Paycheck and now The Adjustment Bureau, are films that I have seen based on Philip K. Dick novels or short stories. In each, the metaphysical world that the characters live in is a sci-fi-ed version of our own. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt rom-com-ed a sci-fi-ed meta-physic in this most recent installment of predestination vs. free will.

The Adjustment Bureau itself is helmed by a boss that we never meet, yet this boss has two soft-spots. Boss and his 'agents' are weaker around water and seemingly confused by chance and love - two themes that play out insofar as they became one thing. It is chance and love that finally free the love birds of the confines of a plan that originally calls for separate existences. The fun is not so much in the head play of free will vs. predestination as it is the consistent escaping Damon and Blunt execute. Lucky for them, they befriend a disenfranchised agent that has become wayward in his matrix enforcement due to lack of vacation time. It his old-timey hat that allows Damon to portal from the 'planned world' to the 'real world' or the experienced world just in time to interrupt Blunt's foreseen mistake.

Damon is Damon in this move so no real surprises. Emily Blunt, however, I thought, was really good. The script doesn't make too much room for Oscar performances but it does require Damon and Blunt to be somewhat believable. After all, a rom-comed sci-fi thriller, is already enough of a play--much more playing and we'd be left with sci-fied Sex and the City, and we wouldn't want that--or would we?

McConaughey: A Life's Work - JAK

2005 was a good year. The ‘stros made it to the world series, France performed the first successful face transplant, and Six Shooter won best live-action short at the Oscars. But what was best about 2005 was that People magazine finally, officially recognized the sexiness of Matthew David McConaughey. Of course People’s decision wasn’t news to those of us who had long before acknowledged his chiseled, heart-breakingly rugged good looks in in A Time to Kill. His portrayal of a lawyer defending an African-American father accused of murder in a racially-charged Mississippi revealed a new hunk of talent on the Hollywood scene. Not since Brando tore his shirt and yelled ‘Stella!’ has an actor so brilliantly coupled rock-hard acting skills with Sexiest-man-alive looks. Following T to K, McConaughey proceeded to hone his sexiness by playing the male lead in Carl Sagan’s Contact. Embodying a physically flawless, sexually promiscuous spiritualist (“a man of the cloth, without the cloth”), McConaughey wooed Jodi Foster and argued the ethics of human/alien contact. He went on to stretch his sexiness to the breaking point with hits such as U-571, Failure to Launch, and Sahara. Though some of his films were hampered by sub-standard dialogue, superficial scripts, and shirts, McConaughey always found a way to make the role his own. Perhaps the Adonis called McConaughey will best be remembered for his role in Dazed and Confused. Playing a character profoundly suited to his time and place, he encapsulated the small-town, post-high school male experience in such lines as “I love them red heads”, “alright, alright, alright” and, of course, “You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N.”

McConaughey will next be flexing his acting chops in The Lincoln Lawyer: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/thelincolnlawyer/

No Strings Attached - KDJ

Straight up, Oscar season wore me out. For some reason(s), I put myself through the gauntlet every year just before these glorified theater nerds and liberal english lit majors walk the 1.2 mile red carpet. I make a point to see as many of the nominated films as I can. This year, the last couple weeks leading up to the lackluster-Franco peering off cause he is awesome-awards show, were filled with Biutiful, Blue Valentine, Winter's Bone, I am Love and The Black Swan. In other words, the night before the-Anne Hathaway giving 25 Arsenio Hall like 'woops'-awards show, I needed a breather. I thought about watching The Proposal for a second time. I also thought about Dan in Real Life for a third time. Lucky enough for me, I appreciate Rom-Com's enough to not allow No Strings Attached to deter my unbridled respeckt for Natalie Portman. As a result, I kept my sanity and was reminded that Blue Valentine is as much of a motion picture as No Strings Attached is. Sure, in one nothing works out, eerily mirroring real life for 60% of American couples. While in the other, everything works out just as it did in Clueless, White Christmas, and How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days. The bottom line is, though, after seeing all these phenomenal actors take me to really dark places (Javier, Portman, Lawrence, Swinton etc.), I remembered that it is just as much of an experience to watch the picture book version. Call it a cheap thrill, a solid Rom-Com that is, but don't knock it until you can prove that Jerry McGuire, When Harry Met Sally, and You've Got Mail aren't worth our time. NSA may not join the ranks of said epic-rom-com's, but it just may keep you out of the Indie movie theaters long enough to remember that there is a reason to give Blue Valentine and Biutiful and an Indie movie theater a hard earned chance.