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- Review count28
- Helpfulness votes9
- First reviewApril 27, 2008
- Last reviewJune 5, 2008
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- Average rating3.9
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![No Country for Old Men [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8684/8684569_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
A Return to Form for the Coens
on May 5, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
"No Country for Old Men" is a real return to form for writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen, whose three most recent movies (an unamusing remake of "The Ladykillers," the aggressively unfunny "Intolerable Cruelty" and the stylish but pointless "The Man Who Wasn't There") pale in comparison to their early masterworks (the contemporary noir of "Blood Simple" and "Fargo," the surrealist black humor of "Barton Fink," and the very offbeat hijinks of "Raising Arizona" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?").
Adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, "No Country for Old Men" has one of the most basic crime-thriller plots imaginable: Josh Brolin finds a lot of money at the site of a drug deal that went very wrong, wants to keep it, but is pursued by the drug cartel's psycho hitman (Javier Bardem) and a crusty sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones).
What makes the movie special is the way the Coens show us each character's state of mind -- Brolin's quiet desperation, Bardem's quiet relentlessness and Jones' quiet professionalism -- in a movie with many lengthy dialog-free but almost unbearably tense scenes.
Bardem is excellent as the low-key but lethal Chigurh, a guy who definitely knows how to make the most of a compressed-air tank. His encounter with a gas station proprietor early in the movie is a marvel of malevolent minimalism: a blood-chilling conversation about nothing more than a proposed coin toss.
Supporting actors Kelly Macdonald, as Brolin's unsettled but quietly authentic wife, and Woody Harrelson, a "cleaner" dispatched by the drug cartel to corral the possibly gone-rogue Bardem, are as good as the main players.
The only noteworthy flaw with the movie is the Coens' baffling and frustrating decision not to show us the fate of a main character onscreen. Letting something that important happen off-camera was an inexplicably bizarre storytelling choice.
Also, some audience members may feel cheated by the way the movie ends, because things are not exactly tied up in a justice-is-served, life-affirming fashion. Welcome to the real world, people. Sometimes, all a guy can do is sit and stare in hopeless helplessness at a world gone mad.
What's great about it: Stylish, interesting, suspenseful
What's not so great: The scene that isn't shown should have been.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+3points
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![28 Weeks Later [WS] [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8471/8471209_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
Better Than the First One
on May 4, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
This sequel to the 2003 British horror thriller "28 Days Later" is even more suspenseful and gripping than the original, with a bigger budget that is well used on some amazing special effects.
The only annoying thing about the movie is that virtually every "zombies attack" scene is shot in epileptic shaky-cam , with footage spliced together so haphazardly that it's as if the editor got infected with the rage virus and couldn't concentrate.
But forget that nitpickery -- everything else about the movie more than makes up for the fact that the attack scenes go by at strobe-light speed.
For one thing, Imogen Poots (man, what an unlikely moniker) is perfect as the teenage heroine of the flick, a girl who has such a distinctive and cat-like look that she seems almost otherworldly.
What's great about it: Scary Stuff, Great Casting
What's not so great: Too much shaky-cam
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Shoot 'Em Up [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8640/8640679_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
Masterpiece of Mayhem
on May 2, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
In this deliriously over-the-top masterpiece of outrageously clever mayhem, star Clive Owen is an unstoppable good-guy gunman who is given to asking the question "you know what I hate?" immediately before letting all heck break loose.
Although the posters for "Shoot 'Em Up" resemble Frank Miller comic-book drawings come to life, the actual movie has more in common with the work of another comic-book great: Garth Ennis, writer of such jaw-droppingly hyper-violent heroes as Marvel's the Punisher.
Owen plays Mr. Smith -- and that's probably not his real name -- a guy who is simply waiting for a bus when he gets drawn into one of the wildest, most crazy-violent action opening scenes of all time. By the time the bullets stop flying, Smith is on the run with a complete stranger's targeted-for-death baby and one heck of a lot of questions.
Meanwhile, a sadistically evil genius appropriately named Hertz (Paul Giamatti) is after him with a never-ending army of hired killers.
Writer/director Michael Davis has loaded the film with one unforgettably imaginative image after another: spent shell casings bouncing off a pregnant woman's stomach, a gun dropping in an unflushed toilet, a hand with bullets between the fingers shoved into a fireplace as an improvised weapon. There are showdowns, standoffs, car chases, airborne gun battles and even a shootout in a firearms factory.
Best of all, the screenplay manages to both glorify in and yet subvert some of the things you'll be expecting. For example, it's a mega-body-count, blizzard-of-bullets barrage that's actually a plea for gun control at heart. Seriously. Also, although it has scenes referencing bits from movies as diverse as "Lost Highway," "The Transporter" and even "Raising Arizona" (how's that for range?), it still feels fresh and original.
And there's one perfectly done little scene that's so poignant you may actually find yourself tearing up. Don't worry, though -- a hail of gunfire follows very shortly thereafter. Heck, a hail of gunfire follows shortly after EVERYTHING in this movie, usually including other hails of gunfire!
Highly recommended!
What's great about it: Comic-book hyper-violence at its best.
What's not so great: Cons? Is this a joke? It's great!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![The Darjeeling Limited [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8679/8679156_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
A Trip Worth Taking
on May 1, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
I was about to start by writing that either you like Wes Anderson's quirky, tongue-in-cheek, strangely endearing movies or you don't. Then I realized that I disliked "The Royal Tenenbaums" as much as I liked "Rushmore" and "The Life Aquatic," so who knows? You just might enjoy a ride on "The Darjeeling Limited" even if Anderson's quirky characters and deadpan irony have left you cold in the past.
Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman are three brothers sharing an Indian train compartment. Wilson, his head bandaged after a motorcycle accident, has arranged the would-be spiritual trip in an attempt to reconnect with the others following the death of their father. That's made a little tougher by the fact that none of the brothers trusts the other two, they readily betray confidences at the earliest opportunity, and they just plain don't seem to like each other much.
Somehow, all of this simmering resentment, brotherly backstabbing and frequent frustration is incredibly entertaining. Wilson is excellent at portraying a kind of hippie control freak, one who visits Indian temples on a schedule dictated by a laminated daily agenda. Brody is the kind of guy who buys a poisonous snake at a market on a whim, wears his dead father's prescription sunglasses all the time, and has abandoned his wife at a rather crucial juncture. Schwartzman is the hangdog but earnest romantic who manages to hook up with an Indian tea-server and thinks he's found true love.
The movie takes what could have been a maudlin turn more than halfway through, but the tragedy succeeds in showing that even brothers as shallow as these aren't completely irredeemable.
Interesting, different, funny and thoughtful. With laughs.
Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman are three brothers sharing an Indian train compartment. Wilson, his head bandaged after a motorcycle accident, has arranged the would-be spiritual trip in an attempt to reconnect with the others following the death of their father. That's made a little tougher by the fact that none of the brothers trusts the other two, they readily betray confidences at the earliest opportunity, and they just plain don't seem to like each other much.
Somehow, all of this simmering resentment, brotherly backstabbing and frequent frustration is incredibly entertaining. Wilson is excellent at portraying a kind of hippie control freak, one who visits Indian temples on a schedule dictated by a laminated daily agenda. Brody is the kind of guy who buys a poisonous snake at a market on a whim, wears his dead father's prescription sunglasses all the time, and has abandoned his wife at a rather crucial juncture. Schwartzman is the hangdog but earnest romantic who manages to hook up with an Indian tea-server and thinks he's found true love.
The movie takes what could have been a maudlin turn more than halfway through, but the tragedy succeeds in showing that even brothers as shallow as these aren't completely irredeemable.
Interesting, different, funny and thoughtful. With laughs.
What's great about it: Wes Anderson at his almost best.
What's not so great: Could have used more Natalie Portman!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Hot Fuzz [WS] [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8402/8402677_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
A New Brit Comedy Classic
on April 30, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
Director/co-writer Edgar Wright reteams with star/co-writer Simon Pegg three years after the duo's "Shaun of the Dead" for a very funny and very British comedy about a London police officer who is too good at his job. His efficiency makes his fellow officers and even his superiors look so bad that he is transferred to a remote rural village where nothing ever happens. Until people start turning up dead, that is.
Wright keeps the proceedings perfectly balanced between Pegg's deadpan by-the-book seriousness and the colorful eccentricities of various village idiots. The script is not only consistently clever but perfectly structured, with a plot that starts out quite low-key but builds to successive levels of outrageousness.
Timothy Dalton, as the oily owner of a local supermarket, manages to be both funny and brazenly villainous. Jim Broadbent is the village's top cop, a relentlessly pleasant twit whose dumb-but-good-natured son (Nick Frost) becomes Pegg's partner.
If you're a fan of Guy Ritchie's caper movies, Monty Python's Flying Circus or even (believe it or not) the British TV series "Life on Mars," you will love this movie.
There's so much going on here that "Hot Fuzz" actually is more enjoyable the second time around, when you'll be able to pick up lots of clever bits of foreshadowing and character detail you may have missed the first time!
What's great about it: Funny, clever and offbeat.
What's not so great: You'll want to watch it again as soon as it ends.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Lars and the Real Girl [DVD] [2007]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/8725/8725212_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
Favorite Movie of 2007
on April 29, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
In many ways, this movie is a miracle. And here are some of those ways:
It's miraculous that screenwriter Nancy Oliver was able to tell this story without being smutty, stupid, or schticky, considering that it's about a mentally unstable man who treats an anatomically correct love doll as if it is his girlfriend. Instead of going for broad gags, smirking crassness or general vulgarity, Oliver somehow has created a sweet, heartwarming and -- yes -- wholesome human story that is the feel-good movie of 2007.
It's a miracle that director Craig Gillespie was able to translate Oliver's wonderful screenplay to the screen with exactly the right tone to keep it from being jokey, pandering or insincere.
It's miraculous that every actor in "Lars and the Real Girl" is perfectly cast, considering what a temptation it must have been to hire at least one "big name" in the hope of getting more opening-weekend box-office dollars. It's beyond frightening to consider how wrong, wrong, wrong this movie would have gone with, just as a f'rinstance, Robin Williams mugging his way through the title role. Instead, Ryan Gosling hits just the right notes as low-key, unsocial but amiable Lars, whose psychological problems are apparent without being hysterically overwrought for cheap laughs or cheaper pathos.
Emily Mortimer is even more impressive as Lars' caring, thoughtful, funny and absolutely adorable sister-in-law. I haven't seen another actress this year whose performance I enjoyed more. She is thoroughly convincing as a small-town wife and soon-to-be mother with nurturing maternal instincts that aren't sickening, and the kind of open-hearted friendliness that seems 100-percent genuine. You will fall in love with her, guaranteed.
Paul Schneider plays her husband and Lars' brother as an amused-if-confused participant in the charade that the love doll is a real girl. The rest of the town goes along, too, all for the sake of Lars. That's because everyone is aware that "the boy ain't right," but everyone also cares enough about him as a friend and neighbor that they don't want to destroy the harmless delusion that makes him happy. Amazingly, things don't devolve into one of those zany "everybody in town is equally wacky and quirky, so what's one more nut?" scenarios. Another miracle!
Kelli Garner is great as a slightly awkward coworker with a crush on Lars. Patricia Clarkson is quietly convincing as a doctor and psychologist who tries to get Lars to understand that being touched by others, in both senses of the term, is not something he should fear. The score, by guitarist David Torn, is as good as the rest of the movie at avoiding preciousness and predictability.
Highly recommended!
What's great about it: Sweet, charming, one of a kind.
What's not so great: None!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![I Heart Huckabees [Special Edition] [DVD] [2004]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6973/6973046_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Five-Star Masterpiece
on April 28, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
I went into "I (Heart) Huckabees" fearing that it would turn out to be nothing more than a second-rate, Charlie-Kaufman-wannabe journey into pointless weirdness-for-weirdness'-sake. I left the theater thinking it is one of the very best movies of the year.
Any description of the "Huckabees" plot is guaranteed to make this film sound absurd, bizarre, convoluted and intellectually preposterous. All of which it is, but in a good way.
Director/writer David O. Russell has created a thoroughly entertaining head trip that pretty much covers all that anyone could want to know about life, the universe and everything (as the saying goes). And the score by Jon Brion (who also did the honors for "Eternal Sunshine") is wonderful: simple, evocative, slightly offbeat and absolutely essential to the movie.
Jason Schwartzman is an angry, disheveled environmentalist who is being squeezed out of his own "Open Spaces" organization by gladhanding slickee-boy Jude Law, who works within the Huckabees department store empire that is encroaching on a local marsh. Schwartzman enlists two "existential detectives" (Lily Tomlin and a fright-wigged Dustin Hoffman) to explain coincidences that he says are befalling him, and to make some sense of his rapidly deteriorating life. Meanwhile, firefighter Mark Wahlberg is having a crisis of faith over society's refusal to give up petroleum, and Huckabees spokesmodel Naomi Watts decides she wants to dress like an Amish woman in the company's TV ads. And then there is Isabelle Huppert, a nihilist French rival to Tomlin and Hoffman who has her own ideas about how to get people in touch with their personal realities...ideas which primarily involve getting hit in the face.
If that paragraph hasn't scared you away from buying this DVD, you will be in for a genuine treat. "I (Heart) Huckabees" is brainy but ridiculous, and wacky fun that sometimes is actually moving. It is a genuine one-of-a-kind experience.
Any description of the "Huckabees" plot is guaranteed to make this film sound absurd, bizarre, convoluted and intellectually preposterous. All of which it is, but in a good way.
Director/writer David O. Russell has created a thoroughly entertaining head trip that pretty much covers all that anyone could want to know about life, the universe and everything (as the saying goes). And the score by Jon Brion (who also did the honors for "Eternal Sunshine") is wonderful: simple, evocative, slightly offbeat and absolutely essential to the movie.
Jason Schwartzman is an angry, disheveled environmentalist who is being squeezed out of his own "Open Spaces" organization by gladhanding slickee-boy Jude Law, who works within the Huckabees department store empire that is encroaching on a local marsh. Schwartzman enlists two "existential detectives" (Lily Tomlin and a fright-wigged Dustin Hoffman) to explain coincidences that he says are befalling him, and to make some sense of his rapidly deteriorating life. Meanwhile, firefighter Mark Wahlberg is having a crisis of faith over society's refusal to give up petroleum, and Huckabees spokesmodel Naomi Watts decides she wants to dress like an Amish woman in the company's TV ads. And then there is Isabelle Huppert, a nihilist French rival to Tomlin and Hoffman who has her own ideas about how to get people in touch with their personal realities...ideas which primarily involve getting hit in the face.
If that paragraph hasn't scared you away from buying this DVD, you will be in for a genuine treat. "I (Heart) Huckabees" is brainy but ridiculous, and wacky fun that sometimes is actually moving. It is a genuine one-of-a-kind experience.
What's great about it: Smart, funny, clever, fascinating.
What's not so great: Not a single "con"; I loved everything about it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+2points
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![Alien Quadrilogy: Alien/Aliens/Alien3/Alien Resurrection [9 Discs] [DVD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6166/6166285_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
A Must-Have and a Great Bargain
on April 27, 2008
Posted by: backrowreviews
Even if parts three and four of this "quadrilogy" weren't up to the high standard of the first and second installments, this set still is essential viewing for any SF fan.
What's great about it: Nine DVDs for under 50 bucks! Heaven!
What's not so great: Too bad David Fincher didn't do a Director's Cut of "3."
I would recommend this to a friend!
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-1point
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