Atonement

As of now, with the lone exception of Michael Clayton (which no one really predicted would win anything anyway) I have seen four out of five of the best picture nominees this year. It's a personal best for me since in the past I have seen two or maybe three. This year three films wowed me and made me think "oh yeah, they deserve to be nominated." And then there's "Atonement."

Every few years or so the academy gets some weird bug up its behind and nominates an extremely ordinary film as one of the best of the year. It happened with "Ghost," it happened with "Chocolat" and it's happened again here.

Although the film is being marketed as one of those great love stories to entice women into thinking they're going to see "Sense and Sensibility Part Deux", it's not really a love story at all.
It's more about betrayal.

All the time I was watching it, I kept wondering what the big deal was.
Kiera Knightly pouts, James Mcavoy shows restrained passion.
They make love on the lawn, then they do it in the library, and that's pretty much all you see before a little girl's lies tear them apart. Then James Mcavoy shows restrained rage, they're torn asunder and that's pretty much it.

To be fair, there are a few twists and turns as we see the ramifications of that lie and eventually we see her complicated attempts to make peace, but it's not particularly moving or special in any way. And once you've seen Kiera Knightly in that green dress, the film really doesn't have much else to offer.

Atonement: C

King Of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters

I must admit I've played a few video games in my life and in my formative years even had a subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine. I would scour the pages looking for the latest strategies and cheat codes to get ahead in Contra or Ninja Gaiden.

This is a movie made by and for people who play X-Box Live and their original n.e.s. all day long. The people who rarely venture outside because they're still trying to get past that infamous 15th level of Super Mario Brothers.

The story of the Donkey Kong world record holder, Billy Mitchell, and an unemployed father named Steve Wiebe who challenges the record aspires to be a great story of good and evil.
Mitchell comes off like a cocky s.o.b. who sends in the minions of the video game authorities to cast aspersions on any gamer that threatens to take his title. Wiebe seems like the humble everyman without connections trying to beat a system that seems rigged against him on charm and pure skill alone.

The film seems to think it's story has the dramatic tension of a Tom Clancy novel.
These are video games were talking about here, not the Cold War.
We're not talking about the Machiavellian machinations of an evil genius against a good hearted everyman just trying to do the right thing.
We're talking two maladjusted compulsive people being obsessed over and celebrated by a bunch of other maladjusted compulsive people. Billy Mitchell actually seems the slightly more sane of the two.

I found the subject matter just collapses under the weight if you try to read too much into it.
As a person at least familiar with gaming I knew about Donkey Kong, and so I found it somewhat interesting. But non-gamers would be bored to tears

King of Kong: B-

Rambo

Rambo is a man of few words, and it's a good thing because the words only get in the way of the explosions in this new fourth installment of the Rambo franchise.

We find Rambo working as a snake catcher in Thailand while civil war rages on in neighboring burma. And Rambo is enlisted to help a group of white missionaries deliver medical supplies to the war torn villagers. They predictably get captured and it's up to Rambo to rescue them and destroy an entire army pretty much by himself.

Stallone takes credit for writing and directing, but truth be told, the film is told in such broad strokes it could have been written by a ten year old. Everything that doesn't have to do with shooting or killing is reduced to a minimum.

In between spouting unintentionally hillarious one liners like "killing's as easy as breathing" and "you either live for nothing, or you die for something" there are plenty of severed heads, body parts flying, and stuff blowing up real good with a bare minimum of nuance. Oh, and Rambo rips a man's throat out with his bare hands.

It's probably the goriest of all the Rambo pictures, which was just fine with the almost exclusively male audience i saw it with on a cold february day. Rambo's no philosopher, but he knows how to deliver the goods.

Rambo: B-.
(best if you can find some likeminded friends to go with you and revel in its awfulness).

An Introduction

An Introduction

As a child I used to own the old book "The Golden Turkey Awards," and it began my life long fascination with celebrating and ridiculing hollywood's failures.
With so much cinematic bile flooding the multiplex, I think I should have lots of material to work with.
So rest assured, I won't kiss any behinds here.
If something leaves its audience feeling like they swallowed a spoonful of drano, I'll let you know.
Conversely, if something is so delightfully awful I'll let you know too.
Unlike my other site (filmeducation.blogspot.com), this one will be devoted to new and recent films that catch my eye.
And just like a funny english teacher who shows kids how to break the rules and discover new ideas while ridiculing those in authority, I'll be using standard letter grades.