John and I joined the world of Blockbuster Online, kind of like the younger, much cooler little sister of Netflix. You create a queue online and then you can return the movies in the store and get a free rental for each movie you return to the store. As soon as you do, they ship your next three movies (almost) immediately. Because of this, we've become movie freaks; we loaded the queue with every movie we've ever wanted to see (bad or good) and once we get it in our hot little hands, we put it into the DVD, riding on a wing and a prayer. I've decided because of all the movies that we've been watching while we "fork on the couch" that I will start doing regular movie reviews. After this somewhat long list of movies to review, I will only review three movies at a time. Hopefully, I will become a little more skilled in my ability to talk about a movie's plot, my opinion and the actors' abilities as I go. Right now, I'm definitely a novice!! These are obviously my own opinions, and I've decided to give a two to four sentence review for each movie and then give it an official Gummi Bear Head Rating aka GBH (copyright pending). One GBH= total suckfest to Five GBH=the most awesome dryhumpfest you ever had before you lost your virginity (pretend you don't know what I mean, go ahead...I dare you. Oh and I'm sure that Siskel (rest his soul) and Ebert wish they would've thought of this rating scheme first!)

Let's begin!

PS. John, may chime in on here with his own (differing) opinions, as he is now a "team member" of this blog. He'll probably use a different font color, if he has time...*edit* he's informed me that he's going to do a "thumbs up haiku" segment, so we'll see.


Feast
This is a product of Project Greenlight; it should've been a product of Project Redlight. John refers to this movie as the "Gay Henry Rollins Movie", I concur. It has a bit of potential but the horrible "hide the monster" effects are so distracting that you want to bang your head on the TV screen and pray for the movie to end. We both feel asleep while people were (supposedly) getting their heads ripped off their bodies in what I guess was supposed to be a tongue in cheek gorefest. GBH rating=1


The Machinist
Christian Bale is yummy, yummy,yummy...but not in this movie. He actually reaches my goal weight of 119 (which I will never ever see) as he attempts to overcome paranoia, sleep a little (he hasn't slept in a year), settle down with a lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh, figure out who Ivan is while also attempting to figure out who is leaving him weird hangman notes. The movie is good, that being said, it moves very slowly. Not everyone will like this movie, but I did, however--it's a one watch only! I've seen the movie before and tried to watch it with John this time around and I ended up doing laundry. It's kind of in the same vein of Memento. GBH rating= 4.0

Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia
I was able to watch thirty seconds of this movie before I turned to John and said, "My life is too short to watch this movie" and I ripped it out of the DVD player. The first 30 seconds were wretched. The rental itself was an accident, as we meant to get De Palma's Black Dahlia. GBH rating= (while unfair) .5

The Night Listener
I'm not a big fan of Robin Williams outside of Mork and Mindy, Awakenings and yes, I liked Dead Poets Society, but I wanted to give this movie a chance. Robin Williams' character is a writer/radio personality who tells his tales in serial format in a show that airs at night. He is contacted by a collegue who has a book written by an extremely young boy (I think 14) called the "Blacking House" which is filled with sexual abuse at the hands of his parents (amongst others). The boy wants to talk with Gabriel (Williams' character) and they form a relationship where they speak on a daily basis. The identity of the boy and the existence of the boy comes into question and that's where the movie "takes off". To be fair, I liked the premise of the movie; I thought the acting was well done--but for some reason (it could be as simple as personal preference), I didn't end up caring enough about the characters to really follow the movie that closely. Ultimately, I think it's rentable but it's not a griping thriller (which again, I don't think it's meant to be a griping thriller, it's meant to make us thing about identity, our interactions with people and how much influence we have on the tapestry of our own personal narrative). GBH rating= (very tough...) 3.5 (sorry...that was a long one!!)

Cache
(Hidden)(Subtitled) This is a french film about regret and how painful and lingering lies can be. I believe this was meant to be high art, there isn't a lot going on in the plot but the meaning hits home. There is one moment of the movie where both John and I jumped from the couch our legs all akimbo and mouths agape...this one moment made the movie worth it for me. GBH rating=3.0

Audition
(subtitled)
Actually it a movie called Odishon. This is a Japanese movie about a man who is lonely. His wife has been dead for several years and he wishes to remarry. Uncomfortable with the dating scene, his friend who is a television show producer, allows him to run a fake audition to meet potential brides. Without giving anything away, I will say that this movie is not for the squeamish but I thought it was excellent. The development of Japanese widower and the woman of his affections was extremely well done as were the moments outside of reality towards the end of the movie.
GBH rating= 4.5

We also went to the movies and saw this:

Pan's Labrynth
(Laberinto del Fauno, El)
The movie takes place in rural Spain where a little girl travels with her pregnant mother to live with her new step father who is a general in Franco's army. Ofelia (the little girl) creates a world of fantasy (or does this world truly exist??) to exist beyond the world of her terrifyingly brutal step father, the strange surroundings and her helplessness. The world she creates is no less dark than the one in which she lives but it is an escape nonetheless. It's hard to talk about this movie without talking about it. I would recommend this movie highly. GBH=5.0


Next up? Throne of Blood, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Videodrome