recent movie reviews

In the past two months I've seen 4 movies in the theater. In chronological order, these movies are: Bruno, In Glorious Bastards, Extract, and 9. 

Bruno I give a 9. I'm biased tho because I'm crazy about everything Cohen does. Its all perfection in my book. With all of his four characters he kind of does the same thing which is a discussion performance kind of. Its like, there's the art of the monologue or the standup thing, and this can be done with improvisational elements where the audience can participate, but Cohen takes it to a new level where the viewer is unaware that they are the straight man in some kind of improvisational back and fourth. Here's where the other part of the grand joke comes into play. Cohen plays a character which adheres to a stereotype which the viewer doesn't see through because they have a preconceived notion as to what this type acts like and Cohen stays true to that notion. If that's confusing, let me clarify. Think of the Ali G character. You'll see him interviewing some old white dude who doesn't interact with urban sorts of people very often, so when Ali asks a really stupid question, the old guy doesn't usually say, "What?! Are you joking? You can't be serious. That's a really really stupid question." The old guy will think, "well, okay, thug types of folks like this are ignorant so let me answer the question honestly so that he might learn." I mean it's probably never this straight forward, but that sort of mindset makes these back and forths possible. 

  So that's the form Cohen usually sticks to pretty faithfully, and so his job as a writer is to think up stupid questions and misunderstandings that might come about through discussions. Good stuff.

Inglorious Bastards, I give a nine also, but maybe I should give it a ten. It was pretty darn good. Tarantino does his thing as good as he ever does his thing which is really good. He tells a movie like a good joke teller tells a joke. Its all about the anticipation and the delivery the whole way through. His actors are given the breathing room to do what they do best. That bad guy with the chin was just perfect perfect. So evil, you just watched him on the edge of your seat. I had to look away from the gore cuz I haven't got a stomach for that kind of stuff, but I'm sure it was done well if the audience's reaction is any indicator.

Extract was okay. I'll give it a 6 I guess. It was pretty funny and quirky and believable. 

9 was shit. I give it a 1. I didn't give a darn about the characters. I hated the animation. I don't know what to say.