More Late Movie Reviews

 The other night I watched the film, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead". It's every bit as good as the 7.3 on the IMDb scale. Because the title is an old Irish blessing, I thought it might be some IRA shit about "the troubles" in Ireland. Nope. A crime and family drama, set in NYC and its suburbs. I recommend it and NOT just because Marisa Tomei has TWO nude scenes in it. I always thought I had a chance with her, by the way. It's an interesting, well-done drama, though sad as can be. When I watch a movie, I like to dissect the characters and their motivations for doing whatever they do. If it's a good film, the director is way ahead of you on that. This one opens with Philip Seymor Hoffman railing Marisa Tomei doggie style. I was not expecting that! It was in the script so, I gather she was. You know, when they film those scenes, there is like a washcloth between the actor's naughty parts so there aren't any accidents. It's pretty bold on both actor's parts (pun not intended but, I like it!) to put themselves out there like that in front of a camera crew and gaffers, so I respect that even though simulated sex is rarely necessary to any story, if you think about it. People like that though. Personally, I prefer gratuitous nudity rather than gratuitous intercourse. The other night I watched "The Indian Runner" and it promised gratuitous frontal female nudity. What that turned out to be was Patricia Arquette giving birth! I'm guessing that was faked but it looked very real like it was Ms. Arquette having a baby. If it was, that's some serious method acting! While I can recommend the Devil movie, I can't the "Indian Runner". It was depressing. Viggo Mortenson shows his penis in it, and you may like that, but overall, his character is sadly doomed to fucking up in life and I really hate seeing anyone going through that, real life or not.

A film I absolutely hated is "Casualties of War". It stars Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. Saw it last night and I watched it though I had seen it several years ago, and I really wanted to see if I was right to hate it then. I was. The whole fucking thing is just wrong. In a scene where Fox's character is sleeping, he looks exactly like Marty McFly sleeping! I read in the IMDb notes that Sean Penn constantly taunted Fox before scenes about being just a small screen TV actor. This was Sean's way of getting Fox's blood up for the many harsh scenes. Is this method acting too? Sean Penn is maybe really a nice guy and just acts like a dick IRL to get audience blood flowing? I dunno. I also read that in the scene where he slaps John Leguizamo, he actually slapped him and the scene took 14 takes! A washcloth might have helped there. 

It's a generic Vietnam war film where the dialogue is slathered with generic 'Nam talk like, "Thirty days and a wakeup", "You dinky dao" and "NO VC! NO VC!". It made me want to watch "Platoon" again for the umpteenth time. It was just crap acting and a garbage story. It was based on a true story taken from an article called "Hill 192" where some GI's kidnapped a young Vietnamese girl for the purpose of raping her because their usual sexual outlet, a whorehouse in a nearby town, was off-limits because it was the VC's turn to visit the premises. I have heard that did indeed happen during the Vietnam war, which highlights what a truly fucked up war it was. The two sides partied in the same bars and brothels, just not at the same time. There were rules and boundaries. War is Hell. It's also stupid. 

I hated every minute of this movie. In "Platoon" it was explained that if you got killed early in your tour it was good because you didn't suffer as much. I wouldn't have suffered as much if I had changed channels in the first 5 minutes. But I didn't. So much wrong with it! Why go to the trouble of kidnapping someone and then humping her through the jungle to gang rape her deeper into enemy territory (hours later) because there is a hooch (hut) there? I'm not telling people how to rape, just pointing out the ridiculousness of their actions. Nothing these guys did made sense. The explosions didn't make sense! They were pretty cheap with the special effects for a major motion picture. The rapists called in an air strike and took out a US Navy patrol boat! WHY? This was at a point when they had dragged the severely beaten victim to a firefight on their way back home. Then, Sean Penn decides she needs to die. He orders various squad members (including Fox who had not participated) to kill her. I get that he was all about control and forcing underlings to do his bidding to corrupt them, but it seemed kinda late in his depraved crime game to be doing that. In reality, a kidnapper/rapist who feared consequences would have already murdered the victim and Michael J. Fox and anyone he thought might rat on him. But had he done that, we wouldn't have had much of a movie, would we? Not having a movie at all would have been OK by me.