K_Antivenin Reviews

Goon (2011)

Puttin' on the foil, coach.

[9/10 · 27 February 2012]

One of my all-time favorite comedies is Slap Shot, so I had at least a marginal interest in seeing Goon. After reading a recent interview with Baruchel in the Vancouver Sun, the movie sounded like it just might have the heart to carry the flame that Slap Shot lit. Sure, no question, Goon comes off as somewhat of an homage, but it's done right, not overtly, balancing the necessary brutality and tastelessness with just enough sweetness. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for that pitiful attempt at a Slap Shot sequel.

I'm also not usually a fan of Seann William Scott's typecast everybrah, but his portrayal of Dougie Glatt as a soft-spoken and polite bruiser really is charming. The movie's not without its flaws: Sure, Baruchel's character is irritating and barely necessary, and Eugene Levy is tragically underused, and the subplot with the love interest is kinda out-of-place, but I overlooked those things because the meat of the movie is gold. The comedy is solid, the teammate/coach characters are amazing, and the film's sheer love of the game really, really shines through.

So my recommendation is ya pick up a twelve of Moosehead, throw on your old Chiefs jersey, and hunker down for a lot of laughs.

Inside (2007)

Renewed my faith in modern horror!

[10/10 · 9 February 2008]

I saw this tonight with no preamble, and knew very little about the movie before I jumped into watching it - having only heard about it a day or so ago.

It has indeed renewed my faith in modern horror. I was afraid at first that the film -being part of the new-wave of French grue- might suffer from "'Haute Tension' Syndrome" - a raving generalisation to be sure, but I was afraid it would start out strong and peter out ¾-through with some sort of half-assed 'twist' ending like HT. "À l'intérieur" is far and away not only miles better than HT, but better than most of what passes for horror nowadays.

Y'see, horror-porn turkeys like "Saw" or "Hostel" just don't have the pedigree that a film like this does. Y'see for one thing, nobody in those flicks can act (well, they can act poorly). And for another, nobody gives a $hit when the characters in those films start getting hacked up, they're all just one-dimensional gore-fodder anyway.... "I want to play a game...", give me a break - just waste Donnie Wahlberg already.

Gallons upon gallons of blood, gore and torture aside (and this flick delivers, hoo boy!), the best thing about this film is that it's genuinely well-made. It's acted superbly - you get sucked in instantly by feeling tremendous sympathy for the protagonist. After all, nobody's more vulnerable than a nine-months-pregnant woman, right? Except maybe one whose husband got his head caved in next to her in a car crash...

The killer, "La Femme", is fųċķing relentless, but there is a method to her vengeful madness: She turns out to be that thing Hell Hath No Fury Like, a woman scorned.

There are scenes of horror SO STRONG in this film that I was gape-jawed and wide-eyed at some of the $hit the filmmakers came up with on-screen. YES, it's scary. YES YES YES, it's gory. It's also so fųċķing white-knuckle tense it'll have you gnawing on your gođđamn furniture. I watch a lot of horror, so much that most of it is lost on me nowadays, just plot-less garbage with no heart or soul. I'd reckon its safe to say that me and a lot of other horror fans have been waiting for a flick like this, one that delivers the goods front-to-back and doesn't cheap out at the end.

And while it's only 78 minutes long, by the end most of you will need a breather. YES, it's that intense.

Oh, and bring a raincoat - you're going to get some of it on you.

Death Sentence (2007)

$hit Sentence* (spoilers)

[1/10 · 20 December 2007]

(*Respect to Spinal Tap's Shark Sandwich.) First off, I love me some revenge films.

From the masterful (Park Chan-Wook's vengeance trilogy, Straw Dogs, or Dead Man's Shoes) to the brutal (I Spit on Your Grave or Thriller: En Grym Film), there is no genre that does it for me quite like revenge. So when I first heard about Death Sentence, I figured it'd be worth a viewing: Kevin Bacon, murdered child, director of Saw, I expected it to be at least passable.

Well, I humbly stand corrected. I'm pretty sure if you are someone defending/championing this movie, you are either a) semi-retarded, or b) you need to see a real revenge movie. Everything about this POS is so blatantly one-dimensional that I'm amazed it doesn't slide off the celluloid it was filmed on...

The victim's family doesn't seem THAT upset that their son was murdered, there's no real passion about anything - it's all just very go-with-the-flow. The courtroom scene is pure comedy gold, with the 97-pound-weakling 'killer' smirking and leering at a pretty-much-nonplussed Kevin Bacon. Bacon's character, Nick Hume, doesn't appear too tortured about losing his 'golden boy' (okay, he sobs in the shower once) , and the murder of his son's killer seems almost spur-of-the-moment.

As for the thugs, they're all hilarious - a bunch of didn't-quite-make-the-cut extras from a circa-1997 nü-metal video shoot and should be filed under 'outdated badass' at Central Casting Come on, tribal tattoos and facial piercings!? What are they, a MySpace 'gang' who still listen to bands like Staind or Disturbd, or some other group of no-talents who can't spell, either? And look, there's Johnny Goodman! Just a day or two before seeing this I was thinking to myself, 'Why haven't I seen John Goodman in anything good lately?' I guess now I know why, he's way too busy making turkeys like this. The one-liners aren't clever, not even in a juvenile way, and one line of dialogue, ("Fear is for the enemy. Fear and bullets.") is ripped almost word-for-word from James O'Barr's The Crow (another epic revenge story turned into a lousy movie).

As for the acting? Kevin Bacon is the only one who almost pulls it off, but only almost.

Kelly Preston? Obviously not, she can't even act like Travolta isn't gay.

Goodman? Nope. Sorry.

Garrett 'You-just-bought-your-family-a-death-sentence!' Hedlund? Hey, if I wanted to see a goth kid have a temper tantrum, I'd just e-mail Weston Cage that Little Debbie's had gone out of business , or that there was now a worldwide shortage of blue-black hair dye….

I digress - you know how certain foreign markets tend to eat up some movies better than the film's own home country does? Well, apparently my fellow Canadians love this movie because it has so many references to their national excuse, hockey. The murdered son (the one Nick Hume actually likes) is a hockey player and wants to go to Canada, and we see a cop picking up a broken hockey stick at a crime scene, after Hume has killed one of the 'gang' members. I counted at least 3 or 4 references to hockey in this movie, and I heard the movie was intended to be released here under the name Sudden Death Sentence, Eh? Back to the topic at hand – this movie sucked. The bad guys get off way too easily, same as in every other revenge movie. Nobody's cracked it yet – the revenge film that goes all the way. We don't even get to see Nick Hume waste Billy Darley in this movie. All that time wasted and there's not even a bloody payoff for the audience. What a waste of 110 minutes. James Wan, whose first Saw film was at least memorable, has dropped the ball horribly. He should instead stick to casting winners like Donnie Wahlberg in his movies and coming up with cheesy gross-outs like the needle pit in Saw II. Truly, the only death sentence in this cinematic abortion is the viewer's own – knowing that they are now 110 wasted minutes closer to their own demise.

Enjoy!

Clerks II (2006)

A worse affront to fans than "Attack of the Clones" was.

[2/10 · 3 October 2006]

I've been a fan of Kevin Smith for a long time - Christ, I even own Vulgar on DVD (don't ask). I might be one of the only people who wasn't involved in the production of Drawing Flies to actually see it (though I did skip Jersey Girl).

Even after the look-at-all-the-money-they-gave-me-to-make-this pap of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, I still thought, "Clerks II? Well, at least he'll go out on a high note." I hoped anyway. The idea of "How bad could it be?" didn't really cross my mind when I saw the teaser in the end credits of J&SBSB. I was excited. I actually thought it would be a great way to wrap it all up.

But this movie was just plain NOT funny. It certainly didn't make me nostalgic for the halcyon days of 1994 when Clerks was this great new indie film I had to see.

Worse yet, I found it insulting. As a fan.

It wasn't the dance-scene that insulted me, though I found it kind of pointless. It wasn't the myriad not-funny sex jokes, or the race-baiting dialog. I wasn't offended personally but I think he was trying just a little too hard this time. It wasn't the fact that fan-boy Smith put Rosario Dawson in the film (albeit slumming) just so she could jiggle on camera for him. It wasn't Brian O'Halloran's one-expression CHUD-face, or his "I-went-to-acting-school!" ability to over-emote/overact in every scene. It wasn't Jeff Anderson's inability to act, or even overact. (*please do note that Anderson and O'Halloran -according to their IMDb acting credits to date- seem to only be able to play the two characters originated in Clerks. Anderson's played Randall in 6/10 projects he's done, while O'Halloran has played Dante -or a variant on him- in 10/14 projects).It wasn't the self-referential "jokes". Or the fan-boy dialogs that went on way too long, i.e., the dissertation on Lord of the Rings vs. Star Wars? Did it need to be that long? Did it need to be at all? Yes, Kevin, the Star Wars trilogy was great when we were kids - I think we all get it by now. Same for your films up to Dogma, by the way.

I even really wanted to like the smarmy last twenty minutes of the movie, but by that time it was too little, too late.

I guess it was a combination of ALL these things.

The movie just felt... thrown-together. Haphazard and ham-fisted. Like it was one last kick at the can to make a few bucks on nostalgia for us slack-age suckers and then chuck it all in the trash. The film is approaching $25 million worldwide gross? Man, that's a lot of slack-age suckers. Congratulations, Kevin!

I expected better. That was my fault.

I know you fans out there will have to see it for yourselves. I know that. Just do yourself a favor - try not to have to pay for it.

I did give it a 2/10. I'm not sure why, but I did manage to sit through ALL of it - THAT must be worth something.

Box of Moonlight (1996)

ATROCIOUS... absolutely atrocious.

[1/10 · 12 August 2006]

This movie was by far the worst movie ('indie masterpiece' or otherwise) I've ever seen.

Turturro - For Christ's sake, man! You were "da Jesus", you were Disco Bean! For crying out loud, what possibly motivated you to even give this script a second glance? It obviously wasn't the money.

This film went nowhere and it went nowhere and it went nowhere and it went nowhere and it went nowhere and it went nowhere. Some more. By the end, I was seriously looking for Alan Smithee's name in the credits.

I see Sam Rockwell's career really took off after this little number and poor Catherine Keener wasn't famous yet so she took what parts she could, I guess.

Not quirky. Not cute. Not a humble slice of Americana, not a modern fable about a man getting through a mid-life crisis.

CERTAINLY not a comedy. Unless perhaps unintentionally.

Am I not getting the joke? Are all of these glowing comments just a clever ploy to get people to waste 112 minutes of their life by watching this movie continually bomb until the credits roll? If so, please - let me in on it. I swear to god I'll laugh in spite of myself. I promise.

Life got you down? Feel like you're going nowhere? Then hey, check out Box of Moon Light. I swear by the end you'll want to kill yourself.