Drive Angry

No.  Not only is 'Drive Angry' the title of the movie, it was descriptive of me during the next morning's drive to work.  Wow.   The acting was just bad.  Nicolas Cage and Kevin Costner share the same trait of being either really good, or really bad.  For instance, in 'The Rock' with Sean Connery and 'Leaving Las Vegas' with Elizabeth Shue, Cage was awesome.  Here, I don't know...stilted and all.  Perhaps all of the action and violence and mayhem was a catharsis to make up for the string of Disneyesque contract movies (National Treasure 1 to infinity and The Sorcerer's Apprentice) that lack any knarly language and mayhem. 

Character actor William Fichtner was the sole acting gem in the entire thing...unless you consider the extras who played dead people...I didn't see any of them move, so for me, they were pretty believable.  Fichtner's work and some of the killer lines were just wasted here.  Really appalling was the acting of Amber Heard.  Who is she?  I guess that because Jessica Simpson's acting skills are so good and so in demand, Jessica was too busy for this role, so her understudy Heard was tapped for the role of Piper.

Cinematography was fine, acting was bad, directing was good, the script was great, but again, the potential for some genuine "Dirty Harry" caliber moments and lines was just wasted on poor delivery.

The Tourist

Oh God, I tried, I tried for 3 nights to get to a point at which I would be pulled in and able to watch this without forcing myself into continuing.  I failed.  The downward spiral started with Angelina Jolie's "I am so much hotter than Audrey Hepburn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'" impersonation and ended with Depp's character not seeing immediately that he was being played.

Bail on this.

Machete

Geez, what to think?  Ordinarily I will fly into the plot, acting, story line or whatever.  I had to take a few days to think this over after I finished this movie and all I could come up with is, "Girls, if you are seriously considering a career in acting and want to go really far as an actress, don't show your boobs."  Another tip, if showing your boobs was the screen test and you won that part that way, it ain't your acting that anyone is after...or ever will be.  Case in point: the girl in the beginning who showed her boobs and was ensured a part in the movie by showing more will never be seen again.

Okay, to the movie.  Hmm, what wasn't in it: kittens, puppies, singing nuns, Goodnight Moon...  I felt like I was watching the equivalent of a burger joint that, after a bit, had been taken over by Koreans or South East Asians and had added Terriyaki to the menu: it had everything: fights, guns, explosions, racists, good guys, bad guys, good bad guys and bad good guys.  All good.  So much going on in here and, well, even with all that, I don't know that I could find many pluses.  

I always liked the cameo's or bit parts that Danny Trejo gets, but his starring role was too long in coming.  He was like John McCaine in the 2008 elections: I thought he was about to fall over and die at any second.  Steven Segal was in there and like Keith Richards to Mick Jagger, he helped make Danny Trejo look spry and healthy by comparison.

Gore, gore, and gore in the form of rolling heads and pulse propelled blood spurts.  Therefore, this is not really a kiddie flick.  Steven Segal was a bit of an expected surprise in that of late, he has actually gotten his butt handed to him.  I miss the Segal of yore.  What I could always appreciate is that he never lost a fight and more importantly, he never got beaten down within an inch of his life and by a miracle, found the strength to come back and barely win.  No, Steven Segal would just walk in and without changing expression, just beat the crap out of any and everyone.  Then he'd go mow a lawn or something.  I liked that.

Wow, here is a news flash, Lindsey Lohan was in this too, but she wasn't acting.  All that you saw of her were portions of her home movies that had been spliced in: e.g. we first see her passed out on a mattress in a crack house after a crack bender.  We then see her getting cozy with another nude woman.  Great...

Okay, dialogue is goofy, directing is fine, cinematography does its job of immitating the 70's style of grainy action films that had titles of "Biker Chicks from Hell" and "The Badland Banderos."  Very contrived plot of powerful racist white guys putting down the honest hard working little man.  Again, I am a bit tired of that plot line as it is like going back to a broken slot machine that doesn't always give exhorbitant returns, but for the writers and directors who keep playing these plot lines, at least there is little risk  if any and they are quaranteed at least some return on investment.

Deception

No!  Don't see it.  I am such a pathetic American with the "finish your plate" mentality that has been so burned into me (even when what I was eating was so bad for me) that I had to finish what I had started.  During the viewing, it was just a skoosh above slipping it back into the red envelope and sending it home.

Plot: Socially inept dude who is an accountant (Ewan McGregor) falls into a sex club where he is suddenly having "relations" with incredibly beautiful women with no strings attached.  Deal is that he falls for a fling and she (Michelle Williams) is actually part of a plot to get him to siphon 20 million to an account she and her accomplice (Hugh Jackman) have set up.  Complications arise when she falls for the accountant in return.  Okay, so Mr. Excitement (the accountant) is able to woo a woman into bailing on her cut of 20 million after 2 nights of sex.   So, he is Mr. Incredible: well paid accountant during the day and 10 Million Dollar per tryst gigolo at night!  PA LEASE!!!

The way it ends is that Jackman, the evil puppeteer, is shot by Williams right before he is to shoot McGregor.  Both Williams and McGregor leave Jackman in the park to bleed all over 2 suitcases with 20 million dollars.  Are you kidding me?!?!?! 
You have just stolen 20 million from some unsuspecting victim, you then shoot the dude who master minded the swindle and you don't ttaek the cash?!  You instead leave it for some Central Park crack dealing type thug to find it.  Frickin' great.  Implausible, irritatiting, illogical, and all sorts of other 'i' words.

Remember, I suffered for you on this so if you ever come over, mow my lawn while I read something and sip a cool beverage while I try to regain some of the time I lost watching this.

Dead Snow

Okay, I am not a scary movie dude because the good ones (the ones without relying on gore) that rely on suspense and surprise do scare the crap out of me and I have 5 and 7 year sons to do that to me for free.  However, I made an exception on this film as I saw the preview and I am a sucker for anything having to do with Nazi's and WWII.  All good. 

Okay, in present times, 5 Finn's hike (and one snowmobiles) on up to a very isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere and are there to await a 6th Finn who decided get there earlier by hiking up the night before...she ain't gonna make it.  Everything is also completely covered in snow.  Okay, turns out that during WWII, a couple companies of looting German SS soldiers were chased into the mountains by villagers from whom they had stolen every valuable item they could find.  They had not been heard from or seen...until now!

In the beginning, this film had the suspense and surprise going for it, but then it got gory.  The gore was pretty much over the top when it happened, so, because it was so unbelievable, well, it didn't really gross me out.  Actually, the nastiest scene is where a guy is doing a sit down in the outhouse which is about 40 yards (or meters as this is a European film) away from the cabin.  Right as he is finishing up the paperwork portion of his job, his girlfriend decides that there ain't nothin' sexier or more irresistible than a man sitting down with his pants around his ankles, so she decides to get busy with him and gets him in the mood and over his surprise by sucking his fingers.  That was gross.

From there, the actual body gore takes over and there you have it.  Okay, as I said, I am not a gore fanatic, but there were bits of humor in the film that reminded me of Army of Darkness.  That is one of my all time favorites!  For that reason, yeah, it was not bad.  There was enough in the way of suspense to make it decent, the gore too over the top, etc.  Cinematography was good, directing was good, script, hell is was Finnish so they could have been reading Jack and Jill and I would not have known.  I don't really recommend the film unless you are definitely a horror movie nut.  If so, heck yeah, check it out.

The Social Network

I had to see the origins of what my wife got me into and what alienated (unbeknownst to me) some of my friends for bit.  Without my knowledge, she created a facebook account for me and when I didn't respond to my friends requests to be friends, the bashed me via my email account....thanks babe!  I have to keep her happy otherwise, who knows what she will put up there.  Evidently I did something wrong at some point because I guess, through comments from friends, that the Donald Duck picture was awesome.

I love money and that love allowed this to be a success story for me.  On the other hand, the portrayal of Zuckerberg and how he treated those around him in the creation of Facebook does not put him in so glamorous a light.  In any "non fiction" movie, you get only the director's opinion of the subject and be it good or bad, well, that's what you will more than likely incorporate into your opinion of the person or period covered.  You could walk away with "Zuckerberg is a dirtbag," or like me, walk away with "Zuckerberg is a freakin' billionaire!"   

The acting was really good.  Justin Timberlake is a rare quality in that as a crossover artist (music to film) he does really really well.  Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland 2009) who is prime to take all the roles Michael Cera might be considered for was awesome as well.  The script was good as well and the directing did a great job of switching between the "present" litigation and jumping back to the past events that lead up to the creation of Facebook and the conflicts that brought it all into litigation.  Cinematography was all good and suited the moods and all of that. 

This is definitely a small screener and I can't really give a killer recommendation for or against.  The movie covers something that has happened and there is nothing that can be done about it.  I am no better for seeing it, but it was entertaining.  It is though, some serious fodder for the black dressed, beret wearing, coffee shop vampires who, in their quest for unearned instant street cred, will tell anyone who will listen how it really happened.