Hello and greetings.
Apologies for the long time no write, a severe case of "blog-bloc" I shall blame it on.
Anywho.
We're talking movies here real quick on 28 North Speaks. We have now seen a number of movies (five total to be exact in my case) in the last couple of weeks. They were as follows: 1. Looper, 2. The Master, 3. Dredd 3D, 4. Argo, and 5. Total Recall. Quite the round up, I know. The quality of each were as follows, respectively: 1. damn good entertainment, 2. surprisingly awful, 3. surprisingly enjoyable, 4. the best of the batch, and 5. shitty as expected.
Looper
Good, clean, fun. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was solid, Bruce Willis was standard great. I enjoyed this movie, it has the right amount of confusion blended with classic action movie violence. The plot is bound to have holes when you are dealing with time travel and inevitably the story will have its demerits. But fuck it, what story is ever sealed tight as a drum and with so many matters complicating life in general, what is the difference? Plus Bruce Willis kills kids in this movie. Kids!! Little innocent, defenseless, inconsequential kids!!! I feel like they took chances on this one and I commend them for that. Plus the way they make up Jo-Go to resemble a youthful Bruce Willis is hilarious.
The Master
Ugh. Come on PTA. I expected a more intriguing story than this. Sure. The acting was superb and the film looked incredible (70 mm film) and the music was perfect. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman and everyone else involved in making this film deserve well earned praise. But there was no story for me. I took nothing from this movie in terms of experiencing anything really worthwhile. And it is sssooooo long. But I'll give it another shot some day and possibly unearth the genius that may lie in its strange images.
Dredd 3D
We were so disappointed in The Master that we snuck in to see Dredd to redeem some sort of entertainment for the night. It turned out to be a gratuitous, dark, decadent, indulgence of the kind we hoped for as blood hungry pre-pubescent males. And I enjoyed every second of it. In 3D too! I cannot lie, it was gut-wrenching to watch bullets pierce through bodies in slow motion and peoples faces being exploded. Though it was guiltily satisfying. A visceral experience if you will.
Argo
I liked it. It was pretentious, sure. Rife with political commentary directed both towards governmental foreign affairs and the so-oft-self-deprecating movie business. But it was suspenseful nonetheless and the humor was well placed. Alan Arkin was absolutely perfect as was John Goodman as always. Of course Bryan Cranston is involved. This is a big plus these days. Cranston certainly delivered and Ben Affleck was solid and also directed the film.
Total Recall
....
And there you have it. Sorry, I slept through what most likely were the "important" parts of Total Recall and unfortunately those were probably the ones mainly involving Bryan Cranston (fuck yah!). Oh well, I'm sure the original is far better and serves a much more fulfilling place in the halls of film history.
Finally, here is a little treat for you: A NEW SONG!
Yep, we wrote this new tune out in Canyon Country and this is a video of us playing the new tune at The Dragonfly in Los Angeles. Hope you dig!
More soon,
Ty
