Miss March
Every movie should have Craig Robinson as a co-star. Well, lemme take that back. I saw him in D-War, and that was not a pleasant experience. Still, the funnyman from The Office and practically every top notch comedy of the last three years is as always the scene stealer in this roadtrip sex comedy. Robinson plays gold grille wearin', pimped out rapper named Horsedick.mpeg. I'm not kidding. His hit single, "I'm a Fuck a White Bitch"(my new theme song, replacing Mighty Casey's "White Girls") plays numerous times throughout and is always good for a laugh.
Robinson's not the only thing that makes this a better than expected comedy. The story involves devout virgin, Eugene, and his girlfriend Cindi. Even though they've sworn to remain pure, she convinces him to make love to her on prom night. But before the geeky, wishy washy Eugene makes it upstairs for a night of coital bliss, he gets drunk and stumbles down a flight of stairs and is knocked into a four year long coma. A swift Louisville Slugger to the face, at the hands of his oversexed and only marginally cooler buddy Tucker, awakens Eugene to his new reality. His girlfriend is now a Playboy Playmate, his father has abandoned him...oh, and he no longer has bowel control thanks to years of atrophy. Awesome. The two decide to take a road trip to the Playboy Mansion, to find out whether or not Cindi maintained her vow of chastity and maybe reignite their relationship.
As is bound to happen, their journey never quite goes as expected, as the two are harassed by a Tucker's crazed epileptic girlfriend and her deranged fireman brother. Perhaps the highlight of the film is a manic car chase sequence involving a team of firefighters hurling axes and using the firehose as a deadly weapon. But the real comedy comes from Robinson, especially when he temporarily drops the Horsedick persona and let's his true emotions loose, only to snap back into character at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, the film falls flat when the two hit their destination. Not even a mansion full of hot playmates can keep the final leg of the film from dragging, as we get lame words of wisom from Heff himself and a resolution that's all too tidy for my liking. Still, Miss March is a fun comedy that from the looks of things will go virtually unseen by anybody until it hits DVD in a month or two.
6/10(it's really a 5.5 but I don't believe in decimals. They're undemocratic.)
Gomorra
You wanna know just how real Gomorra is? Roberto Saviano, who wrote the novel about the Camorrah crime syndicate based out of Naples, is on a hitlist and has been in hiding for years now. There are no Tony Sopranos or Paulie Walnuts' in this film. It's about the true, debilitating effects that the mafia has on a people. It exposes the far reaching tentacles that have perpetrated every avenue of society, every business. Utilizing a splintered storytelling technique similar to Babel or Amorres Peros(or Crash if you like that piece of crap), Gomorrah tells multiple stories that shed light on a different aspect that these organizations have their control over. There's the 13 year old boy who aims to join the organization, regardless of the close friends and family of his that it might hurt. There's the expert who handles illegal waste dumping. The tailor who moonlights by helping out Chinese factories who are in direct competition with mob owned factories. But the best story of the bunch involve two wannabe gangsters named Marco and Ciro.
They are best friends who want to be the top dog's in their town. They idolize Tony Montana, and re-enact scenes from Scarface, pretending to gun down their imaginary foes. One day, they decide to take real action and steal a bunch of weapons and cash from the mob. This leads the two boys down a twisted downward spiral of violence and death, as the boys find out what being a true gangster really entails.
The best thing about Gomorra is that it feels almost documentary like in it's presentation. We follow these poor people through every single hardship, and for the most part the mob members are rarely seen until it's absolutely necessary. Like you'd expect from reality, if you're seeing these men in person then it's probably already too late for you. In fact, none of the mob members really have any distinct personalities or even names for the most part. They are all part of the same over-arching problem, so it doesn't really matter who they are as individuals. Gomorra is the best movie about the mafia to come out since Goodfellas, and in some ways even surpasses that classic. It's unflinching in it's realism, and manages to not glorify the lifestyle nor totally forgive the people who willingly allow themselves to be ensnared by it. 8/10
Last House on the Left
Maybe it's just me, but these movies just don't do much for me anymore. Maybe I've seen too many of 'em. Wolf Creek probably being the most recent, a film which left me kinda disgusted and uncertain about whether I wanted to finish watching it or not. Or maybe I'm tired of the formula that seems to have been established and just want something different. Last House is a remake of the 1973 Wes Craven film of the same name, about a family of murderous convicts on the run from the police. They kidnap two teenage girls so innocent looking they might as well have had lollipops and pigtails. They proceed to brutalize the two girls, coldly murdering one and raping and shooting the other. The family then makes their way to a house(It's on the left!!), unaware that the two people within are the parents of the girl they just shot. Upon finding out, the parents do whatever it takes to exact some measure of vengeance against their daughter's attackers.
I think when a film's sole purpose is to show disturbing brutality, then it darn well better not pull back at any point. One of Last House's major flaws is that early on, when it comes to the two cheery little minxes, they pull no punches and we get some really disgusting, skincrawling violence perpetrated against them. But later, when requirements of plot take hold, these self same killers are extremely lenient and downright ineffective against people who appear as if they would have trouble ripping through a soaked paper bag, much less fighting off skilled murderers. And while I definitely got some good laughs out of how inept everyone suddenly became, it pissed me off more. The heroes needed to win, so logic be damned!
Maybe it's because I saw the far superior Funny Games last year, which so completely deconstructed these types of films and made something totally unique and far more terrifying than a movie like this could ever hope to be. It played with your expectations, fiddled with your own desires for vengeance, and basically batted your emotions around like a cat with a playtoy. No more films like Last House for me, I think.
5/10
