All in graphic detail. For instance, the second killing is of Danny Trejo (of Machete fame – which I sadly never got around to reviewing that fun romp. It started off with a bang, literally when they blow away this really hot nude girl at the beginning. And when you see a girl willing to go naked on screen get killed off so soon.. well… rather sad!). Anyway, I digress, Danny Trejo is the fry cook and gets his head blown off, literally, with a shotgun. You don’t see but a superfast glimpse, but still…

The movie was ok, I guess. I mean I was entertained enough for an already brain dead Saturday night. But, it could of been sooo much better. It is what it is, but you kind of expect to see a better Madsen on the screen. He disappointed slightly. The lead actress, Noreen, was rather cute and a joy to watch (Post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But all in all, what do you do if you are faced with a situation like this? Someone goes bonkers in the tiny diner you are at. Are you just royally screwed because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or do you do something about it? And how do you decide what you do, or if you just call the police or what? Makes you think a little about what you’ll do if you ever (god-forbid!) get faced with such a situation!

Things learned from this movie:

1. Diners late at night aren’t the safest of places.
2. If you go somewhere and they don’t run air conditioning, go find somewhere else to eat.
3. Serated steak knives are handy in a pinch.
4. Keep count of gunshots.
5. You can shoot an entire movie in one location.
6. Beware of traveling salesmen. Are they really who they seem?
7. Why do you wear a wedding ring if your wife has been dead two years?
8. Take the money and run.

Rated R. 90 minutes (1 hours 30 minutes). Swearing. Violence. As for sex, well the most is the law officer verbalizing that he’d like to run away with the married waitress – who is at another point called “hot” as an old broad, and retorts that she’s 32. But yes, she’s hot.

In desperation, Superman tells Lois Lane that he, Clark Kent, is actually Superman. She goes to his super secret hideout and Superman gives her a super serum that gives her super powers for 24 hours. They meet enemies, they fight, they go to Atlantis, they have a grand old time while Lex Luthor, back in prison, works in his lab and confesses to Clark Kent, who he’s always liked, what the world would of been liked without Superman, and how he’s killed Superman – Superman is dying he says. But Lex is destined for the electric chair – reinstated just for him.

What’s the world to do? What will become of newspaper reporting without Clark Kent? Did Lois really believe Superman is Clark Kent? Will Metropolis be saved?

You have to watch to find out!

Oh … and if you don’t want to find out, you still may need to watch just to see the greatest line in the film: “You broke the moon.”

Things learned from this movie:

1. Everyone is always so polite.
2. Clark can resist fixing a breaking elevated train bridge.
3. The Daily Planet has the tallest building in the city, yet has only 1 room for newspaper writing. 1 editor, 1 photographer, 3 reporters.
4. Dinosaur people live at the center of the earth.
5. Manned missions to the Sun will be possible in the near future.
6. Time telescopes are a must-have!
7. Lois is hot in her super-suit.
8. Lex Luthor is one smart dude!

Rated PG. 75 minutes (1 hour 15 minutes). Cartoon violence. “Sensuality” as Lois takes a steamy room shower in Superman’s lair.

Basically you have the stoic British hit man, played by Bill Nighy, who is “Victor Maynard”. Except no one is really sure because he is the top ranked hit man, and seriously old school. His clients don’t see him, no one really knows what he looks like or where he lives or what his name is even.

We see him skillfully execute his hit. At the same time, Emily Blunt’s character, “Rose”, a professional thief and con artist (though not that great) – a free spirit and cavalier towards life – is conning Rupert Everett out of 900,000£! It’s a stunning little piece of film with her flittering into the National Gallery and finding her friend who is copying a Rembrandt painting. She successfully pulls off the con and as soon as she’s out of sight they discover the fake painting she’s swapped. Of course they want her killed.

Naturally they hire the best hit man in the business! He finds her, follows her, mistakenly kills the wrong person and then resumes the chase. Eventually tracking her down to kill her he ends up killing the replacement killer and the pair bumble into Tony, played by Rupert Grint – ala Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series. The three take off on the run as the next best professional killer, “Dixon”, is on their tail.

Like I say, it isn’t a masterpiece. It is funny in its spots. Ironic at times, and has some both passable and cute action sequences. (The Mini and the Mercedes chase, for one). But you know from the start when the professional killer finds out that the jeweler he’s just killed, and announced his name and profession to, has a parrot who, well, parrots, all this information back what’s he to do? Kill the bird, of course, only he hasn’t the heart. When you see this from the beginning you know the movie will be a little different. The over exaggerated look of shock and stupidity on the “bad” guys faces could have been left out! That for movies for 8-year-olds! Hey… wait a minute…

If you like fun and slightly screwball comedies, you probably will enjoy Wild Target!

Things learned from this movie:

1. Minis make great getaway cars. You can drive in cool places.
2. Not keeping your gun clean can get you killed.
3. Having a mother who understands and encourages your profession is a great thing!
4. “Roger” the parrot isn’t destined for a long life.
5. A white cat look psychedelic when dyed pink.
6. Lots of artists copy masterpieces.
7. It takes years to learn to hit a target in the bulls-eye.
8. Keeping a scrapbook of all your hits may not be the best idea. But keeping photos of your target with a big bold “X” drawn over them is really incriminating!
9. “Half now and half later” means you get all the money now, but just one half of the bills. You have to tape them back together.

Rated PG-13. 98 minutes (1 hour 38 minutes). Swearing. Gun violence. Some blood splatter from the killings. For humor one of the “bad” guys is shot and expected to carry on and then his ear is blown off and he’s carrying it around. Sex is implied some, but sadly you don’t get to see much more than Emily Blunt in her underwear. Oh, and for the teenage girls who are fans of Rupert Grint, he is in the bath twice. “Having a bath, are we?” to which he replies, “Looks like it”.

Basically you have Chris Pratt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, a cocky hockey player seemingly on top of the world who does a stupid stunt and crashes his car, killing two best friends and seriously injuring his girlfriend (If I have this right). He’s suffered severe brain damage and has memory issues and gets frustrated when he can no longer understand things. Everything is written down in his notebook or on stickers – like “lock the door” or “turn off alarm clock”.

He’s a night janitor at a bank and spends time after getting off work in the local bar drinking non-alcoholic beer. He lives with Jeff Daniels, a guy named Lewis, who is blind – blinded from his at home meth lab – and works in a call center. It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship with each helping the other out.

Chris is approached by a “friend” who once supposedly dated his sister. They hang out a the local bar a few times and Chris spends a late Thanksgiving with the guy. He gets lucky with one of the guy’s friends “Luvlee Lemons” and so the bonds of friendship gets even stronger. The friend then approaches him about helping them rob his bank. Chris would be the lookout. He’d have the most important job… The enticement is completed by telling him how this would help him get his old life back because having money means he has power.

Things go wrong. Don’t they always? Basically Chris decides that he doesn’t want to help them rob his bank but is forced to go along with it. When the shooting starts … well, that’s the crux of this one – I’ll not spoil it, you have to see it. It’s not a must see, like Inception, but its good. If you haven’t seen and have some downtime, try it!

The most weird (technically part) of the film was the action scene. When the gunfight erupted, the action sequences looked like they were filmed by an entirely different film crew. Like it was inserted out of a different movie, only the location and actors fit. Very strange feel. But it didn’t really detract.

Try out The Lookout today!

Things learned from this movie:

1. Brain damage is not fun!
2. Fireflies lighting up the valley are amazing to look at!
3. Don’t drive with your headlights off.
4. Calling your dad up at 3am and asking for $10,000.00 isn’t the best of ideas.
5. Don’t let outsiders who don’t know you well destroy your relationship with your family and loved ones.

Rated R. 99 minutes (1 hour 39 minutes). Swearing. The brain damaged sometimes inappropriately proposition for sex. There is a naked girl laying on a bad smiling at you as you pause the video with her great butt on the screen. Gun battles and the required blood.

It’s a rather cool movie. Wahlberg looks the part of a fighter! According to notes about the film the project was off/on for quite a while and Wahlberg continued to train for boxing during the entire time. Christian Bale – well, he irritates me, but you got to hand it to him, he comes off as a scumbag crackhead addict who is conceited and self-absorbed at a cost to himself and those around him that is just, well, wow crack will really destroy you. In fact, the “movie” filmed within the movie, High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell, is about his character Dicky Eklund. How he destroyed his life and a promising career with drugs.

The movie is well paced, keeps your interest, and is a good use of the evening. The thing about sports movies like this is that you kinda always know where they are going. No matter how down and out you think the boxer is, you know that he’s still going to get a shot at the big time and miraculously pull it off. Or is he? The Wrestler sure didn’t…

Also interesting is the IMDb Synopsis of the film:

A look at the early years of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward and his brother who helped train him before going pro in the mid 1980s.

Who writes these things? Yes, the movie did have a little bit about Ward’s early years. But the whole movie was essentially about his return to the ring and climb towards his eventual shot at a title. So who writes these? Do they not even really try to get them right? Seems like it’d be a really cool job to have, you know, getting to sit and watch films and do a write up based on what they are about – what is the most emotional pull or captivating sentence they can write. And yet when I pulled up the IMDb deal after watching this I wondered if I’d seen the right movie. I enjoyed mine! What did they watch?

Things learned from this movie:

1. Boxers get hurt in the ring.
2. Boxers can get hurt and then come right back as if nothing happened.
3. Boxers can get a kidney punch and just go out!
4. Family can build you up and support you.
5. Family can tear you down.
6. Crack Cocaine can destroy your life.
7. Amy Adams is good for you.
8. Life is the decisions you make of it, make good ones!
9. See some of the real people at the end of the film.

Rated R. 115 minutes (1 hour 55 minutes). Language. Violence. Violence. Boxing Violence. Drugs. Some skimpy clothes from the boxing ring girls and a choice Amy Adams in her underwear.

After the initial encounter with zombies and the guys emptying dozens of rounds into one zombie who refuses to go down, you start to wonder if any of them have ever watched a zombie movie before. They’d know to shoot them in the head! Life imitates art, right?

So now the police and the bad guys have to team up. An uncomfortable alliance for sure. And the goal is to get out of the building alive. Of course you’ll have the various “scares”, which aren’t that scary. But you do get the gore! My my… Every zombie has bloody hands it seems. And blood just is everywhere in the building.

While trying to escape they meet an old man, who refers to running out of explosives in 1964 in Indo China. He’s beating these zombies up with an axe. And he appears to have a thing for Necrophilia as while the other guys argue about what to do, he’s undressing one of the dead zombie females.

The gore on the gore scale is on up there. There are the bullet wounds, the knife wounds, the breaking of bones, the face smashing scenes, the face pulverizing scenes, etc. After all, the police say, they are going there for a blood bath.

Worth noting. The film is in French. And so its subtitled. I flipped it to the English audio and didn’t read. I find it hard to read during action or horror movies. Drama, maybe, but not this. The English voice acting was ok, I guess. Sometimes the guys sounded like they were in different rooms.

And the female cop… Can’t forget her. Badass! Brings down a fridge on a zombie and willing to shoot dead between the eyes a co-worker before he turns zombie on her. Woot!

Things learned from this movie:

1. When you want a bloodbath, sometimes you get what you want.
2. Fist fights with zombies are something else!
3. Zombies are kinda dumb.
4. Zombies really move fast!
5. Zombies will surround an apparently vacant building for no reason. Hordes of them just descend on the building.
6. Escaping the building means there isn’t any zombies anywhere to be seen.
7. How good are promises between cops and crooks?
8. Can cops really take drugs?

Like zombies, gore, and violence? Then The Horde should be up your alley!

Not Rated. 90 minutes (1 hour 30 minutes). Language. Violence. Violence. Gore. Nudity. There’s one topless dead zombie and the female cop’s nipple poke through her shirt very clearly after she takes off her bullet-proof vest.

This is the Tony Scott movie starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. I have to say that going into this I didn’t know how good it would be. I have this weakness for trains and hoped to see a lot of the inner workings of trains. Sadly, that didn’t really happen. I mean you see trains – A LOT – kinda like know that if you watch Showgirls you’ll see boobs, yes you will see trains!

This makes a remarkable string of movies by Tony or Ridley Scott that I have really liked. They have amazing consistency of putting out great films.

Basically there is a train. Its got lots of nasty chemicals on it. A train engineer puts the train in ‘slow’ and hops out to run ahead and flip a switch by the track. But said train slips into a faster gear and the fat boy can’t get back on the train. Off it goes down the track. Faster and faster she goes!

Denzel, a forced retirement staring him in the face decides to go after the train. Drama and chase and excitement ensue.

Ok, ok, its not the world’s most exciting movie, obviously. Everyone knows where the train is going. You can see the bend in the track. But still a fun ride. Great little popcorn movie.

Oh – and it’s based on a true story. There are some liberties taken, but the story is essentially true. And who knew Denzel drove trains?

Things learned from this movie:

1. Trains are cool.
2. Making people retire isn’t cool.
3. Old people – and young people – both have stuff to bring to the table and can learn from each other.
4. If your breaking up as a couple a disaster is a great thing to bring you to your senses and back together.
5. If a train moving very fast and carrying toxic chemicals is headed towards your city and the police are evacuating. Go down to the railroad track side and take your camera to get good pictures of the disaster.

Rated PG-13. 98 minutes (1 hour 38 minutes). Language. I guess you could say violence.

He’s mistaken for a informant and given this “world’s most powerful hallucinogenic drug” that makes him susceptible to suggestions. He’ll do anything asked and answer any questions truthfully. However, in 8 hours it’ll fry his synapses and he’ll die. His would be fiance is there as a police detective Amy Knight (Jacqueline Obradors) and she’s on the case of the crooked government agents that are doing all this.

Is their an antidote? Can they kill Dean Cage (Wesley Snipes)? Can they get the answers? When will Dean stop having flashbacks to his trauma?

The movie is just an action flick. Tons of unexplained government ops. Lots of empty streets for chases and crashes that never seem to have consequences. Just popcorn fun. Don’t take it too seriously.

Things learned from this movie:

1. Dean Cage is definitely dead.
2. Shooting a tanker full of gasoline will explode it.
3. That tanker full of gasoline will teeter over the edge of a overpass with only the cab of the truck on the street and the rest over think air. It will not fall until the hero has time to climb around and listen to tension building music as the tanker rocks.
4. The hero who jumps from the tanker to the safety of the bridge as it is exploding into a giant fireball of gasoline will not be harmed. No singes, he can hear, he’s ok.
5. Drugs always have antidotes.
6. Government ops always wear big black jackets, white shirts, and ties for field work.
7. Police detectives in street clothes with a drawn pistol will not be seen by CIA guys in a van even though their headlights shine directly on her in the darkness.
8. A trained government agent drawing a submachine gun and shooting at two people at point blank range will miss, allowing someone else to draw a pistol and shoot him.
9. A guy in a chopper with a mini gun cannot take down a hallucinating guy with nowhere really to run.
10. Government vans will not crank when they really need to.
11. About to die because your brain is being fried? Getting an antidote makes it all ok. You’ll be fine. No ill effects.
12. Villains trying to buy these drugs will just vanish if the deal goes bad.

Rated R. 96 minutes (1 hour 36 minutes). Language. Lots of violence and explosions but that’s fun – not worth rating an R.

A lot of this movie, and I mean a LOT, consisted of characters sitting or standing there and just staring. The crowd watching the gladiator-style competitions just sat there and when it was over just continued to sit there. Mad Mikkelsen (best known to me for being the villian in Casino Royale) is a very brutal fighter but rarely spoke and spent a good deal of time glaring off screen with his one good eye – they love to cast him with eye disorders, don’t they? The men in the boat just sit there and stare at the calm windless sea. So if that’s your idea of action, then this might be the film for you.

I know the lack of dialog was to help set the mood. And honestly the visuals were stunning – great scenery. But bleak. It’s depressing the lack of interaction and the environment. It seems to say that these people have no real hope. They live out doors their lives can be violently quashed out at any moment and its a dank squalid existence. Anyway, you can tell they tried hard but it just didn’t fly with me. And I have quite a lot of patience with film (if you’ve read this blog) and I’ll pretty much watch anything, but this one really tried my patience!

Otherwise here’s the plot. An imprisoned fighter fights gladiator like somewhere in the middle of nowhere for the Vikings. He does this for years. He manages to escape and kills the whole tribe that had imprisoned him except for the young boy. The boy follows him and they meet crusaders, a group of about 10 who are going to liberate the Holy Land and get wealth and honor. They set sail but get stuck in a calm mist and when they finally do make it to land it isn’t Palestine but more like North America. People die.

How’s that? Ready to watch it? If you are on the fence, check out Movie Moxie’s post where she raves about this one.

Things learned from this movie:

1. Vikings rarely speak.
2. Drinking salt water when you are desperate is kind of like Russian Roulette, it might be fresh water!
3. A handful of men and one provision-less boat is enough to go liberate the Holy Land.
4. Drinking something in a gourd makes you act weird.
5. Don’t get “One Eye” mad at you.
6. Always know where you are heading when you are sailing somewhere otherwise you’ll end up in the wrong place.

Rated Not Rated. 93 minutes (1 hour 33 minutes). Violence! Some things shown are definitely not for the squeamish. There is a pack of captured people sitting on the hillside naked and you see a few boobs for a few seconds.

The movie is a wanna be Snatch, those Guy Ritchie movies where anything crazy can and will happen. It kind of is that way, but not really — it is fun enough, but not nearly as good. You can entertain yourself for an evening, but sometimes the Irish accent gets into the way of enjoying the movie as much as you could have. There are worse ways to spend the evening – and better ones.

Things learned from this movie:

1. Things you do against pets will come back to haunt you.
2. Car thieves will gladly swap a hot car for a recently stolen police cars.
3. Hiding your gun under your bed isn’t a good idea.
4. Hiding a gun in your boxer shorts will not get past big crime bosses.
5. Pool tables make great hiding places.
6. If you bury a body and your car battery dies, its better to burn the car so you can’t be traced.
7. If you think you see the Grimm Reaper, you probably have.
8. A whack from a baseball bat on your leg that doesn’t break the bone will feel ok in a few minutes.

Rated Not Rated. 88 minutes (1 hour 28 minutes). Lots of language and one girl tries to entice her lover by walking outside into the apartment hallway in animal print panties and a button up shirt that isn’t buttoned up and shows off her perky little boobs. Animal violence — both giving and receiving.