Valkyrie (2009)

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Starring: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson

Other Actors of Note: Eddie Izzard

Plot: Based on actual events, a plot to assassinate Hitler is unfurled during the height of WWII.


Ah, time to go milk the over-used and chapped teat of World War II for another movie. Well we've alreay burned out on heroic stories of Americans, Jews in concentration camps, and Russians fighting hard against Nazi invaders. So I guess we have nowehere left to go but to talk about the Germans.

From the beginning I have viewed "Valkyrie" as a rather pointless movie. At the end of the day, we know they didn't succeed in killing Hitler. History says they fucked up, so why am I sitting through an hour and a half of celuloid to watch someone not do something incredible?

Well "Valkyrie" does little to soothe that concern, it only helps in the fact that they come really close.

So anyway, the movie is about Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg a German army officer who is trying to save what's left of Germany from the inevitable shitstorm brought down by Adolph Hitler.

In the process of doing this deed, he gets himself horribly wounded. Upon doing so he joins the resistance that wants to overthrow Hitler and save Germany.

So the plan is simple, they're going to blow up Hitler with plastic explosives at a meeting. This is a dangerous mission acquiring the utmost precision and care, so naturally they asign it to the grizzled soldier with one eye, one hand, and three fingers.

Cruise fouls it up, but goes ahead with his plan anyway and almost manages to overthrow the SS before getting caught, then everybody involves gets shot and the credits roll. Huzzah!

It takes them the entire length of the movie to tell you what I told you in 3 paragraphs.

So, this being Tom Cruise's first film since his redemption in "Tropic Thunder," how does it hold up? Cruise gives a performance slightly less impressive than Vincent from "Collateral" but still better than most his career. He's really the only notable appearance in the film and he's proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marvel pictures need to give Samuel L. Jackson the shitcan and make Tom Cruise the new Nick Fury.

David Bamber is probably the first actor to ever play Hitler with a speaking part. Of course he looks like Walter Mathau circa "Dennis the Menace" and him having an American accent as the rest of the actors do makes him sound like Saddam Heussein from the "Hot Shots" films.

The biggest gripe I have heard is that this film is in English. It starts out in German but then slips over to English in the first 5 minutes, apparently hoping we wouldn't notice.

I wasn't bothered by this fact however as, like most Americans, I don't speak German. And if I'm going to go see an American movie with American (and British) actors I expect to hear them speaking English. If I want to hear German, I will watch a German movie.

The story tends to drag on, taking far too long to get where it's going in a half-assed attempt to build suspense. Of course you can't build suspense because if you have a rudimentary knowledge of history then you know they didn't make it.

There's also a line Cruise says during his planning about "shutting down the concentration camps" that struck me as more for the audience than anything. From what I've read about von Staffenberg and seen in the movie he didn't really give two tugs on a dead dog's cock about the Jews and might have gotten around to closing the camps after he'd taken control of all of Germany, but it certainly wasn't at the top of his list.

Unfortunately this movie seems long even though it's average length. A star studded cast gives an utterly lack laster performance, and by the end you just don't feel like there was any point to what you just watched.

All-in-all, "Valkyrie" is a very unexciting film that I'm having a hard time even being interested in enough to write a review. If this review seems lacking, blame the movie.

I give "Valkyrie" a 2 out of 5.

Friday the 13th (2009)


Directed by: Marcus Nispel

Starring: Jared Padelecki, Danielle Panabaker, Travis Van Winkle, Amanda Righetti

Plot: A group of young adults discover a boarded up Camp Crystal Lake, where they soon encounter Jason Voorhees and his deadly intentions.


Remember during my "My Bloody Valentine" review when I said that Hollywood had finally heard my plea for remakes of old shitty movies? Well there are no shittier films than the "Friday the 13th" movies.

A series of bland uninteresting stories filled with worthless characters that serve as nothing more than cannon fodder for an audience of bloodthirsty horny tweens. The first movie was a bland uninteresting backwards take on "Psycho" that didn't even half live up to its predecessors "Halloween" and "Black Christmas."

So how did a shitty movie get 11 sequels? (counting "Freddy vs. Jason" which was sadly the only film in the entire series that felt the need for characters, continuity, or the vaguest hints of intelligence)

Two words: Jason Voorehees. The most popular disfigured hulking mantard this side of Sloth from "The Goonies" Voorhees is a character so iconic and cool that you don't care that the movie he's in is full of a laundry list of things that movies that want to be good shouldn't do. (Like featuring Kane Hodder.)

A remake was inevetable and I personally welcomed it becuase I always thought that if they could snag someone who maybe knew what a movie was then they could get something quality out of the series.

This film combines the plots of the first 3 "Friday" movies. We first see the ending of the first movie re-shot with new actresses and new locations. We get to see some counselor hack the head off of Pamela Voorhees with a machete and fade to black as Jason finds his mother's body laying by the lake shore.

We then fast forward to our 5 stereotypes: Asshole, Asshole's Slutty Girlfriend, Wise-ass "hero" type, Intelligent Stoner, and Girl-Who-Would-Never-Hang-Out-With-These-Fucks-In-Real-Life. Also known as the cast of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake.

So anyway they're looking for this big field of Marijuana so they can harvest and sell it to make serious cash. (Also the plot of the TCM remake.) Naturally they run afoul of a big angry guy with a pillowcase over his head and we see them each get systematically killed in horrible ways. Final bodycount, 6. The end.



Fuck no it's not! That's just the introduction before the main title opens up! So we're introduced to a new group of tweeny assholes composed of: Asshole, Asshole's Slutty Girlfriend, antoher Asshole, Other Asshole's Slutty Girlfriend (Seriously, this movies cast is mostly fake tits and real assholes), Asian Guy, Black Guy, and Girl-Who-Would-Never-Hang-Out-With-These-Fucks-In-Real-Life.

The quickly meet up with Mysterious-loner-looking-for-a-loved-one (who happens to be the previous Girl-Who-Would-Never-Hang-Out-With-These-Fucks-In-Real-Life) who runs afoul of the Alpha Asshole. (Travis Van Winkle playing essentially the same character he played in "Transformers" down to having the same first name.)

Things unfold in an entirely predictable way and then in a less predictable predictable way, then stuff happens and the movie ends. OR DOES IT?! It totally does... kinda. (I would have enjoyed it if they'd tacked on another longer movie to the ending of that one just to be coy.)


Okay so while the characters of this movie still serve as cheap cannon fodder some of them manage to actually have a personality. Let's talk about them.

Jared Padalecki plays the "hero" of the piece. The first time the last girl has been played by a guy but he looks like he just walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue so it works. He mostly says things in a bemused whispery voice that just makes your clit hurt with the overwhelming desire for boy fuck. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic, you'll spend most of the movie snickering at him.)

Danielle Panabaker and Amanda Righetti co-star as the same character with two different names. I found neither performance particularly spectacular.

Travis Van Winkle I suppose does the best as he truly is a screen presence. I mean yes that presence encourages you to light the axe body spray fumes permeating from his pink pop collared body on fire and kick his douchy ass off a bridge. But then again that's what he's playing so I guess he succeeded. His character, Trent, is the epitomy of the "annoying asshole" character, but there's one scene where he screams like a bitch and earns himself a place as the only male to ever be dubbed a "scream queen."

Aaron Yoo plays the jokester Asian guy just like in "Disturbia" except honestly he's the most likeable character here as well as obligatory black guy Arlen Escapatra who is offended by black stereotype while being a good example of every single one of them. You kind of wonder what these two are doing hanging around this group of Aryan dickheads in the first place as neither of them are actually with any of the girls on the trip and nobody seems to actually like them.

Derek Mears is the new Jason and he does a great job. While I personally prefer the more symapthetic Ken Kirzinger version from "Freddy vs. Jason" this is at least a damn sight better than the utterly moronic Kane Hodder Jason we've had to put with since part 7. Jason is fast again, he's smarter, and he's more trim than he used to be with the exception of an obscenely large neck. Mears appears to have based his performance mainly on the brutal performance of Ted White in part 4 (The closest thing the series has ever had to a good movie.)


While things play out like your average "Friday' film the few changes are in Jason. He's back to running instead of shuffling and he now uses a bow and arrow for more practical purposes than skewering Kevin Bacon's voice box.

The addition I liked personally was that Jason is no longer just brutal, he's also crafty. He hangs a character upside down in a sleeping bag over a fire so her boyfriend will come running and step in a bear trap, nearly tearing his left off and forcing him to watch as his girlfriend burns to death. He uses a character as bait by injuring him and letting him scream out for help as he waits on the roof above the door for somebody to step out. They actually managed to make Jason kinda scary for once!

Unfortunately this film is done by the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake's director Marcus Nispel who directs a bit too close to home with this one and makes Jason a bit too much like Leatherface. Not to mention that Jason's new look and persona are closer in actions to Michael Myers than Jason Voorhees. But since Rob Zombie's Michael Myers was essentially Jason Voorhees I suppose it's only fair.

The sets are all beautifully rendered and the splashes of color (especially in the night scenes) really light the screen up and keep you watching. The video quality is great which will please the type of person this movie was made for as there are no less than 2 obscenely long (for this type of movie) sex scenes.


While not as good as "My Bloody Valentine", it's a fun vaguely scary movie that will keep you entertained for as long as you're in the theater and honestly, what more do you need from this kind of movie.

It successfully breathed new life into "Friday the 13th" and slasher films in general and if they keep holding horror movies to higher standards then maybe one day we can pretend that Rob Zombie never happened.

I give "Friday the 13th" a 4 out of 5.

The Pink Panther 2 (2009)


Directed by: Harald Zwart

Starring: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, Yuki Matsuzaki, Aishwarya Rai

Other Actors of Note: Lily Tomlin, John Cleese, Jeremy Irons

Plot: Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin) the legendary French Officer of the Law, who single-handedly saved the priceless Pink Panther Diamond, has been working outside the museum where the diamond is on display writing parking tickets for the last 6 months. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese) assigned this duty to his bumbling and inept police officer to get him out of his hair. Recently, treasures from around the world have been stolen by the Tornado, and an international dream team of detectives is being assembled to capture him. Chief Inspector Dreyfus is ordered to assign Clouseau to the dream team. As soon as Clouseau joins the team, the Pink Panther Diamond is stolen by the Tornado. Now Clouseau must not only capture the Tornado, but save the diamond again. Taken from www.imdb.com.


I am not an apologist of Steve Martin's remake of the classic Peter Sellers comedy "The Pink Panther." This is not because I join the rest of the population in thinking it's horrible, it's that I don't feel Steve Martin or his remake have anything to apologize for.

People complained that lead character Jacques Clouseau was played too outrageous, too arrogant, and too offensive in comparison to his counterpart in the original film. And they're right, Clouseau was practically the villain of the original "Pink Panther" and was played as nothing more than clumsy and a bit clueless and his French accent sounded as near to authentic as an Englishman could. This is in sharp contrast to how Peter Sellers (and Alan Arkin and briefly Roger Moore) played the role in subsequent films.

Steve Martin played the part spot on with all the over-the-top arrogance and unconvincing accent of the latter Sellers' performances to a tee. Steve Martin had made a lot of poor choices in the twilight of his career but taking on the role of Jacques Clouseau was not one of them. It wasn't highbrow humor, but then again neither were most of the old movies and it worked very well as a reasonably faithful remake.

The Pink Panther 2, however, has a great deal to apologize for. In this continutaion of the first film, which barely even refers to the first film, where a jewel thief named The Tornado (why they didn't call him The Phantom as an homage to the original film is beyond me) is stealing the national treasures of several countries (The Magna Carta, The Pope's ring, and of course the Pink Panther which is now a tear-drop gem as opposed to the giant ring it was in the previous film and no longer owned by Beyonce Knowles.) and a "dream team" of detectives led by Clouseau is formed.

Naturally Clouseau fucks up any and everything possible, causes a great deal of property damage (including burning down a fancy Italian restaurant, twice), and other shenanigans. Then he solves the case at the hour and fifteen minutes mark, and a happy ending with a "whacky" twist is had.


For Steve Martin, Jacques Clouseau has been a bright light in an otherwise abysmally dark acting career post-"Bowfinger." Is he as good as Peter Sellers? No. And DeNiro didn't out-Godfather Marlon Brando, but nobody seemed to complain about that.

Martin does as best as he can to be funny with a shitty script (you can blame him for that detail as he was one of the co-writers which blows my mind as he is a very good at writing plays.) and terrible directing.

Jean Reno returns and while his character returns in physical form it doesn't return in spirit. Reno hasn't been this underwhelming since "Godzilla", actually I daresay he was far better in that film. Where Ponton actually served a purpose in the previous movie he has no such duty in this one but to bring in his two bratty children who attack Clouseau with karate moves in place of Burt Kwouk's Kato (Clouseau's Chinese manservant and sparring partner from past films.) Ultimately he doesn't do much of anything and is absent for a good chunk of the movie with no real explanation.

Emily Mortimer remains charming and cute as she was in the first movie and is almost more of a reason to watch this film than Martin.

The "Dream Team" is anything but featuring Yuki Matsuzaki as a Japanese guy with technological prowess (groundbreaking!), Andy Garcia pretends to be Italian, and Alfred Molina pretends to be British (that's a joke.)

John Cleese is actually a much more sensible choice for Chief Inspector Dreyfus than Kevin Kline ever was. Cleese is a vastly overexposed actor but he is really the closest thing to Herbert Lom's performance that there could be. He doesn't quite have the intensity or comedic timing of Lom, nor the penchant for hurting himself, but he makes it work.

It has its good points, Clouseau's miraculous solving of the case seems more realistic now but as a result it isn't funny like it was in the first. Also Clouseau gets his trademark hat which was noticeably missing from the first film.


Unfortunately most of the gags are tired (though there are some fairly competently written scenes where Lily Tomlin's character attempts to teach him political correctness) but it's mostly just sight-gags and slapstick that The 3 Stooges covered ages ago. It's either been done to death or just isn't funny with the occasional joke that slaps through the crack and accidently manages to make you chuckle.

You'll figure out who the thief is within the first 15 minutes of the film and there's barely even a single red herring that does anything to dissuade this. That represents pretty much all the storyline in this movie, which is handled as clumsily as possible.

The story takes place over a myriad of locales from Rome, The Vatican, Paris, and briefly Tokyo yet you never get the feeling you're seeing more than the same city at any point in the movie.


While the original remake of "The Pink Panther" was an unfairly despised film this film deserves all that hatred and then some. It's not the worst film you'll ever see but it is a very bad movie.

I give "The Pink Panther 2" a 2 out of 5.