Real Movie Review-Movie Reviews, Movie Quotes, Movie Trivia

Director: Sergio Leone

Starring: Terrence Hill, Peter Fonda, Jean Martin, Piero Lulli,

Sergio Leone takes on the goofiest gun in the west in this slapstick comedy/western. This stunning change of pace takes some getting used to, and the jokes are mostly slapstick stuff, but with an undeniable silly kind of charm. The acting is uneven. Leads Peter Fonda and Terrence Hill do a good job, but some of the supporting players are straight from amateur hour.

Peter Fonda is an aging gunman, Jack Beauregard who is trying to get out of the gunnin’ biz, when he meets a wide-eyed and off-beat youngster (Hill) with crazy speed and a personality that is even more crazy. This joker only refers to himself as nobody and has a goofy innocence about him and, for some mysterious reason, knows all about Jack Beauregard. The two’s paths dross again and again and the viewer is made to wonder if they are destined to be friends or enemies. You will have to watch to find out.

The humour is simple, silly and aimed at the keystone cop crowd. Not all of the jokes work, but some do. This is worth watching on the late show or a lazy Sunday afternoon. It was popular enough at release to spawn a sequel. It is acceptable viewing if you are in the right mood.

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Jason Statham, Stephen Graham, Alan Ford, Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Rade Serbedzija, Robbie Gee, Lennie James, Vinnie Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Mike Reid.

This criminal-action/comedy is a masterpiece thanks to Guy Ritchie’s dialog, which is undoubtedly some of the best ever put on film. There is a real risk,however, that you will find yourself quoting the movie to friends, in the know, all the damn time! I think I need a twelve step program to stop. The story is simple, but blasts off right from the first scene and is intricately intertwined with an ensemble of memorable characters, and pumped up with a dizzying pace, and innovative direction.

The story bursts out of the gate with Freddy Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) leading the robbery of a massive diamond, while Turkish (Jason Statham) is both setting up a bare knuckle boxing match along with fellow promoter, Brick Top (Alan Ford), and planning the purchase of a more suitable caravan from an unintelligible pikey (gypsy) played by Brad Pitt. Soon the diamond has been stolen from the thief, the match is off, the caravan deal is fouled up and gangsters, criminals, dogs, pigs, pikies and a Russian named Boris the Bullet Dodger are all mixed up in a mess packed with action, violence, one-liners and cool comebacks.

Some viewers complain about the accents, but they didn’t bother me. I guess that’s what subtitles are for. Many of the actors were also in Ritchie’s previous film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and some of the scenes’ dialog and characters are likewise similar, so if you if you liked that one, you should see the other, but Snatch is the better of the two. This is one of my very favourite films, and I recommend it for anyone who isn’t offended when violence and comedy come together.

Snatch Movie Quotes

“You’re always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together… And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it’s no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs.”

“It turned out that the sweet-talking, tattoo-sporting pikey was a gypsy bare-knuckle boxing champion. Which makes him harder than a coffin nail. Right now, that’s the last thing on Tommy’s mind. If Gorgeous doesn’t wake up in the next few minutes, Tommy knows he’ll be buried with him. Why would the gypsies go through the trouble of explaining why a man died in their campsite when they can bury the pair of them and just move camp? It’s not like they got social security numbers, is it? Tommy – the tit – is praying. And if he isn’t, he fucking should be.”

“…the fact that you’ve got “Replica” written down the side of your gun, and the fact that I’ve got Desert Eagle point five written down the side of mine, should precipitate your balls into shrinking, along with your presence. Now… Fuck off!”

Movie Lines from Snatch

Director: Gore Verbinski

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander

Hmmm, here’s an idea. Let’s make a sequel to a story primarily driven by a single character, and then not even put that character on screen for the first 45 minutes. After that, lets bury this charismatic star in a pile of mediocre ‘pirates’ and add a convoluted plot that cuts into the action that made the first Pirates movies popular in their niche. This movie is a mess. The first two chapters in this series were action orgies, carried by powerhouse performances by Depp’s colorful self-created character. This sequel wants to tell every character’s story, but even in this three-hour marathon, there is not enough time (or interest) to go around. It is slow-starting, action-challenged and is still saddled with Orlando Bland, who has the screen presence of a dish rag, and Kiera Whosely, who is as special as your average Tuesday afternoon and whose Swann character is only slightly better.

Well, Barbossa (Rush), Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Swann (Knightly) feel they have to get Capt. Jack (Depp) back to help a proposed pirate alliance (and save their quickly sinking film) to stand against Lord Cutler Beckett who now has Davy Jones under his control. All of these characters, and others, have their own agendas and it is hard to follow the motivations and shifting alliances. The ending seems to be setting up for yet another sequel. Lord, Jesus, let me be wrong; just this once.

I didn’t particularly care for the first two movies in this series (can you tell?). The action scenes were overdone and Depp had to carry the films, but they made plenty of treasure, so another one was made. By this third release, Verbinski drifted from the successful seas of the series to dead waters and then furiously tried to paddle back to lucrative territory. Even fans of the series will find this one noticeably weaker, and those forced to go because of a tasteless partner, or an agreement to review every crap movie that comes out, will find it to be a near-intolerable, three hour irritation session.

Director: Rob Reiner

Starring: Carey Elwes, Robin Wright Penn, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Andre The Giant, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Fred Savage, Peter Falk

The Princess Bride is a funny, and well-written family classic that will be enjoyed by all. Sure, there are some parts that undeniably cheesy and silly, but that’s part of its charm. The direction is outstanding and the acting is good, but what really shines here is the writing! The characters and dialog take this simple story to another level, and are the main reasons for its enduring popularity.

This movie starts out with a kindly grandfather (Peter Falk) reading a story to his under-the-weather and reluctant grandson (The Wonder Years, Fred Savage). The medieval-fantasy story is about a farm boy named Wesley (Carey Elwes), who falls in love with a beautiful girl (Robin Wright Penn). The two are separated, and she, believing him to be dead, is engaged to marry the Kingdom’s evil prince. When she is kidnapped by three not-so-bad, and very funny, characters, however, it is Wesley that rescues her. It is not happily ever after, yet, however. The story is just starting! Look for great roles by Mandy Patinkin as Inigo ‘You-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die’ Montoya and by Andre The Giant playing, you guessed it, a giant. There are also several cameos by the likes of Billy Crystal and Carol Kane. The end result is a captivating and wonderfully entertaining family-friendly story of torture, betrayal, revenge and, most of all, true love.

This is a must-see. If you have never seen it despite all the recommendations that you have no doubt heard, it is time for you to take the trek to video store and pick this one up.

Director: Joel Coen
Writers: Joel & Ethan Coen

Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Phillip Seymor Hoffman

Joel and Ethan Coen are the team that brought us, Raising Arizona, Fargo, the wildly underrated Hudsucker Proxy, and most recently, No Country for Old Men. To call their style of film making unique and quirky would be accurate but completely understates what they offer. If you are familiar at all with the Coen Brothers films, you know what to expect when you watch one: a group of characters that would have no earthly reason for spending time on the same planet except in a Coen brothers film, a story that is strung together with outrageous events and unlikely coincidences, dialogue that is unconventional but subtly brilliant and screen writing that is so perfectly masterful and uncliched that you swallow all of it without a second thought. As a Coen brothers film, The Big Lebowski doesn’t disappoint.

Jeff Bridges is Jeff Lebowski, a perpetually unemployed, washed up hippy and lifelong loser, who has abandoned his own name and calls himself “The Dude”. He has no money, no prospects and due to his everpresent “hey man take it easy” attitude, not a care in the world. He spends most days bowling with his equally driven and successful friends; Walter (played by John Goodman) a Vietnam vet with post traumatic stress syndrome, delusions of grandeur and anger manangement issues and Donnie (played by the always entertaining Steve Buscemi) the pathetic but likeable third wheel who seems to have accepted his role as the brunt of most of Walter’s anger. One Day a couple of thugs mistake “The Dude” for another Jeff Lebowski, except that Jeff Lebowski happens to be a millionaire with an out of control young trophy wife, and a habit of running up debts to the wrong people. After they feel that The Dude has sufficiently learned his lesson for having the same name as the guy they are really looking for, the less well mannered of the two thugs relieves himself on The Dude’s area rug, on the way out the door (now, that is just mean!). After spending some time, with the boys in the bowling ally, which apparently doubles as a think tank, The Dude decides that the real Jeff Lebowski should buy him a new rug since it was his wife that ran up the debt which ultimately led to the soiled rug. This starts a chain of events that only the Coen Brothers could dream up…well others might dream it up, but only the Coen Brothers could write a movie about it, get the money to make it, direct it and make us believe it.

This movie combines the absurd and the authentic with such finesse, that you have difficulty telling which is which. The characters are both funny and loathsome at once and the performances are top shelf across the board. The Coens seem to have an uncanny ability to put actors in what seem like ill-suited roles and yet they appear to be born to play it, regardless of the absurdity (watch for Flea from the Chili Peppers and the guy from the VW in the HIZZY commercials) . If you are a fan of these films, you have already seen this so I am wasting my time selling you. Plus, you probably own it and a back up disc. If you are not a fan of the Coens, either because you are not familliar with them, or because you happened to only catch the Hudsucker Proxy and couldn’t quite get your head around it (Hudsucker is like good scotch, an aquired taste), this might be the one that hooks you. Although, it does have its classic acid flashback Coen moments, it is not as far out of the normal spectrum as some of their other efforts. Fair warning though, it is not an accident that every Coen movie has a ridiculous cult following, the first taste is free.

Starring: Kurt Russell, Dennis Dunn, Victor Wong, Kim Cattrall, James Hong, Donald Li

Director: John Carpenter

This is a very appealing martial arts spoof with a light mood and great dialogue that overloads us with clichés as a gentle prodding of the genre. But what would a martial arts movie be, even a spoof, without loads of action? There is plenty of that here too, but this is really the Kurt Russell show. He has an entertaining character and Russell hams it up to make it all the better. Don’t stating to expect too much, however. It is still a spoof.
Kurt Russell is truck driver Jack Burton, who, while hanging out with a buddy (Dennis Dunn) in San Francisco’s Chinatown, finds himself mixed up in a Chinese gang war including mysterious wizards who specialize in blue lightning moves (that can’t be easy). Kim Cattrall, looking mighty young and fine, plays a nosy lawyer who does a great job at playing a cliché character who is both subtle and overdone.
This is a great renter or rainy day movie station choice. There is lots of action mixed with a gentle humour that will have you smiling and chuckling rather than roaring but still fully entertained.

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, John Turturro

Well, to be fair, let me start out by saying that I am not in the target demographic for this film. It seems to be aimed at the 8-15 crowd and those who still buy toys and claim that they are ‘collecting’. So, bear that in mind and take my views with a grain of salt, because it appears that Michael Bay is our first serious entry in the 2007 Golden Toilet Award, for producing the most expensive piece of crap of the year. The effects are great, but lose their appeal wayyy before the final credits roll. The dialogue ranges from the occasional funny quip to self-important unintentionally funny drivel. The story…well, it’s based on the Transformers, so the story is, of course, ridiculous

Shia LaBeouf is Sam Witwicky, an uncool high school kid whose first car is determined to help win over the school Hot Girl, (Mikaela, played by Megan Fox). This would seem to be kinda strange behaviour for a Camero, until Sam’s beater turns out to be an intelligent alien robot disguised as a car (I could have used one of those in high school). It seems that several of these impressive techno wonders have come to Earth. Some want to find a lost techno artifact (kinda their Mom if I followed the story, right) that will give them universe ruling power. The other bunch of them consider us humans far too valuable to be harmed in any battle for interstellar domination and have come to protect us and destroy the cube. I think I heard that this was based on a true story.

Okay, okay, I have been harsh. All that was missing here were cereal and toy commercials. This is a 50 million dollar Saturday morning cartoon. There is little here for adults to enjoy, though the high-end action content will appeal to some. The end result is Independence Day punched up with a few jokes and crossed with Christine (the killer car Stephen King flick). Its set up for a sequel, but Transformers 2 will be on Cajun Carl’s ‘to watch’ list. I did my share. I guess it’s suitable for fathers looking to spend some time with their sons, but I think there are better choices out there for that too.

What is this? A fourth paragraph? MMM NEVER does a 4th paragraph (I’m too lazy). Well, I guess I do when I have something to add. Maybe i was too harsh on this one. People who grew up watching the cartoon seem to enjoy it, so lets add that to the reccomended viewers list. If you liked the cartoon, then chances are you will like this.

Director: Mike Scullion

Starring: Andy Curtis, Brendan Dempsey, Kathy Ranheim, Shaun Elebert, Karl Argue, Larry Austin,

This is an unusual Irish crime drama/comedy that claims to be like Snatch – a bold claim to be sure. It’s brutal, has more swearing than a high school locker room, and seems to try too hard to be outrageous, while trying to keep the mood from getting too serious. It does resemble Snatch in the mood it tries to set (brutality mixed with witty dialog), but it doesn’t approach those lofty heights. Canadian Mike Scullion directs and wrote the movie with his brother, Kevin. The directing is ok, though the acting falters in spots.

Robbie Banks is an English gangster, long on temper and a little short on brains, who gets released from prison and is looking to make some real money. His plan involves a pirated Irish pub and a nearby opportunity, but the family whose pub, he’s grabbed is not ready to just walk away, and they have a plan.

A collection of muddled accents combine with a muddled story that I didn’t quite follow to make a so-so film. There are some interesting scenes and I had to appreciate the homage it pays to Guy Ritchie’s classic, but in the end, it is as close to a well-intentioned failure as it is to a success.

Director: Brett Ratner

Starring: Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Max Von Sydow, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yvan Attal, Youki Kudoh, Noemie Lenoir, Sun Ming Ming

Today, a movie like this almost seems like nostalgia, it is such a throwback to the cop/buddy movies of the 80s. I guess that the fact that it has gotten to #3 means there is still market for this genre, even if it is mainly catering to the crowd that will be shopping for school supplies any time now. This film gives the viewer exactly what they expect. It’s story is by-the-numbers formula and doesn’t lay any heavy acting requirements on its cast. This movie is about action and this it provides and provides quite well. Jackie Chan’s stuff doesn’t seem quite as spectacular as it once did, but it is still very entertaining. Is this guy still doing ALL of his own stunts? You’d think he would want to settle down to a couple nice dramas or something. Action is only half of what has made this franchise successful. Comedy is the other half of the equation and that department falls under Chris Tucker’s domain. He really isn’t all that funny and his constant shouting gets irritating. Is this the reason that this guy has done nothing but the Rush Hour series for the last decade? Still some of the jokes work and more of them work if your driving test is still something to be nervous about.

Now, as you all probably know, this is the point in the review where I normally would be telling you about the story. Ummm, okay, let’s get on with that. There is some kind of list of Triad crime lords circulating around and Lee and Carter want to get it to avenge a friend and hurt the silently sinister triads. The trail leads to Paris where is a very pretty girl (there is always a girl), named Genevieve (Noemie Lenoir) who knows something and an Asain woman who is right handy with a fan. There is a mysterious bad guy with some kind of connection to Lee and that is about it. Easily, the best part of the movie is when the pair visits a Kung Fu school and first encounter Sun Ming Ming (the world’s tallest man). A fight scene ensues that is comically reminiscent of Bruce Lee’s Game of Death clash with Kareem Abdul Jabbar. This is followed by a great ‘who’s on first’ spoof – Chinese style.

This movie is not for everyone. Fans of the first two films will appreciate its careful formula adherence, though they might feel as though they have seen it before. Chan’s action moves are still cool and the end credit out-takes are worth staying for. There are no surprises here, so those of you who will enjoy this, know who you are.