Review:

I'm apparently the only person on earth who didn't like Fight Club, so I'm also the only person on earth who didn't have high hopes for David Fincher's version of this film, at least if you look at the reviews out there.  It's tragic in a way because I've never seen so many talented actors and actresses crammed into such a stinking brown heap.  Rooney Mara isn't really acting in this role.  She looks like she popped too many Valium during filming.  Actually, the entire film looks like it was created under the influence of Valium.  Except for the really bizarre intro, which is as out of place as Richard Dawkins in a Baptist church.  I'll stick with the original movie that they made in Sweden, thank you.  It was a low-budget affair, but it beats this hands down.  In some ways, the American film is truer to the book ... except in the end showdown with the big bad monster.  I imagine the scriptwriter had some kind of stroke while writing that part.  And then later on the movie-makers and actors were too drugged up on Valium to notice how godawfulterriblebad the dialogue was, and, alas, it made the final edit.        

Main reason to see this film:  Daniel Craig isn't half bad.  It helps that I generally like him in movies, ever since seeing him in Layer Cake.  Also, the cat gave rather good acting compared to most of the people in this film.  At least until the cat got brained ... sorry, I guess that was a spoiler. 

Main reason not to see this film:  The "I''m-about-to-kill-you-and-it's-making-me-really-hard!" scene.  Serioiusly?  SERIOUSLY??!!!   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Beer rating:  Ummmm, let's see, 6 or 7.  Beer might make this film appear less weird. 

Review:  Natalie Portman plays an emaciated psychotic dancer who lives with her emaciated psychotic mother.  When she gets the lead role as the swan queen in her theater's upcoming production, she is ecstatic.  Unfortunately, she also starts to crack under all the pressure.  Apparently, in order to dance well, one must become evil.  So she starts to do nasty things.  Like stealing lipstick, masturbating in front of her mom, and humping lesbians while wacked on drugs.  Hmm.  Right.  That doesn't sound like a plot to me either.  It sounds kind of, um, er, what's the word I'm looking for?  Many reviewers go with the word "campy" but I'll go with "inane."  SPOILER ALERT:  When she finally fucking dies at the end, you'll want to cheer and shout, "About time!"  Clap, clap, clap. 

Main reason to see this movie:  If you want a good reason not to become a dancer.  Or to watch dancers.  Or to befriend dancers or socialize with them in any way.  Dancers are crazy people!  Stay away from them!  They'll chop you up and leave your carcass in a bathroom stall!     

Main reason not to see this movie:   Natalie Portman credits the gratuitous lesbian sex scene for giving the film an audience, because why else would anyone want to see a movie about psychotic dancers?  The way Hollywood depicts lesbian behavior on screen, you'd think all lesbians are sick, fucked up people.  If it takes a lesbian sex scene to draw in a straight audience -- or any audience whatsoever -- that says a lot about how horrible your movie is. 

Beer rating:   7 beers.  You can guess the ending of this movie quite early.  Therefore, drinking is necessary if you want to suffer through the entire film to reach that sad ending. 

Review:  They should have titled this movie Shit Blowing Up, With Silly Dialogue.  So, like, I'm wondering, how come in fight scenes between men, you never see them go for the nuts?  Is it some unspoken rule, some no-nuts etiquette of male kick-assery?  Surely that would be more effective than repeatedly punching a guy in his kevlar vest.  JUST KICK HIM IN THE NUTS ALREADY!  Anyway, the real message of this movie is that men save themselves by saving women in danger.  Aw.  How touching.  Did I mention lots of shit blows up?

Main reason to see this movie:  Watching a 65-year-old man jacked on steroids trying to run is fucking hilarious. 

Main reason not to see this movie:  If you are female.  You will be the only female in a theater full of fat rednecks and college boys. 

Beer rating:  10 beers, of course!  If I'd been trashed, I probably would have clapped at the end, too, just like that poor loser sitting in the front row. 

Review:  Adrian Brody has a big nose.  Wait, what movie am I reviewing?  Oh, yeah.  Predators.  Anyway, Adrian Brody gets ripped and imitates Christian Bale's Batman voice in his role as one of many mankillers parachute-dropped into an alien game preserve.  Brody and his fellow killers are there to liven up the presumably boring lives of an alien species that aparently has nothing better to do than go hunting.  This is the kind of movie that I like to call a "man flick" (as opposed to a chick flick).  All the signs of man-flicky-ness are there:  The big sweaty men who look like they eat steroids for breakfast; the lone female who is only present so we can see the camera pan across her ass; the supersized guns that never seem to run out of ammo; a script that consists of dumb one-liners.  Instead of rating this movie R for violence, they should rate it TR for Teen Retarded, because this movie is only bearable if you are a retarded teenage boy.   

Main reason to see this movie:  If you want to see a bunch of murderers get some of their own.  It's some poetic alien justice!  Yeah!  Or something like that.

Main reason not to see this movie:  If you've seen comedian Ross Noble's acting out of the movie Predator.  Rare species of Jesus, anyone?  You won't be able to get through the movie without dying of laughter, especially when Adrian Brody smears mud all over himself.  I was just waiting for him to start running with his arms outsretched, shouting, "SMEAR COLD MUD ON US!  THAT IS WHAT WE LIKE!"  

Beer rating:  Ten beers, of course.  The screenwriter was clearly drunk off his ass while writing this thing, so you might as well get plastered while watching it. 

Review:  Lisbeth Salander is back, this time hiding from the police in the wake of a series of murders for which she is blamed.  Her journalist friend, Mikael Blomkvist, is convinced of her innocence and works tirelessly to find the truth behind the crimes.  All the evidence points to the elusive Zala, a man we gradually come to know throughout the film.  Lisbeth is searching for Zala, too, and finding him might just turn her into a real killer.  Why is she searching for him?  Well, see, she knows him.  And she doesn't like him one bit.  Play ominous music here.  Because when Lisbeth doesn't like someone ... yeah, you get the picture. 

The Girl Who Played With Fire is my favorite book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy, but it's likely to be my least favorite movie of the three (the third film is due for a US release in October).  Still, it holds a punch and is worth seeing.  I dream of the day when Hollywood dares to make a movie with women characters this strange and this strong.  An irreverent woman standing up against all the ugliness of male-dominated society.  Had to come from Europe, huh, because we don't know how to make stuff like that in America.     

Main reason to see this movie:  The militant feminist in me adores this film.  I mean, how can you not love a movie in which a guy gets tasered in the crotch?  Tis a thing of beauty.  Hey, I'm as entitled as the next woman to the ocassional man-hating day. 

Main reason not to see this movie:  It doesn't have the strength and style of the first film in the trilogy.  Noomi Rapace and Mikael Nyqvist do a great job reprising their roles, but their efforts can't quite defeat the lack of enthusiasm that the director and others involved bring to the rest of the film.  Perhaps it is as simple as a lower budget, but something is clearly askew.       

Beer rating:  Four beers -- plus one celebratory shot for said taser scene. 

Review:  This is the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen.  Well, ok, actually 2012 is the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen.  But Salt comes in at a close second.  I was expecting Angelina Jolie to be less of an action star, given that she's turned into a baby factory, but she can still tear up the screen as good as anyone.  So while this movie is silly, it's also kind of fun.  I'm sure it will give Russians a good laugh if nothing else.  Or it might make them decide to nuke America for making such garbage. 

Main reason to see this movie:  Superman could learn some tricks on disguise from Agent Salt.  Like, instead of putting on dumb glasses, try changing your hair color or pasting on a fake chin.  Big poofy hats are great, too. 

Main reason not to see this movie:  The President of the United States is ... WAIT FOR IT ... a pasty, middle-aged, constipated-looking white dude.  How, er, predictable.  (2012 actually outdoes Salt by daring to have a black President in the age of Obama.  And, yes, Salt must be really bad for me to keep comparing it to that trash heap of a movie.) 

Beer rating:  Seven beers at least.  If you start drinking during the intro, you'll be all warm and fuzzy by the time you get to the near-Hamlet ending.   

Review:  Is it possible?  I am finally starting to like Nicolas Cage?  First this year, he impressed me in Kick Ass, even though he didn't have much screen time.  Now, in Bad Lieutenant, it's his fucking insane overacting that makes this film so crazy and amazing and, yes, good.  He is indeed a bad lieutenant.  He's corrupt, drug-addled, sleep-deprived, angry, and completely out of control.  He mouths off to all the wrong people, gets in deep shit at work and at home.  Yet somehow it all comes together in the end -- if you can call it that.  From the iguanas to the hunched over, blood-shot-eyed shaving scene, you can only come to the conclusion that the guy has fucking lost it.  But he hasn't, not really.  He never loses his cool.  He always has something to say, something to do, some way to wriggle out of the mess he's in.  You don't ever really like this character, but that's not the point.  This is a film about an addict's desperation and an addict's luck -- or maybe it's brilliance, who knows.  Strange things happen in desperate circumstances.       

Main reason to see this film:  I think I laughed hardest at the scene in which he takes his father's dog over to his girlfriend's house.  "What's his name?" she asks.  And he says ...

Main reason not to see this film:  Films that glorify criminal behavior annoy me.  This movie doesn't exactly do that, but it doesn't ask us to hate our bad lieutenant either.  There is something morally objectionable in such a premise.  Not that all art must be morally pleasing.  It would just be nice to see more films that don't depend on the audience accepting violence as a valid form of entertainment.   

Beer rating:  3 beers.  Go ahead, trip a little.  You might as well.  

Review:  Wow, Adrien Brody has a really big nose.  Also, scientists should not be allowed to have children.  Or make children.  Or have sex with the children they make.  Was the humping really necessary?  Seriously? 

It would have been a brilliant film if only the mad female scientist had let out a high-pitched hysterical giggle at the end right before the rolling of the credits.  Alas, it was not meant to be.   

Main reason to see this movie:  Um.  Hmm.  Eh.  Helpless shrug. 

Main reason not to see this movie:  Kelly's number one rule of scary filmmaking:  don't make the evil creature's head look like a giant butt.  It's just not scary.  I kept expecting the creature to attack people by pooing out of its head. 

Beer rating:  10 beers, 2 bottles of rum, 12 bottles of vodka, and 172 gallons of red wine.  Yes, that's right, you must be clinically dead to enjoy this movie.  They should try it.  Just sit down a corpse in the theater, start the film, see if the carcass cares.  It really won't, I betcha ...

Review:  Like the book on which it is based, this film is not meant to entertain you.  It is meant to tell you something about the world.  That's not to say that the story isn't good.  We get a taut thriller, a bone-chilling mystery, a heartwrenching character study, and a bittersweet love story.  This film has a little bit of everything, and in its simplicity lies great beauty.  But this is meant to be a story that matters.  It's meant to move you, and it's meant to make you give a damn. 

Perhaps the best way to convey the film's message is to recite the film and book's original title in Swedish.  The original title didn't degradingly use the word "girl" to describe a 24-year-old woman.  It didn't reduce the lead character to a punk fringe tattooed freak.  The original title is this:  Men Who Hate Women. 

This is a feminist story through and through, perhaps the most feminist story ever to make it to the mainstream worldwide.  This is a story that announces without hesitation that crimes against women are hate crimes and ought to be treated as such.  It's a shame the author of the book trilogy died before his works were published.  I think he would be proud of the books' incredible success, and I think he would find the movie adaptation of the first book in the series very satisfying. 

Main reason to see this movie:  Noomi Rapace, the Swedish actress who plays our lead, Lisbeth Salander, gives an outstanding performance.  It's hard to imagine anyone else playing such a difficult role more successfully. 

Main reason not to see this movie:  Unlike American films, European films don't make rape look like ordinary sex.  They make rape look like rape.  There are several scenes in this film that are hard to stomach.  Of course, that's the way you are supposed to react.  If you're not trembling with rage by the end of these scenes, you are without a doubt a very sick person.  Still, fair warning.  Don't go into this film expecting something warm and fuzzy.

Beer rating:  0 beers. 

Review:  Thank you, Hollywood, for giving us a film that for once defies our bored and boring expectations.  Thank you for giving us a film that defies all that is good and nice and proper in this world.  Thank you for giving us a film that defies how girls are normally portrayed in cinema via a foul-mouthed, purple-haired heroine who beats the crap out of and murders - yes, murders - bad guys twice her size.  

Thank you for the first full-on revenge film ever to exercise no restraint whatsoever.  This is my new favorite movie of the year, perhaps even of the decade. 

The trailer made this film look dorky, kind of campy even.  Go figure.  There's finally a trailer out there that doesn't reveal a damn thing about the actual movie.  

Whatever you are expecting, forget it.  This movie thrills by going over the edge, by crossing the line, by spattering the black and white and the gray in between with bright red blood.  You will be horrified, and you will laugh so hard that you will pull every muscle in your body.        

Main reason to see this film:  A twelve-year-old-girl assassin named Hit-Girl calls her adversaries "cunts" and then destroys them.  Seriously, what more can you ask for from a movie? 

Main reason not to see this film:  The lead character, our hero Kick Ass, is actually rather dull.  Hit-Girl isn't just a scene-stealer, she's a movie-stealer.  When she's not on screen, the movie tends to drag. 

Beer rating:  0 beers!  I love this movie more than I love baby bunnies and chocolate.  That's a lot of love.