Sin City : A Dame to Kill For

Let me start off by sharing with you my love for all things Jessica Alba. When Dark Angel first came out in the early Noughts, my roommate and I literally ran to the television every Monday night at 8 to watch it (this is back before everyone had DVR), and I would sing this stupid little Dark Angel song that I had written myself. Now before you freak out, it was only three words long, so I wasn't that big of a freak but just know that it was unbelievably fresh. Anyway, she was so hot back then that we even hated Metroboy (Michael Weatherly) because she wanted him on the show and in real life too apparently. That bastard! But as the years passed and she married that scrub Cash Warren, she got a little older and had children; leading to her awkward and not quite as hot mom days. It didn't matter to me however, I still saw all of the horrible movies that she made even during this little weird period of her life. Thankfully though, it didn't last that long and she is back to being the sexy phenom that she was always meant to be. And if I were Cash Warren I'd be on the lookout for a scrawny black guy wearing a Muse t-shirt and a grey hoodie because he's coming for you! Not really, I'd get winded after running 20 feet.

The point of all of this is, is it's ridiculous to me that she plays a stripper in both Sin City movies and she never gets naked in either one of them. I mean, don't you think her loyal fans deserve at least one nipple at this point? I'm not being greedy! She can just look at Carla Gugino and Regina King for inspiration, they both hooked us up with images that will last a lifetime! Just marinate on it for a bit Jessica, that's all I'm asking.

Well thankfully in Sin City : A Dame to Kill For, Eva Green (forever the crowd pleaser) and Juno Temple step up to the plate! Green is naked in every movie she's in except for the stupid PG-13 Bond movie, and this is why I'll pay to see her recite Kobe Bryant's horrible poetry on screen for three hours if Hollywood asked me to. And Juno obviously read my mind as she provided me with a unexpected surprise in her odd scene at the beginning of the movie.

Now the movie starts off with Marv (Mickey Rourke) waking up on the side of the road next to these two wrecked cars with no idea how he got there. But as things start to come back to him, you see Marv basically being Marv; looking for a fight and finding one with these awful frat boys who are lighting homeless men on fire simply because they're bored. Next thing you know, there are car chases, guns going off, and arrows being shot! A pretty fresh way to start off the first 5 minutes of your movie.

From there you are introduced to the other story lines which include Johhny (Gordon-Levitt), one of the luckiest and most skilled men you'll ever see on the slots or the tables. He seems hell bent on beating and embarrassing Senator Roark in front of his friends by taking his money. When he does however, it leads to Roark using all of his resources to exact revenge on him; and if you know anything about the Roark family, they do far worse things to you than simply killing you. You are then introduced to Ava (Eva Green), the apparent damsel in distress who has this tight hold over Dwight (Josh Brolin). She pleads to him for his help, telling him that her life is in danger; and against his better judgement he falls for it and proceeds to recruit Marv to help him save her life. He, like most men, is blinded by her beauty and charms and cant seem to think clearly; and as you can imagine this leads to his possible demise. And lastly, there is still poor Nancy (Alba) who cant seem to get over losing the love of her life Hartigan (Willis), so she is drowning herself in alcohol and plotting a way to kill Senator Roarke; the man responsible for his death. Overall some pretty dark and depressing story lines.

The movie is similar in tone to the first one with it's over the top noir; the characters make these exaggerated movements in almost every scene and every character is seemingly infected with the city's evil nature. And I love this by the way, it's like the entire film was made specifically for Nic Cage to star in. Sadly however, he didn't make an appearance. You can't help but giggle at a few of the scenes but overall the style seems to work. But the problem is, it's not as fun or as polished as the first one was and ultimately that was its downfall. While Brolin was good, he didn't quite portray the coolness of Dwight like Clive Owen and his British accent did. And when it came time for his plastic surgery to change his appearance, they just simply gave him a wig. It was so stupid! He looked exactly the same! Would it have hurt to have someone else play his role in the scenes that followed? I mean, you changed the actor from the previous movie, why not do the same in this film? It's not like we got that attached to the Brolin; this would've been the perfect spot for Cage! Whatever, yet another missed opportunity. And even though I love him as an actor, Gordon-Levitt's story was pretty useless. The only good thing it had going for it is that involved Christopher Lloyd and I will never complain about that.

The women are all beautiful in it and Eva Green walks around completely naked for at least 10 minutes of the movie. So when you get bored, you at least have that to wake you up. Marv is usual awesome self as he destroys everything in his path. But Dennis Haysberth didn't quite work as the new Manute; he was nowhere near as imposing as Michael Clarke Duncan was! Lastly, this movie needed more Miho doing fresh things with blades. She's basically in it for 3 minutes.

Overall I was entertained, it just seemed like they rushed to get this one done, even though it had been 9 years since the last one. I give it a rating of kind of WEAK but still suggest you check it out to support the genre.

A Good Day To Die Hard

Perhaps divorce can affect even Hollywood’s most badass men. While married to Demi Moore and that sweet sweet rack, he was inspired to make such classics like Die Hard 1-3, Blind Date, Pulp Fiction, Last Boyscout, and 12 Monkeys just to name a few. But the second Demi walked out the door and started dating Ashton Kutcher his career clearly took a hit. Initially it looked as though he came up roses by banging porn stars and “Cowboying the F$%* Up!” and making Tears of the Sun and Unbreakable. But just like Ronald Reagan warned you, dating porn stars has its downfalls. The mix of too much coke and venereal diseases leads you to make movies like Bandits, The Whole Ten Yards, and 16 Blocks. And let’s not forget dropping out of Ocean’s 11 so that you can make another Bruno music album. He has gotten lucky with last year’s Looper and Moonrise Kingdom; and his caving in and returning to action movies is a step in the right direction, but his latest installment of the Die Hard franchise makes you wonder if he simply needed some more pay off money for his secret porn star love child.

The fact that Die Hard 5 featured dirty Russians and stepped up and returned to their Rbrated roots made it sound promising. But sadly it just felt like they handed the script and director’s chair to some studio exec’s nephews as a favor to him. My 8 year old nephew could have come up with a more creative and plausible story than this. Apparently McClain has no idea where his son is or what he does, so he has a co worker track him down and finds him in some trouble in Mother Russia. Well as luck would have it McClain is able to find his son in all of about 5 minutes and immediately becomes a part of a long and nonsensical car chase. This is easily the worst car chase scene that I have ever been exposed to as it is just shot after shot of Willis looking bothered and determined followed by random cars flipping in the air.

The first twenty minutes of this movie seriously feels like you’re watching an Uwe Bol movie; also known as Huge Bol mainly because you need to smoke one to get through his awful movies! I honestly don’t smoke weed but man I kind of wished someone was passing around a Wesley Pipes bong with every bad joke Willis cracked.  It would have at least made this forced sentimental” I wish as I was there more for my son” resolution story bearable. But no we are stuck with Willis and his son Jai Courtney( who really  cant act) trying to work out their differences while also trying to get a Russian scientist who has the codes to leftover Uranium in Chernobyl to safety. Really, nuclear material in Chernobyl??? Why not just have Willis travel back in time to have to safely transport Stalin to a secret meeting with Winston Churchill.  I know that not a lot has been going on in Russia lately outside of the meteor which hit a few days ago but the nuclear facility meltdown is all you can go to?

Anyway, I’m bored with this review as this movie was boring. The last third of the movie is full of large exploding set pieces which is kind of fresh. And there is a hot Russian girl that is involved but sadly this is not enough to save this crapfest. I have too much love for the Willis and the Die Hard franchise to give this movie the wack rating it deserves so I will give it a rating of really WEAK!

Looper

Is there anyone hotter than Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Hollywood right now? Just look at the movies he's been in following his break out performances in 500 Days of Summer and Inception. The underrated 50/50, Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, and the soon to be released Lincoln directed by Steven Spielbergo! Hopefully he now takes the James Franco route where he's involved in everything including hosting the Oscars completely blazed and trying to make out with Anne Hathaway backstage.

In his latest effort he teams up with Bruce Willis who is barely keeping my Willisfest 2000 tour alive these days. I guess everyone eventually gets old but man, you would think that with cgi today you can do action movies from your couch. In Looper, Levitt plays Joe who's occupation is killing people that are sent to him from the future. The year is 2044 in what is known as the present and it looks like society is on the brink of anarchy as there are tons of poor people living in the streets and drifters trying to get what they can to survive. It seems like the only way to make it is to work for the local crime syndicate as a looper. In the future they find a way to invent time travel but due to man's nature and the temptation to abuse it, they made it illegal. So naturally crime bosses use it to send people they want to disappear to the past to be executed so there's no trace of the body. Each looper is paid in silver which is taped to the back of each blind folded and bound soon to be victim. The cardinal sin in this line of work is that you cannot let your mark escape otherwise the crime bosses that were sent back from the future to run things will hunt you down and kill you as well as your mark. Things seem to be going ok until one day Levitt's future self shows up as his next job but for some reason he's not blind folded or tied. Due to Levitt's natural hesitation, his future self (Willis) is able to escape and this is when all hell breaks loose.

Now this sounds like a pretty cut and dry thriller at this point but what's great is that they give absolutely none of the story away in the trailer. There is a ton more going on then you even realize.I wont ruin it for you but just know that you are in for an unexpected plot twist and a whopper of an ending. A pet peeve of mine in all time travel movies is that they don't make any sense. There are too many plot holes and things typically happen in them that shouldn't or wouldn't be possible (outside of time travel itself of course). But this movie does an excellent job of covering its tracks when it comes to how event changes affect the future and the past, or in this case the present.I know that barely makes sense but it will once you see the movie.

It's great to see Willis doing action movies again and he looks like he missed it. Levitt is his usual solid self as is Emily Blunt. What makes this movie great is the story itself. Not everything is spelled out for you, so you will have to figure some things out on your own. But for you action junkies, there are plenty of shoot out scenes and boob shots, so you have that to look forward to. The only thing that sucks is that Hotel Transylvania came out this same weekend. So of course every dumb parent feels the need to take their kid to see that and as a result  Looper opened at number two in the box office further giving Hollywood more ammunition to never release thought provoking sci-fi movies in favor of idiot producing movies like Transylvania. Come on parents, I know you need to entertain your children but it's not like kids know when movie release dates are. Just take them 3 weeks after it comes out!

Ok I'm done with my rant; besides there's an angry Croatian woman behind me shouting something indiscernible. Sounds like an old Russian political rally. Someone should tell her that Lenin is no longer in power! Looper gets a rating of VERY TIGHT from me! Check it out.