Red State (2011)

There’s really nothing to it. It’s exactly what you’d imagine, with no surprises, imagination, or developed characters to speak of. Just another average DTV movie. D+

Black Rain (1989)

What a beautiful piece of shit! Ridley shoots this much like Blade Runner and luckily for him, Osaka Japan is just about as beautiful as the sci-fi world he created there. Hardly a scene goes by where the scenery doesn’t make your jaw drop. But holy cow is the story all kinds of dumb. Forget the fact that there’s practically NOTHING that you could call police work (which makes a majority of this looong film incredibly unengaging), this film insane moral compass actually shocked me which, given the amount of conservative racist bullshit I expect from any 80’s action film, is quite an achievement.

The big victory at the end is that Douglas convinces an honorable Japanese cop that ethics are for pussies and you should try to get rich any way you can. I thought the previous scene in which the cop admonishes Douglas for skimming money from drug busts was supposed to give our lead some kind of moral complexity, but apparently we’re just meant to view it as more evidence that said Japanese cop is just a wet blanket. If this film could fully commit to stupidity and mayhem while still being gorgeous, that’d be one thing. But there’s so many attempts at drama and character work that just pad the running time. This isn’t fun enough to reccomend, but if you can get your hands on a blu-ray it’d make a good background movie while you clean your home. C

Finding Nemo (2003)

I’ve heard that this movie is completely different when you have kids. I don’t know if that means it’s good or not, but to this kidless youngster it’s a pretty boring movie with bad jokes and dull characters. For some reason, it’s really hard for me to get excited about action or chase scenes when they’re underwater. C+

Office Space (1999)

There really are few comedies in history that open as perfectly as the first 15 minutes of this. From performances to the way it’s shot, the specific office hell is captured perfectly. The problems start when the rest of the film kicks in. The idea that someone doing nothing is perfect management material is true enough (if a little Dilbert for Mike Judge’s aggressively nastydepiction of the workplace) but the way it’s achieved is so ludicrous that it breaks the film’s sense of drama. There are sparks of brilliance here and there (the Jump To Conclusions Mat scene is perfection) and Jennifer Aniston is surprisinglly good, but there’s also a lot of downtime and some truly lousy performances (Michael and Samir are just about the least interesting characters that you could imagine) and a total lack of aim. Would have made a perfect short film. B