Red, The Town, some zombies and Angel Heart

Last one first.  If you are a fan of explosions and enjoyed Space Cowboys, you SO have to go see Red.  Bruce Willis (surprisingly good), Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker (those EYES) and Helen Mirren, all playing this bit of fluff just as it deserves.  All, save for the eyes, are old spies.  Bruce gets in a spot of trouble, and as Morgan Freeman says, “We’re putting the band back together.”  Lots of shooting, lots of wonderful, ridiculous explosions, very little gore, no nekkidness, just a hoot.  Mirren is an assassin and loves heavy weapons.  She’s also a drop dead parody of Martha Stewart with a .50 cal machine gun—not as far -fetched an idea as one might initially think.

Plot?  Not much.  Parker spends a lot of time with duct tape over her mouth, which is a hoot.  Of course she and Bruce fall in love.  Malkovich is the looniest of all, sort of like the helicopter pilot in the original A-Team.  For such a weird-looking guy, he has to be one of the best actors working right now.  Morgan Freeman has “stage 4 lung cancer” and his specialty is being smarter than the rest, I think.    Everything comes out pretty well in the end—one person goes out honorably in the service of the others.  Oh, yeah, and there’s a Russian involved, one from the “old days,” for which they all pine.

Not a lot of art here, but it’s fun, a great release, and seeing all these folks together is terrific fun.  Very highly recommended.

I’m not quite as sanguine about The Town, a reference to the Charlestown area of Boston.  This is a bank robbery movie about Ben Affleck being Ben Affleck, directed and produced by Ben Affleck who hasn’t been worth a hill of beans since Armageddon. Evidently Charlestown Boston breeds thieves like Louisiana breeds mosquitoes.  The robberies are fun to watch, all the planning and the car chases and the way the cops are made to look stupid.  There is strife within the “gang,” fistfights, a lot of shooting, bad talk and stuff.  If you are a Ben Affleck fan, you might like this for all the time he’s chewing the scenery.  I liked the action sequences, but then I am a guy.  Not a great date movie.  I’d wait for the DVD.

I saw the first installment of AMC’s Walking Dead on Hulu, my link to the world.  I know there have been two episodes and there’s some question about the rest being shown.  If you are a zombie person (I am, also vampires, but werewolves suck), you might like this.  The effects are movie quality and while it’s graphic, at least there is a story.  It’s a trite story, but how much can you do with zombies walking the streets?  Oh, and these are traditional slow moving Zombies, not the bogus fast runners the Brits tried to force on us.  Everyone knows the scariness in zombies is their inexorable stumbling pursuit and not their sprinting.  That’s for werewolves (which suck).

I also watched a 1987 Mickey Rourke movie called Angel Heart. Robert de Niro has a small role in this as Satan.  The story is confusing (on purpose), but it is fun to watch.  It is set in 1950’s New Orleans mostly and is basically the human equivalent of a soul-damned dog chasing its tail.  There’s a bit of gore, one pretty intense sex scene, confusion, as well as Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling.  Probably the story was well-written, but the movie isn’t.  If you are a fan of Rourke, this is before he ruined his face and he fits the time period perfectly.  His acting is one dimensional because the character is, too.  His discovery at the end snaps him into reality in a terrible way.  Mostly I liked this because of the south Louisiana scenery, I guess.  You do get to see Rourke’s rear end, if that’s an enticement for you.  Lisa Bonet hets nekkid, too, but that’s not all that rare for her in the absence of talent.

Spanky, Movie Dude

 

 

 

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