Let’s face it: movie reviews in this city suck. I’m not just talking about Nicki Esquedero here. The movie reviewers don’t seem to enjoy movies very much. I don’t know. There seems to be a serious lack of soul, or even a fundamental love of movies that seems required to take the time to put down words about them. At any rate, I thought I’d throw out a few recommendations from time to time. Not that these will be any better, but it is an attempt. Good luck to me. Here’s a couple.
History of Violence directed by David CronenbergSo Viggo Mortenson is an everyday family man with an excellent sex life and a great son who knows what to say to a bully and how to chill out after school, and a creepy daughter, until a couple of bad guys come into Viggo’s diner. Viggo kicks some ass. Viggo’s shit gets fucked.Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that this movie has everything a good movie should have: good pacing, it’s shot well and it has that good/bad acting that can only benefit a suspense thriller like this. Ed Harris is great as a perennial comic book bad guy, as is William Hurt, as a guy that looks like a porno star gangster. Maria Bello plays a rather underwritten role, as Viggo’s wife and is the most attractive mom of a high school student ever. Which is even weirder considering that the high school students all look like they’re in their early thirties; which makes the high school scenes more humorous than menacing.If you’ve followed David Cronenburg’s films, this one seems linked loosely to the themes of identity that run through most of his movies, and like Spider, the protagonist once again can’t escape his past. The film is existential without too much pretension, besides, of course, the title. John Wagner and Vince Locke wrote the graphic novel, and I’d like to check it out just to see the ending, which in the film, seems unavoidable but is awkward and however intentional, unrewarding.It’s a scary movie and it’s because it’s well told. In lesser hands, it could’ve been similar to the Bruce Willis pooper, Last Man Standing or a thousand others, but the violence is brutal, it’s not stylized too heavily and the scene on the stairs is absolutely terrifying.Cronenburg fans should not miss and really, you could do a lot worse.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang directed by Shane BlackAlong with the Ice Harvest it seems that comedic crime drama is making vast improvements, and hopefully a comeback. I haven’t been this amped since Fletch. So, like the Chandler and Hammett novels it nods to constantly, this movie is about LA. Or it’s supposed to be. But the fact that it really isn’t, and the fact that the plot, like many of the novels it draws inspiration from, is so convoluted that one needs multiple viewings to get it all straight and it really doesn’t matter if you do only adds to the appeal of this film.Robert Downey Jr. is pitch perfect as the narrator of sorts, Harry Lockhart and Val Kilmer gets all the good lines as private detective Gay Perry. Yes, he’s gay, and yes, the jokes about him are offensive. And it’s one of those meta type movies that deconstruct themselves as they go along, and it’s well done, at least for nerds like me. Scream is an excellent and underrated example of this.As I said the plot is complicated but think of it as a Chinatown remake, perhaps, or even, and ode to Sunset Boulevard as referenced with the opening swimming pool shot. But I’m stretching, really, for the movie just seems to be a love note to a genre of film and fiction that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Or something like that. It does have a rather sizable section in the local Bookman’s.The opening credits sequence is absolutely beautiful and worth viewing even if the movie sucked. However, it does not, and multiple film and lit references clutter every scene, or maybe they don’t, maybe it’s just accidental that this film resembles Hollywood’s history, as it is a film about Hollywood. I think. Or as I said, it’s really not.I’m confused too, actually. All I can say is that I loved this movie, but I’m also a huge fan of the genre this film pays homage to. If you liked the Limey, Snatch, LA Confidential, the aforementioned Ice Harvest, this might be your enchilada as well. The director wrote a lot of the Lethal Weapon series, and that should maybe be a not so hot selling point, but take the good dialogue between a suicidal burn out detective and a black old man straight laced detective and you’ve probably got a movie there somewhere. This is kind of like that, you might like it. Or you might hate it. It doesn’t try to appeal to everyone, which is another strong point, and of course, the female characters are all caricatures, but arguably, so are the men. If you’re looking for that kind of emotional depth, look elsewhere, however, if you’re looking for a great plot with a lot of sex and violence hooked onto it, this one’s a champion.So yeah, these reviews were rather ho-hom, I admit, but it’s hard to get into it, without spoilers, and without sounding like a pretentious film nerd. Which, I am. I’ll see if I can embrace that more next time. Ah, next time. I guess that’s up to whether or not Ray likes it.