Day 23: Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

Do you see the title of this film? How am I not going to enjoy it?

Starring: Rutger Hauer, Brian Downey, Gregory Smith
Directed by: Jason Eisener

The Positives:
- The over-exposed color!
- Rutger Hauer makes everything better.
- Somebody receives a technical credit as "Creator of The Plague." You don't see that in just any movie.
- "Filmed in Technicolor."
- Hyper violence + Hyper sexuality = Pure B-movie cheese.
- The deliberately hokey dialogue and over-acting fit the film's tone perfectly. This isn't a movie to take seriously at all.
- A carnival. Where the homeless are brutally slaughtered. For fun. I approve.
- The Punisher wants to revenge his fallen family. Thor wants to live up to his good name in hopes of returning to Asgard. The Hobo wants a lawnmower.
- Back to the dialogue for a second. Did I mention it was hokey? Cause it is and dammit if it isn't perfect.
- Does it make me a fucked up human being for posting "Children get murdered. A lot." under the positives? Yes? Well I'm sorry. I find killing children a movie taboo that takes balls to break.
- Once more, just in case I didn't get the point across: THE DIALOGUE DAMMIT! '"I'm going to wash this blood off... With your blood." has to be one of the best movie quotes of all time. ALL TIME!
- This film is superior to both B-movie throwbacks like 'Machete' and dark comedies like 'Super' because it isn't bogged down with heavy political undertones and the dark humor doesn't make you hate yourself for laughing at it.

The Negatives:

- I hate endings where (SPOILER ALERT) the hero dies.
- It's nasty and disturbing, so of course you have to be in the right mood to watch it. I can clearly see why this film would be frowned upon by many.
- Where the hell did Hobo get all that ammo?

Grade: B+

While 'Hobo with a Shotgun' has its flaws, it accomplishes what it set out to do with style and flare.

Day 18: Batman Returns (1992)

The only (live-action) 'Batman' film I have never seen. Considering I haven't liked a pre-Nolan Caped Crusader flick yet, maybe I should've stayed away.

Starring: Michael Keaton, Christopher Walken, Danny DeVito
Directed by: Tim Burton

The Positives:

- If there was one thing I liked about Burton's take on the series, I'd have to say it was the gothic overtones. While it doesn't compare to the realistic theme of Nolan's films, it was much better than the campy takes that preceded and followed.
- The scenery, for the better part, is hauntingly beautiful.

- A Paul Reubens cameo!
- I loved that the boy playing Walken's son was pretty much doing his Walken impression. This might not be a positive comment however, because I loved it only because of it's absurdity.
- Danny Elfman's score is phenomenal.
- Damn. I love that Batmobile.

- I love Michael Keaton. Not necessarily as Batman, but as a person in general.

- I may not love what they did to the Penguin's character (see below), but he was pretty entertaining.
- While her Selina Kyle leaves much to be desired, Michelle Pfeiffer played Catwoman with a certain sexy ease that was more than fitting.

- Ah. There it is. I wouldn't have been satisfied if there wasn't at least one "pussy" pun at Catwoman's expense.

The Negatives:

- The circus-esque henchmen, with oversized skull helmets and cold clown makeup feel a lot less Dark Knight and a lot more Tim Burton. I normally like it when Directors add their own little subtle touches to films, but in this case it just feels too theatrical.
- I am not a fan of the actors playing Alfred or Gordon. Their take on the characters less than please me.
- Christopher Walken's make-up disturbed me far more than Danny Devito's did.
- Within the fist thirty minutes of the film, Batman may have only received three minutes of screen time. I do not approve.
- During one of the fight scenes, Batman looks around from villain to villain to villain to... Poodle. Yes, a poodle. A poodle that plays catch with a batarang. I couldn't make this shit up.

- Listen, if the Dark Knight punches you, it's for a damn good reason. Batman. Doesn't. Apologize!

- Seriously? There's just open-topped trucks full of cat liter parked around Gotham?

- Okay. Catwoman's claws can pierce the batsuit but bullets can't? I call bullshit.
- The main reason I dislike Tim Burton's first 'Batman' flick is because I really HATED what they did to the Joker character. While I do love Jack Nicholson, and it was fun watching him perform, I cannot forgive what they did to the character's back story. It took all the mystery away from the Joker and kind of just made him a routine villain-of-the-week.
It looks as if the Penguin didn't suffer much better in this film. If I remember correctly, the Penguin was born into a wealthy family with an over protective mother. His general hatred of people was because he was picked on as a child. He surely wasn't abandoned in the sewers because he was deformed. He was aristocratic dammit! Not feral. Other directors can make excellent movies without trashing the source material. I mean god, it's not like Bryan Singer turned his back on the 90 years of Superman's backstory just because he could. Oh wait. He gave him a kid. Damn.
- I'm not familiar enough with Catwoman to argue against her film's origin story, but being magically revived by supernatural cats doesn't feel right. That seems much more akin to the 2004 travesty that was 'Catwoman' than it does to the comic series.

Grade: C

You could do worse, but there are far better Bat-flicks out there.

Day 8: Wild Wild West (1999)

Will Smith in a western-comedy directed by the director of 'Men in Black'? This can't possibly be that bad right?

Starring: Will Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek
Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld

The Positives:

- It's only an hour and forty-five minutes.
- I am a fan of alliteration.
- At least Salma Hayek was pretty to look at.


The Negatives:

- It's still an hour and forty-five minutes.
- That damn mechanical spider.
- Every time Bai Ling appeared on screen I wanted to shoot myself.
- Kenneth Branagh, you deserve so much better than this!
- With a name like General "Bloodbath" McGrath, you'd think the antagonist would be better suited for an episode of "Wacky Races than a Will Smith film.
- Oddly framed and cut sequences are peppered throughout the film and it's quite distracting.
- The humor rarely works. The bizarre blend of sight jokes, 'witty' wordplay, and slapstick humor not only miss their beats, but the odd and unfunny sound effects appointed to the gags give the film a 'Looney Tunes'-esque tone, and it fails on every level. By the end of the first act, the humor is just annoying.
- Ex. #1 "That's a man's head." wasn't funny the first time it was said. It didn't get any funnier the next three times.
- I don't care how many faux scientific explanations you want to use to explain something, some things are just un-fucking-believeable.
- I find it unacceptable that a film released during the same year as 'The Matrix', and cost $107,000,000 more to make, has inferior special effects.

Grade: F

This isn't a so-bad it's good movie. This isn't even a bad movie. This is a terrible, horrible, no good, rotten movie, and I feel bad for anybody who has seen/will see/even knows about it.