Review: Pink Flamingos

No.

*** 3/4 stars

The Dark Knight Rises: Villains

Bane will be played by Tom Hardy.
Catwoman will be played by Anne Hathaway.

I trust you, Nolan.

I saw the casting of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman coming from a mile away, though. The selection of Bane as the new Batman villain is intriguing. For me at least. Some of you may remember Tom Hardy from Inception and I thought he was great in it. This role will definitely launch his career. Christopher Nolan is at the top right now, so it can't get any better than that for Hardy.

A few years ago, I was sitting in the theaters, watching trailers, and I clearly remember seeing the trailer for The Dark Knight for the first time. I was completely taken by the dark tone of the movie and the Joker. Then my dad told me that the Joker is Heath Ledger and I remember thinking, "The Brokeback Mountain guy?" Heath Ledger would later go on to win the Oscar posthumously. Nolan is a master caster and knows the game very well.

I kinda miss the days of finding out about upcoming movies by watching the trailers as they first premiere on the big screen- which is the way it was originally meant to be, just like in the old days. Now you can easily find a trailer on YouTube and information is leaked. This pretty much sucks for Nolan, because he's a director with an old-school style of directing. Some of us were born in the wrong era, I guess.

Pilgrimage

A couple of days ago, I wrote a review for ‘Run Lola Run’, and I briefly mentioned wanting to pay a visit to the apartment featured in the movie. Then I went on to say that I planned on writing a separate blog to list other film locations I’d like to pay pilgrimage to. Well, here’s the blog.

1. Lola’s apartment

Obviously, since I mentioned this one first, I gotta start with Lola’s apartment.

This is from Run Lola Run. More info.

2. Café des Deux Moulins

The café has become a popular destination since it was first featured in the movie Amelie. More info.

3. Westminster Bridge

In a memorable scene from 28 Days Later, Jim (Cillian Murphy) walks around and shouts “Hello!” as he stands alone in the deserted bridge.

4. Quick-Stop Groceries

I’m not a big fan of foul-mouthed cashiers. But I can make an exception just this once.

This store was first seen in Kevin Smith’s Clerks. More info.

5. Monroeville Mall

Yes, this is the mall from George A. Romero’s zombie film, Dawn of the Dead. The best time to visit is October. A zombie walk is hosted every October at the Monroeville Mall.

6. The Rocky Steps

This is actually the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But most of you remember this as the scene from Rocky, in which Stallone runs up the steps and jumps around ecstatic. More info.

7. Roman Colosseum

Kung-Fu movie buffs know what I'm talking about. I'm referring to Bruce Lee's movie Way of the Dragon. He fights and beats Chuck Norris in the Colosseum. According to IMDB, it's the last movie to have ever been filmed there.

As you can see, I provided links from www.movie-locations.com to provide more information on the exact locations.

More will be added to the list eventually. I'd like to see what everybody else has to say, and what places you'd like to visit... and if I can tag along.

Black Swan

What most people don’t understand about psychological thrillers these days is that once you start watching one, you become the lead character. If you’re watching Taxi Driver, you are Travis Bickle. In this case, when you start watching Black Swan, you’re Natalie Portman’s character, Nina.

If you want to be, anyway. If not, there’s other characters you can choose from… like Lily (played by Mila Kunis). But that choice pretty much leads you back to Nina. Get it?

No exaggeration: Everybody in this movie treats Nina like a piece of shit.

Nina is a ballet dancer. A damn good one. She’s skinny as fuck, sexy, snow-white, and long-necked. Almost swan-like.

She lives with her mother, Erica (played by Barbara Hershey), in an apartment. Once Nina is out of their loving home, Nina is weak, unsafe, and preyed on by everybody. Including herself.

Her ballet director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), will fuck anything that moves. He takes notice of her weak character and tries to force some toughness out of Nina. He forces himself on her, kissing her, causing her to bite his lips. She passed the test and is given the role of the Black Swan.

This movie isn’t big with most movie-goers as of now. So not wanting to give too much information away, I feel like I must leave it at this. Unlike most critics, I don’t want to take the piss out of this great movie. Everybody curious enough should go see it for what it is.

With that said, Natalie Portman gives one of the best performances of her career. 

To quote Nina: “I was perfect”.

She was indeed.

The film itself isn’t all hype. In fact, it deserves all the attention it gets. Maybe an Oscar nod or two would be appropriate.

In this day and age, a ballsy movie like this one comes out once in a great while. Like an actual black swan, it’s not unheard of, but you don’t see one like this every day. Yet, when a beautiful swan such as this one arrives, it is left virtually unseen- only seen by a lucky few. I saw it though. Perfect.

It was perfect.

4 stars. ****

Run Lola Run

This movie is definitely not your average thriller. To my surprise, this movie’s running time is 76 minutes. Right off the bat, it's shorter than the average feature film, but that's not why audiences with low-attention spans are in for a treat.

Run Lola Run is written and directed by Tom Tykwer. He combines a mixture of three episodes (each has its own alternative ending), animation, suspense, and sharp dialogue.

Non-German speaking audiences don’t have to worry about reading the subtitles since there is enough action and body language to help you figure out what’s going on. The dialogue is spoken quickly and most lines are repeated again in each episode, so you already know what’s being said after your viewing of the first episode. All left for you to do for the next two episodes is to pay attention to the new stuff.

Lola’s boyfriend, Manni (played by Mortiz Bleibtreu) owes 100,000 German marks to his boss. Earlier that day, Manni lost a bag of DEM 100,000 in a train and his boss gets pissed off. Then his boss threatens to kill him. That is unless Manni can obtain another 100,000 in 20 minutes. As for the bag containing DEM 100,000: it was stolen by a homeless man, now on the run from Manni. This sounds like a Guy Ritchie movie, doesn’t it?

With the clock ticking, Manni makes a call to his girlfriend.

Franka Potente plays the heroic girlfriend, Lola. Franka impressed American audiences with her performance as Johnny Depp’s first lover in Blow. Before that movie came along, she opens up this German film by answering her phone. Manni, in a hurry, tells Lola everything she needs to know: 100,000 German marks in 20 minutes. Plus, she gets 3 tries to do this.

Many film critics have regarded the film as video game-like, which is true. In each episode, Lola approaches each “level” carefully, hoping not to cause delay and waste time. Even the music is video game-like. The animation was not created by Pixar, but it will do.

There isn’t a single boring scene in this movie. It’s the type of movie that can play on TV and if you wanted to kill some time, you would enjoy this.

It may not be as fun on a second viewing, so be sure to see this from the beginning and without distraction.

I was reading the Wikipedia article for this movie to learn about locations used and now I want to pay pilgrimage to certain filming locations from this flick- such as the supermarket and Lola’s apartment. One of these days, I gotta write a separate blog on filming locations I’d like to visit from my favorite films.

3 stars out of 4. ***

Best of 2010. According to me.

You can go ahead and skip the Academy Awards show this year. If I didn’t hand out the awards, they don’t count. 2010 was a decent year for cinema. I must inform my readers that I didn’t see a handful of movies, so this is the best of 2010 from what I saw.

Best movie: Inception

The Obama of movies. Only one movie was so hyped up and still lived up to high expectations.

Other nominees:

Kick-Ass.

Scott Pilgrim VS The World.

Toy Story 3.

Worst movie: (TIE) Vampires Suck and Furry Vengeance

These two are so bad. You don’t even need to see them to know these two are gonna suck.

Most progress: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This man has made a lot of progress since he left 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Best Actor you never heard of: Kieran Culkin

Scott Pilgrim VS The World is a very well-cast movie and Culkin manages to steal every scene he’s in. That’s saying a lot.

Best Actress you never heard of: Chloë Moretz

Most of you anyway. Her performance in Kick-Ass is dazzling. I believe she can rip off Abigail Breslin’s head off in a fight.

Most Exciting Movie: Scott Pilgrim VS The World

Bound to be a cult classic. Maybe next year it will be. This movie thrills and amazes, and yet, never found an audience. It’s not Oscar worthy, and typical drama movies will steal the Oscars, but Edgar Wright made things fun.

Dumbest Idea for a movie: Piranha 3D

The title says it all.

Best Direct-to-video: El Infierno. Written and directed by Luis Estrada.

Best Special Effects: Scott Pilgrim VS The World

Best Editing: Inception

Best Sound Effects: Scott Pilgrim VS The World

Coolest title for a movie: Kick-Ass

Coolest Director: Christopher Nolan

Like I said, those are all the movies I saw in 2010. And I gave them the awards that they deserve. I can't of other awards to hand out, so I'll leave it at this. Dissident is not allowed here.