Machete Kills: Not an Actual Movie

Developing a high tolerance for nonsense movies will improve your life. If you can find the rowdy, visceral joy in cinematic dumpster fires, your entertainment options expand drastically. This is a position I hold firm to, and while it has cost me significant amounts of money through the years (paid good American dollars to see Shutter in theaters), I have seen, and greatly enjoyed, many, many bad movies. So when I tell you that Machete Kills is a borderline unwatchable fuck-fest, you should trust me.

Or you could just let this poster tell you everything you need to know.

Machete Kills is the follow-up to 2010's Machete, a blood stained, sex laden romp through the issues (immigration, cartel activity) that currently define the U.S./Mexico border. It's an absurdest take on some very serious material, and if you bother to look beneath the epic kills (and there are some *epic kills*) and naked ladies, you'll find a story there. You might even find a message. Machete Kills contains neither of those things.

What it does contain are nearly identical ingredients, which is to say lots of sex and violence. Danny Trejo  returns as the titular federale, tasked with saving the United States from a Mexican mad man named Mendez who has a stolen nuclear warhead pointed at Washington, D.C. In order to do so, Machete must capture and deliver Mendez, played by Demien Bichir, to the U.S. border. His preferred method of doing so is to kill everything in his path. Weapons Machete murders with in Machete Kills include (but are not limited to): a machete, a meat cleaver, a speed boat, a helicopter (twice), a spear gun, and his bare hands. This movie has many weaknesses; a body count is not one of them.

Filling out the LADIES portion of Machete Kills are Michelle Rodriguez, Amber Heard (as I've previously stated, the hottest woman on the g.d. planet), Sofia Vergara, Lady Gaga, and Vanessa Hudgens. More good looking women might be the lone improvement Machete Kills makes on its predecessor, which is hugely disappointing. This is a movie that wants to be a B-movie. It aspires to do no more than entertain on the basest of levels. How do you fuck that up, Robert???

Part of the problem is the run time. Machete Kills overstays it's welcome at 107 minutes. Another significant misstep is the addition of a science fiction element, (Machete Kills Again...In Space! is in development to complete the trilogy) which it totally did not need. Machete's cinematic methods were not sophisticated, but they were highly effective. Machete Kills convolutes the formula set by it's predecessor, careening the joyful absurdity that defined it into a nigh-unwatchable train wreck. It is the hardest of bummers.

I understand why Robert Rodriguez made Machete Kills the way he did. Sequels must try to top their predecessors, and when you're predecessor is the pitch-perfect whirl of action that was Machete, it is going to be hard not to push things too far the second time around. But Machete Kills could have--should have--been much better. The effort was there. The execution wasn't. 

Directed By: Robert Rodriguez

Starring: Danny Trejo, Carlos Estevez, Mel Gibson, Demien Bichir, Michelle Rodriguez, Amber Heard, Sofia Vergara

You Should see it if: You really, reeeeeeeeeeeeally liked Shoot 'Em Up. 

October(Horror)Fest!

Oh man. I love October. I acknowledge I'm probably more into getting festive than your average straight 29 year-old male, but come on, holidays are awesome. Any month that incorporates one I can support (except February. Fuck you, February). The days preceding Halloween usually mean a glut of horror movies hitting theaters, but you don't *always* wanna pay 10 bucks for a scare.

With that in mind, here's a few (semi) recent flicks to get you in the spirit of the season, once you've waded through the classics (The Shining, The Exorcist, Halloween, etc). For the sake of brevity, these are all post-2000, but don't short yourself. There was good stuff in the 90s too. And by "good stuff", I just mean Event Horizon.

Watch Only if You're Drinking:

Legion

Paul Bettany is the archangel Michael sent to save the world from a demon apocalypse wrought by God's wrath!

Too yoked to let the world burn!

On second thought, maybe you just shouldn't watch this. It's preposterous. But it features a couple of decent chills, and a surprisingly bad-ass angel fight at the climax. Those wings, ya'll. Serious weapons.

The Hitcher

Sean Bean is Jon Ryder, a hitch-hiker with plans to ruin your day.

Fucking Borimir.

My friend Evan and I saw this movie when it came out expressly to find out whether one of the unfortunate kids who offers Jon Ryder a ride actually gets ripped apart by two semi trucks. SPOILER: He does! Skip this one too.

Others Worth Considering: Wrong Turn, The Ammityville Horror (Ryan Reynolds edition), The Messengers, Pulse

Medium Speed Horror (not that scary, but still worth your time):

30 Days of Night

Josh Hartnett saves an isolated Alaskan town from some surly-ass vampires.

Not your run of the mill Sunnydale types.

Actually, he less saves the town and more murders all the baddies, but just the same- I love 30 Days of Night. It's almost more a thriller than a horror movie, but the vampires default it into the latter category. It's based on a graphic novel, and my understanding is the fans were less than wild about the cinematic interpretation. But if you're like me, without a standing "the book is better" bias, I think you'll be satisfied. Vampires in a town with no sun for a month! Consider it.

Constantine

Keanu Reeves exorcises a lady's demons and saves the world!

Also, he looks into Hell using a cat.

Another from the "only kinda horror" category, Constantine plays to the same crowd as Legion, and plays much, much better. Alan Moore, creator of the original comic book character, hated this movie so much he insisted his name be removed from it entirely. A little harsh, but that's what you get with walking punchline Keanu Reeves as your titular anti-hero. This is worth a Tuesday a night on the couch.

Others Worth Considering: Halloween (the Rob Zombie edition), The Last Exorcism, Saw I, Saw II, The House of the Devil, Quarantine

Excellent, But Too Self Aware to Really Scare:

The Cabin in the Woods

Kristen Connolly and friends have a bad time in the forest.

I was hoping for the Merman, too.

Mmm. Whedon stuff. If you've seen The Cabin in the Woods, you know what it brings to the table. If you haven't, I don't want to say anything that will ruin a truly unique take on horror cinema. But it's excellent, and you need to see it. Right now.

Drag Me to Hell

Alison Loman learns not to piss of gypsies *the hard way*!

It's a really bad idea.

Drag Me to Hell is horror/comedy at it's finest, delivered by genre master Sam Raimi. It's got all the charm of the Evil Dead series, coupled with a drastically higher budget and 30 years of directorial polish. It's hard to make a movie that's both genuinely scary and genuinely funny. Drag Me to Hell pulls it off.

Others Worth Considering: Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, House of 1000 Corpses, Dawn of the Dead

Actually Scary, Only Kinda Good:

The Fourth Kind

Milla Jovavich gets real with some aliens!

Yep.

The Fourth Kind had one of the scariest trailers I've ever seen. Yes, the "true story" part is apparently total horseshit, but watch that! Freaky, right?! The movie's only sort of good, but there's some chilling stuff in there. Recomended for more advanced users.

The Hills Have Eyes

...actually there's no one person famous enough to be noted here. Mutants attack a family in the desert!

At least he's having fun.

There you are, torture porn! You had to show up on this list somewhere. Of all the hyper violent, mostly shitty mid-2000s horror movies, The Hills Have Eyes is far and away the best. But it is really, really violent. Avoid it if that's not your bag. If you've got the stomach for it, strap in. You'll find yourself hungry for revenge against these mutant bastards, and you will be (baby spoiler) satisfied.

Others Worth Considering: Sinister, Paranormal Activity

Really Damn Scary Horror Movies:

Finally, the good stuff! These last few are the genuine article, best enjoyed not alone. These are the true Halloween warm ups.

Insidious

Patrick Wilson deals with hereditary ghost problems.

This kind.

I've made it clear that I'm a fan of James Wan here before. Insidious doesn't pack quite as much punch as this summer's The Conjuring, but it's a fine piece of horror film making. Steadily eerie, intermittently terrifying, not a ghost story you've heard a million times before. That Netflix took it down before Halloween is fucking criminal.

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The gold standard of modern horror. I can't even make jokes about it.

*Shudders*

The Orphanage is the best horror movie since 2000, possibly since The Silence of the Lambs. It's Spanish language, so you'll have to deal with subtitles, but it is *worth it*. Full on terrifying, with the weight of a great story behind it. Scary, sad, hopeful, beautiful. Treat yourself. 

Others Worth Considering: In this category? You could make a case for The Ring. That's really about it.

Rush: Ladies and Cars

Rush is a movie of rich ingredients. Fast cars, daring men, beautiful women, a story driven by the fire of competition and designed to inspire--the recipe is powerful. With Ron Howard at the helm, the end product is both flashy and easily digested, but is it good? 3 days later, I'm still having a hard time with that question. It isn't *bad*, it just isn't all that interesting. Watching Rush is to movies as eating at the Cheese Cake is to food.

Cheese Cake. I should maybe not write these before lunch.

I don't mean to imply you won't like this movie. You will, if you have eyes. Howard spins out the story of James Hunt and Nikki LAUDA (I love saying that name. Say it. With emphasis. It's fun.), a pair of Formula One drivers whose rivalry peaked spectacularly during the 1976 season, in a deeply entertaining flurry of race montages and Olivia Wilde doing Olivia Wilde things.

Pictured: Olivia Wilde Things

The source material for Rush was built for the big screen (though it was manipulated slightly). Read up on it if you don't want to see the movie; it's a hell of a story. Howard does a fine job with said material, and he makes it look real, real pretty in the process. It's going to make a lot of money, and it deserves to. I just can't help but feel it's a little over-distilled. 

It's that distilling that makes Rush feel a little hamfisted at times. The rivalry between Hunt and Lauda is set up as a black/white dichotomy; the hard living, ever daring Hunt against the robotic Lauda. The message, that both men could stand to learn from the other in their respective pursuits of greatness, is made ABUNDANTLY clear. If you somehow miss that during the 90 minutes of Hunt slamming brews/Lauda obsession over the mechanical details of his car, don't worry! Lauda and Hunt have a conversation discussing (SPOILERS, sort of) that exact point in the movie's closing minutes. Ron Howard does not trust you to interpret nuance.

A quick warning, because I hate getting pump-faked by trailers: while all the hype for Rush suggest it's the story of James Hunt (which is totally understandable; Hunt is played by Thor, while Lauda is played by this guy), it's really more Nikki Lauda's story. And it should be. Put mildly, Lauda goes through some shit. Just understand you may not get quite as much Hemsworth as you want.

Ugh. Why is it still two weeks until Machete Kills comes out?

Directed By: Ron Howard

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Bruhl, Olivia Wilde, this lovely lady whom I have not heard of previously.

You Should see it if: You like cars, boobs, inspiring drama, or all of the above. 

RIDDICK: Vin Diesel Can See You in the Dark

Richard B. Riddick (escaped convict, murderer) lives in a dangerous, if oddly disconnected, cinemaverse. We first met Riddick in 2000's Pitch Black, in which he relied on massive lats and occasional sexual harassment to survive a pack of deeply light-averse aliens. The sequel, 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick, found him battling the NECROMONGER, an invading empire of brutal religious zealots. It had nothing to do with Pitch Black. It stands to reason Riddick would have (almost) nothing to do with either of the first two.

Riddick is space survival horror in it's simplest form. Man is betrayed and left behind on a remote planet, and must demonstrate that he's more BADASS than said planet to survive. And no one is more badass than Riddick. Not space wolves, not poisonous alien snake-gators (the movie features both), and certainly not a bunch of bounty hunters Riddick draws down using their own beacons. All would like to see our buff anti-hero dead. All will leave the theater unsatisfied (and seriously, that's not a spoiler. Vin Diesel never dies, unless he's trying to save Matt Damon).

What sets Riddick apart from it's predecessors is self-awareness. Where PB and CoR played it dead straight, Riddick seems to think that "yoked dude with shiny eyes that let him see in the dark beats a lot of ass" (and even rule it) could be construed as a silly premise. There's more than a few winknods for fans of the series, and even by his already impressive standards, Riddick draws from a cartoonishly deep well of testosterone. These are decisions I understand, but...I dunno. I'm not sure it works here.

The problem isn't anything Vin Diesel is doing wrong. The tone just doesn't fit. James Bond doesn't get drunk and brag about all the play he gets, because it simply isn't done. There are rules in every cinematic world. If you break those rules, your movie doesn't work. And Riddick breaks the rules. Not severely, not in a way that renders it unwatchable, but enough. Maybe I'm just disappointed it wasn't Pitch Black all over again, but seriously, I never thought I'd see the day that a sci-fi movie featuring bone fights, mercenaries, and sort of topless Kara Thrace could leave me anything but giddy. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT, DAMMIT. And it's only okay, firmly occupying the middle ground between the awesome that was Pitch Black and the clown show that was Chronicles. You let me down, Riddick. Please don't stab me for telling you that.

Directed By: David Twohy 

Starring: Vin Diesel, Starbuck, and Judge Dredd for about 3 minutes.

You Should see it if: You should really see Pitch Black instead.

You're Next: YEAH, YOU

It's horror season! A brief, 2 months-ish window between the block busters and the holiday Oscar grabs where things get real gory at the box office, and I love it. I've talked before here about how and why it's difficult to do horror well, but seriously, I don't care. I just want ghosts and severed limbs and hot ladies running through the woods all up in this bitch. 

And goats when applicable.

You're Next is 2013's first offering in this department (summer horror doesn't count, and no this isn't summer horror even though it came out in August. IT'S MY BLOG; I MAKE THE RULES). It's a great time, if you're into this kinda thing. You're Next is to horror what Brick and Drive  were to film noir, which is to say a movie that is at once a send-up and homage to the genre. It's scares come with a wink and nudge, and it's a lot more fun if you get the joke. 

The plot is as baseline as it gets. A wealthy family goes to their nice house in the sticks, mysterious thugs in animal masks show up to murderize them, family must *survive the night* (BABY SPOILER: Many do not). It's The Strangers, minus Arwen Evenstar. 

Where You're Next walks a tight-rope is bringing the audience in on the joke without letting the characters in, too. There's more than self-awareness here; self-aware has been done before in horror. This is a comedy for horror fans who want to remember the highlights (nods to The Shining and the scariest scene from the Saw series) and low lights (see: all of The Strangers) of the genre they love, all wrapped in a skin of more than decent slasher horror. It's sloppy in spots; this is a hard act to nail without a stumble, but there's more good than bad. The twist works, there's more than a few decent kills, and you get some awesomely WASP-y names for the characters, like "Crispian" and "Drake". 

WASP

You're Next is impressive, but it's probably not for everyone. It's heavy on certain brands of wish fulfilment (ass-kicking survival; watching rich white people get murderized), but at the end of the day, it's a movie by film geeks for film geeks. If you don't put yourself in that category, you might not dig it. If, on the other hand, you think you think watching a murdering sociopath take a meat tenderizer to the crotch sounds rad, this movie is for you. It was certainly for me.

Come Get Some

Directed By: Adam Wingard 

Starring: Sharni Vinson (She was in Blue Crush 2, which apparently exists!), a bunch of other people no one's heard of but all did a pretty good job! Check out the movie's main IMDB page for more facts on 'em.

You Should see it if: You love horror, or spend your days nursing revenge fantasies. 

The Act of Killing: Complicated Bummers

Sometimes my friends see movies too. Below, you’ll find Michael Smith reviewing/coping with The Act of Killing. 

So there’s a documentary film making its round through the small, art house movie world—The Act of Killing—and it is the most beautiful, gut wrenching, and confounding film I’ve seen this year.  I won’t go so far as to call it important.  Only tools and pretentious dicks think things are important for other people, but I will say this movie is downright powerful.  For a little context, the film is set in Indonesia, which, after a military coup in 1964, initiated a government sanctioned purge of all opposition under the guise of eradicating “Communists”; which was supported by everyone’s favorite misanthropic superpower—that’s right US (er, the U.S.).

The story is largely centered on a man named Anwar Congo who was a “gangster”—read death squad member during the purges—and his cohorts/co-conspirators.  Anwar is personally responsible for the death of over 1,000 Communists from 1964-66. He wasn’t a bystander or a boss.  He was an actor, an active participant in the government sponsored murder of over 2.5 million people.  And despite all of this, he is an incredibly charming, likeable character.  That’s right.  Anwar Congo is downright adorable and incredibly human in large swaths of this film, a fact which makes the viewer incredibly uncomfortable.

This documentary does so many things right it is hard to know where to begin.  So let’s start with the premise.  Rather than simply trekking around Indonesia, seeking government documents, procuring historical clips, and overlaying obnoxious social commentary; director Joshua Oppenheimer engages Anwar in a play.  He traces the work of Anwar to produce a movie recounting in graphic, often surreal, detail the acts he committed in the name of eradicating Communism. This tactic effectively breaks down any barriers Anwar and his friends might have to participating. Under the guise of recording history, Anwar and his cohort open wide and allow the viewer into their lives and their actions, often engaging Oppenheimer directly and openly.

What’s more is this tactic creates an enormous amount of trust between the subjects and the film maker.  Joshua Oppenheimer is going into a world where the perpetrators of one of the greatest crimes in history were never brought to justice, and, for all intents and purposes, asking them to admit to their crimes.  To draw a fair parallel, this would be analogous to the Nazi’s winning World War II, and then having a documentary film maker come in and asking grandpa Heinrich about his participation in the Holocaust and having Gramps willingly and unabashedly participate.  The amount of trust Oppenheimer gets from his subjects is a thing of sheer genius.

For his part, Oppenheimer is impartial.  Before the film, he introduces himself and the overall goal of the work:  he’s not simply seeking to bring the dirty laundry of the world to light, but rather to lift the veil of evil and explore humanity, in all of its ugliness, beauty, and contradiction. That’s not to say he doesn’t think what happened wasn’t wrong, but his judgment is completely removed from the film.  This is a story about humanity, in all its complexities.  What Oppenheimer brings to light is that evil often looks so very like us.

At the beginning of the film Anwar takes the crew to a rooftop where he killed hundreds of people with a garrote wire.  While up there, he mentions his inability to sleep and his quest to kill the pain with alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy, and, wait for it, the cha-cha.  He then proceeds to dance on that same rooftop where hundreds of people lost their lives by his own hand.  What’s worse is that he’s so damn cute doing it you fucking chuckle, while immediately feeling like you want to vomit for what you’ve just done.  Never in my life has a movie made me so disgusted with my fellow man and myself in the exact same moment.

And that, perhaps, is where the movie shines most--in its juxtaposition.  Oppenheimer is engaging in incredibly dark material.  But at the same time he is engaging in a very human material.  Anwar is dealing with an incredibly haunting past, and is interacting with that past through memory and reenactment.  This leads to incredibly surreal moments in which horrifying truths are back dropped by comic relief, buffoonish friends, and strait gorgeous scenery.  Moreover, Anwar doesn’t face his haunting in the same way one might expect, which is to say, brooding, alcoholic, and solitary.  Rather, Anwar seeks out companionship; he copes with his own tragedy, his own crime in a way that I think many of us would: by commiserating with others and engaging with others.  Anwar’s monstrosity is only surpassed by his complete humanity.

This film is a host of contradictions.  It is a horrifically violent film in which the violence is at once limited and entirely simulated.  It is horrendous and beautiful.  It is heartrending and endearing.  It is incredibly realistic, but at the same time surreal beyond belief.  This film is fucking good.  Not enjoyable, not uplifting, but terribly good.  This is not the film you take your girlfriend to before going back home to make nice in a darkened room.  This is the kind of film you go see, and then drown yourself in whiskey, sadness, and confusion for a couple of days while you try to cope with the fact that we, as a species, are terrible.

Directed By: Joshua Oppenheimer

Starring: Anwar Congo, Anonymous (seriously half the credits are listed as anonymous and I have not the foggiest what that means in real world terms.  I’m assuming dead or political prisoner.)

You should see it if:  Fuck it, you should just see it.

Paranoia: Firstest First World Problems

If you knew nothing about Paranoia (and there's no reason you should; I sure as fuck didn't know this was going to exist until about 3 weeks out when TNT started pumping it), and you looked at what the movie had to offer going in--Indiana Jones! High tech thriller! Beta Thor!--you might be inclined to think "Yeah, this is a movie I should see."

SERIOUS FACES

You would be wrong. Unless you actively enjoy bad movies (or all movies, like me), Paranoia is not an enterprise you should be funding. This movie shits the bed real hard.

Most of the problems in Paranoia could be solved if everyone involved were a little less fucking stupid. Liam Hemsworth plays Adam Cassidy, a drone at a massive tech company called Wyatt Corp. Adam has spent years on the ground floor, refining his skills, and finally has a shot to present a product he designed to his boss, Nicolas Wyatt (Gary Oldman). Problems arise when Wyatt ignores Liam's pitch, and Liam gets butt-hurt, and decides to tell his Fortune 500 CEO boss that he doesn't know how to run his business. Liam is promptly fired, along with every other member of his team.

Lesser Hemsworth's response to this is to take his team out drinking on the Wyatt Corp dime (because even though security had them empty out their desks, they somehow missed that Liam was packing a credit card that apparently accessed Wyatt's entire R&D budget), at which point they consume $16,000 worth of Ciroc and Liam bangs the hottest woman on the GD planet.

YUP.

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there for our hero, as (surprise!) Wyatt Corp would like it's money back. He can either pay up (which he can't do because he's poor), or go be a corporate spy and steal trade secrets from rival company Eikon, run by Jock (not Jacque, JOCK) Goddard (Ford). Liam chooses to spy, which starts some loosely connected bullshit that comprises the rest of the plot.

The holes in this story are too many to count, so I'll just hit some of my favorites. First of all, the timeline is incredibly vague. I seriously think the whole movie took place over about 8 days in Liam's life; two at rich person boot camp (where you're given a classy ass watch, get to swim in a sick pool, and play chess with Gary Oldman), and six more stealing trade secrets while shtupping Amber Heard.

Then there's why Nick Wyatt needs Catniss's boy toy to steal an actual prototype of a cell phone JOCK is building after Wyatt steals the designs and the source code to build it, because apparently reverse-engineering is more fun? Hell if I know. 

The biggest issue, though, is Adam Cassidy himself. It's just impossible to give a damn whether he lives or that guy from Nip/Tuck blows his head off (which (SPOILER!) he attempts to do at one point). There's no reason to care about him. He talks about working ground floor R&D at a mega-tech company like it's burger flipping, even though he clearly has an amazing job. We're supposed to find his relationship with his Dad endearing, even though Liam spends the bulk of their screen time together telling him what a fucking loser he is. Did I mention how stupid he is, too? Because he's SO STUPID. You stole a credit card worth millions and you bought P-Diddy's vodka with it, you tool box. It's all so dumb that you almost forget that the movie completely fails to execute it's "big  (corporate) brother is watching" theme.

Paranoia is shooting 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, which officially graduates it to "impressively terrible" territory. The list of movies you should see instead of this one include everything else you can pay for at a theater. What a fucking disaster. 

Directed By: Robert Luketic (Jeez, look at that guy's smug face. It somehow makes this all worse.)

Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, Amber Heard, Richard Dreyfuss, OH MY GOD HOW DID YOU GET THIS CAST?!?!

You Should see it if: You probably just shouldn't.