2 Razors

Beta House

/ / Home Video
  • Title: American Pie Presents: Beta House
  • IMDb: link

American Pie Presents: Beta HouseAmerican Pie Presents Beta House is uncompromising, unapologetic, softcore porn.  Skinamax is gonna love this film.  Sure it makes as much sense as Carrot Top fan sites, but you’re not watching a flick like this for the story.  It lacks the heart of the original film (of whom only Eugene Levy appears), but it hits the sleaze factor the target audience will be hoping for, and then some.  I can’t really recommend it, but if you’ve got beer, buds, no babes, and nothing to do late one night there’s worse ways you could spend your time.

Here’s where I normally discuss the plot with you, such as it is.  The film follows Erik Stifler (John White) to college with his best bud Cooze (Jake Siegel) where they will meet new friends and pledge his cousin’s (Steve Talley) fraternity, the Beta House.  The film returns many of the characters from American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile but since plot is not the primary storytelling device those who didn’t see the previous film (like me) shouldn’t feel like they’ve missed much.

There are also love stories between Erik and the cute Ashley (Meghan Heffern) and Cooze and a Southern belle with a embarrassing secret (Sarah Powers), and the ongoing battle between the Betas and the Geek house, but that’s just window dressing for nudity, semen and vomit jokes, and general mayhem.

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Beowulf

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Beowulf
  • IMDb: link

“I am Beowulf!”
 

Beowulf movie review

The film follows a condensed, and rushed, variation of the original epic poem.  After his hall is attacked by a fearsome creature known as Grendel (Crispin Glover), King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) offers half of his fortune to anyone who can rid his kingdom of the monster.  The legendary warrior Beowulf (Ray Winstone) arrives, for the glory of defeating the demon.

The film follows Beowulf’s battle with Grendel and his encounter with Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) in the dark caves of the mountains.  Secrets will be unearthed, curses laid down, and Beowulf’s glory will grow – though not without a cost.

In terms of look the film achieves much of what it sets out to do.  The appearance of the characters (each taken from the individual actors) is the best I’ve seen human beings done in this type of computer animation.  Also worth noting are the battle scenes which work quite well, especially if you have a chance to see the film in the IMAX 3-D version where the blood and spears shoot out at you.

Though the look works there are many problems with the non-human characters.  The monsters in the film are scary in only a depressing B-movie kind of way.  Grendel is a big dumb ogre, the dragon is ferocious but bland, and we never get to see the true form of Grendel’s mother (though it is often teased in reflection).  The only real monsters worth mentioning are the sea creature Beowulf slays during a flashback in what is the best scene of the film.

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The Dark is Rising

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
  • IMDb: link

“When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, Bronze, iron, water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.”

 

The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising

Based on the second book of a five book series by Susan Cooper comes a tale of a normal young American boy, Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig), living in London with his five older brothers and young sister (Emma Lockhart).  On his 14th birthday Will starts noticing odd events and becomes the focus of several strange adults who call themselves Old Ones (Ian McShane, James Cosmo, Jim Piddock, Frances Conroy).

It seems Will is the seventh son of a seventh son (and if you’ve read Orson Scott Card’s books you know that makes him special).  He is also the last of the Old Ones and “the Seeker” of the six signs of power which have been hidden throughout time and only he can find.  And find them he must, for unless all signs are united in five days the Rider (Christopher Eccleston) will usher in a new age of shadow and darkness.  Will must unite the hidden signs and return the power of the Light before it is lost forever to the Dark.  (And if you made your way through that without giggling or scratching your head you did better than me).

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Balls of Fury Sure, but Where’s the Heart?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Balls of Fury
  • IMDb: link

“Ping-pong isn’t played for trophies; it’s played in dark alleys for hard cash and ugly women.”
 

Balls of Fury

Years ago Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) blew his chance at the 1988 Olympic Games.  Not a washed-up has-been and punchline Fogler is offered a chance by FBI Agent Ernie Rodriquez (George Lopez) to return to glory and avenge the death of his father (Robert Patrick) by entering a secret underground tournament held by the man responsible, the crime lord Feng (Christoper Walken).

The film is filled with predictable dumb and gross-out humor and cheesy cliched training scenes involving a blind ping-pong master (James Hong) and his sexy niece (Maggie Q).  And you know it’s not a comedy without a suppository joke and male sex slaves!  *Sigh*

The acting is okay, at times, and Fogler comes off as a poor man’s Jack Black.  Walken is back to his silly over-the-top performance he gives in films like these, and Maggie Q looks good in short-shorts and Aisha Tyler spends the movie in a leather dominatrix outfit.  Yes, pre-teen males are obviously the target audience here.

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Elizabethtown disappoints

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Elizabethtown
  • IMDB: link

elizabethtown-posterElizabethtown has everything going for it, good stars, a diverse supporting cast, awesome music, and many of Cameron Crowe’s little trademark touches.  So why did I leave the theater so disappointed? 

The more I thought about the film my disappointment turned to anger.  The only story line that hasn’t been stolen from one of his earlier films, the effect of the death of your father, is constantly interrupted by an overly cute love story and a collection of the oddest and nicest group of hicks you will ever meet.  I guess everyone who grew up in Mayberry moved to Elizabehtown.

Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is having a bad week.  First he is fired after some kind of tremendous blunder that has something to do with shoes, his shallow girlfriend (Jessica Biel) leaves him, and his boss (Alec Baldwin) makes him give an interview accepting total responsibility for the failure. 

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