Movie Reviews

Last week, while the kids were gone, I rented a bunch of movies. Nothing all that great, but entertaining, I guess. I'd like to talk about a few today, and if you liked these movies, let me just say right away, I'm sorry for making such fun of them. I'm not making fun of you. (even if you have horrible taste in movies)

Gran Torino
I heard this movie was really good and a "must see." I kind of like Clint Eastwood but this movie was weird. He's an old crabby bastard living somewhere in the Midwest in a neighborhood that used to be populated with "whitey" but now is decidedly more diverse. The movie starts at his wife's funeral. He killed her with an ax. Chopped her head clean off! And it was an open casket! Gross! Just kidding, he didn't really kill her with an ax, but I don't know how she died. Something expected I suppose. Maybe he killed her with an ax, but that's not really part of the plot. I wasn't really paying that much attention at the beginning. Stop worrying about how she died! That's not the point! Anyway, he's disgusted with his sons and his grandchildren because they are all assholes, because like that old saying, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

This tree

There is a Hmong family that lives next door and he begrudgingly makes friends with the teenage daughter (that's not at all creepy) and she invites him over for a barbeque and guess what? The old racist bastard likes the Hmong people! And the Hmong like him even though he calls them slants and "slopes." (I never heard that one before. You're never too old to learn new racial slurs!)

The title is not a French name for something important to make you feel ignorant and uni-lingual, (I just made that word up) like I thought it was; it is the name of a car that old bastard Clint has in his garage. It's a 1972 Gran Torino and the kid next door tried to steal it before he got all buddy-buddy with Clint because an Asian gang was trying to recruit him and get him to join their gang. (The kid, not Clint. But hey, that would be a good movie!)

Clint grumbles and talks in a strange "Dirty Harry" voice throughout the entire movie which is very distracting, and then the weirdest thing about the movie (I won't spoil the end in case you want to see it) is that during the credits the music is Clint Eastwood singing in that weird voice and I think it's a love song about the Gran Torino! What!?

Lesson: Gran Torinos are kick-ass and valuable no matter how ugly and old they are, and Asians love when you mispronounce their names and when you call them by racial slurs.

The Dark Knight
I have to admit I haven't seen a batman movie since Michael Keaton was batman and Prince sang the theme song (Vicky Vale, vic vic vic Vicky Vale), and Danny Devito was the Penguin that gave me many-a-nightmare.

I thought Heath Ledger was fantastic, but too scary. Convincing seriel murderers are a little too dark for a comic book movie. The stories he kept telling about how he got the scars on his face made me want to curl into a fetal position and pee my pants.

Other than Heath Ledger the best part of this movie was the funny parts. .... Oh, it's not a comedy, you say? Yes, I think it was. A very very dark comedy. First of all, what is with Batman's crazy growly voice? It was hilarious! I couldn't hear anything he said past about the first four words of any of his sentences because of my uncontrolled laughter. The other funny part was when he said he wanted a new suit because he couldn't turn his head in the suit he's been wearing FOREVER. I've missed 15 or 20 of the batman movies that have been made since Michael Keaton was batman, and that was funny in the first one! You'd think that would be a huge disadvantage for Gothic (Gotham?) City's most important crime-fighter, not being able to turn your head. At all. Bruce Wayne is the richest man in the entire world, and he didn't think of fixing that little glitch 20 years ago? Funny stuff! But now that he has the new suit I will miss watching him move around using only his waist joint.

I also saw Confessions of a Shopaholic and it was horrible. I got it because I read the book and the book was kind of funny. The movie isn't. That's all I will say about it. It was that bad.

Okay, this post is too long already. Gran Torino was the best of the three.

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Thanks everyone for responding to my post questions yesterday! I LOVED reading all your answers and so did everyone else who reads the blog. If you still want to respond please do!