Movie Review: All Saints Day

Short review: Yay! Happy movie!

Longer review: I think you have to be a big Boondock Saints (the first one) fan to love this movie.  Luckily, I am 🙂

It’s got the same quick, clever dialogue and campy relationship between the brothers that I enjoyed in the first movie.  I particularly enjoy the sibling-whapping that regularly ensues, such as the below (language warning!):

(Norman Reedus hasn’t aged particularly well, I must note.)

And while I adore Willem Dafoe, I just love Julie Benz in the FBI ass-kicker role.  If nothing else, I loved this: They dressed her in tight outfits (per usual Hollywood norms) and had her OPEN CARRY.  INSTEAD OF PRETENDING THAT HER SKINTIGHT OUTFIT MAGICALLY HID A LARGE HANDGUN. *cough cough BURN NOTICE cough IN THE LINE OF FIRE cough NCIS cough cough* etc.  HALLELUJAH!

(That’s CLEARLY a stage gun, so no yelling about improper gun handling, m’kay?)

OF COURSE it’s not as good as the first one.  They never are.  But they bring back all my favorite characters, have some really fun scenes and dialogue, and entertained me very well.  That’s all I ask of a sequel.

P.S. WHY, oh WHY, do Hollywood guns go FORWARD when the trigger is squeezed?  It’s against all laws of physics!!!

Movie Review: Watchmen

Short review:  It sucked.  I want three hours of my life back.

Longer review:  Well, let’s start off with Mike’s warning when I told him there was a movie review coming:

MIKE: Okay, but don’t give away the plot!

LISSA: There was a plot?!?

Let’s run down the checklist, shall we?

• The most awkward, embarrassing sex scene I’ve ever witnessed.  And I watched A History of Violence, so that’s saying something. 
• The above was followed not long afterwards by the most stupid, ridiculous sex scene I’ve ever witnessed.  I think it was supposed to be romantic or sensual or something, but the whole theater was laughing.  You would think it would be difficult to kill any and all libido a sane male (or female) might have on seeing Carla Gugino Malin Akerman topless.  This director must be a genius.  AN EVIL GENIUS. 
• Three different, separate scenes of such gratuitous violence that I could not watch.  I covered my eyes.  Would you like to know some of my more favorite movies?  Sin City.  Kill Bill I and II.  Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.  In general I do not mind what my mother calls “the ketchup factor.”  I could not watch parts of the movie I saw tonight.
• Disconnected shards of character background, presented as if somehow one could shake the cinematic kaleidoscope and cause a pattern to emerge.  (In some circles this pattern would be known as a “plot”.)  Nothing was shakin’, y’all.
• Poor Carla Gugino way slimmed down from her Sin City days, Malin Akerman (see update) shoved into an unflattering costume and with such annoying hair that I wanted to drug her and introduce her to a Flowbee.  (She can manage a super-tight latex outfit, a superhero identity and go flying in a huge robot-toy, but she can’t manage to locate a freakin’ HAIR TIE???)
• Last, but SURELY not least — seriously gratuitous CGI penis.  Repeatedly.

In summary:

If you’re going to see Watchmen for the plot . . . don’t.

If you’re going for the characters . . . REALLY don’t.

If you’re going for the super-cool special effects . . . find a friend with a large TV and a Blu-Ray player and get yourself Ratatouille from Netflix.  Watch the scene where the rat gets washed down the sewer; you’ll save yourself $8.00 and roughly 2 hours, 40 minutes of horrific awfulness.

You’re welcome.

P.S.  On the other hand, I cannot WAIT for the upcoming Wolverine movie.  Lissa want.  Lissa like.

UPDATE: Mike pointed out that I had the wrong character for Carla Gugino.  That makes me marginally less sad.  But the movie still SUCKED.