Wow.
Amazing.
Superb.
Excellent.
Stunning.

Those are just a few of the thoughts that went through my head as I watched Children of Men. I will be surprised if I see many films this year that even come close to this movie.

I knew next to nothing going into this movie, about the only thing that I knew was that it starred Clive Owen and that he was on the run from something. I am not going to talk specifics about this movie because I truly feel that this is one of those movies that the less you know going in the more you will enjoy it.

This movie is a masterpiece, Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) has created a movie that is not to be missed. One aspect of the film that I absolutely loved was that there was zero hollywood in it. Children of Men is played out like reality not like a hollywood blockbuster and it is a much better movie because of it.

The camera work in this movie is outstanding. There are two scenes in particular that stick out in my mind. I will try not to give away too much because I don’t want to spoil anything. The first scene starts with a car on fire. The scene appears to be shot in one continuous take and is simply amazing. The second scene is later in the movie and involves Clive Owen’s character walking down a battle torn street trying to meet up with someone else. This scene is mind blowing and again appears to have been shot in one continuous take.

I highly suggest seeing this movie, it’s outstanding. I want to see it again before it leaves the theater.

I knew very little about this movie before going into it but an ex-coworker told me that it was one of the best movies that he had seen in the last couple years and I knew that the critics were loving it as well. About the only thing that I knew about the movie was the it starred a little girl, took place during a war and that the little girl had fantasy world that was a reality.

I need to say this right now before I talk more about the movie. This movie is brutal, surprisingly brutal. Do NOT bring your kids to see this movie. I don’t want to go into specifics because I don’t want to ruin anything for you. I will say that the first scene of brutality smacked me right across the face, I totally did not see it coming and truly shocked me.

The movie is quite brilliant. Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, The Devil’s Backbone, Mimic) has created a truly remarkable film and one that I highly suggest you take a look at if you like fantasy and don’t mind some gore. Ivana Baquero, who plays Ofelia, the little girl, is simply excellent in her role. All around the cast was excellent but Ivana and Sergi López, who plays the Captain, are the real stand outs here in my opinion. Ivana for her expressive eyes and young innocence and Sergi for his heartless and amazingly cold performance.

I also need to mention the set design, makeup and visual effects in this movie. If this movie isn’t nominated for a few academy awards it will be a travesty as this is one of the most visually stunning movies I have seen in a while.

I highly suggest Pan’s Labyrinth, but I am serious about the violence, this movie pulls no punches so beware.

But then I saw it.

BMX Bandits, HOLY SHIT!!

You know when you are a kid and home during the summer and you end up watching a lot of TV? We had HBO when I was a kid and they used to play this movie all the time and I watched it so many that I grew to love it. Did I mention that it has a sixteen year old Nicole Kidman in it? This movie first introduced me to her and I remember years later seeing Days of Thunder and going “Holy shit, that’s the girl from BMX Bandits”. Of course now she is a huge super star but she will always be the little girl in BMX bandits to me.

I of course bought it. It also came with a movie called Evel Knievel which stars George Hamilton and apparently Evel did many of the stunts in the movie himself, should be terribly awesome. Here is the amazing packaging, they obviously spared no expense.

Looks awesome doesn’t it.

On to the review.

Upon putting the DVD into your player, you are presented with this absolutely amazing menu screen which I am hoping is a sign of things to come.

This DVD obviously was painstakingly restored, just look at the how awesome the main menu looks. I especially like how the top of Nicole’s head has been lopped off. Seriously, that menu would take about 13 minutes to make in Photoshop, I can’t believe how awesome this is.

The movie starts with two guys gearing up on their dirt bikes to do some BMXing, just check out how awesome they are doing their stunts.

This movie is going to kick Rad’s ass!!

After they get done showing off they decide to go get milkshakes because BMXing is thirsty work. We then cut to some bad guys gearing up for a robbery. These aren’t your normal bad guys either, these guys are so hard core they drive their van right through the window at the bank.

Dammit Billy, this is the third window this week.

Actual quote from the movie “You’re staring death in the face”

We are then treated to a bit of a chase scene as the robbers make their getaway from the bank, leaving their van still inside they hop into another car that is waiting for them. They of course cross paths with our BMXers who in a chain events send an inflatable doll unto a priest, no I am not kidding.

Sweet, free dummy!

The BMXers are then harassed by the police and lament on how they would love to have their own BMX track and then race each other to the mall. Then, the moment we all have been waiting for, Nicole Kidman makes her debut. She is working hard at a grocery store so that she can save up to buy a BMX bike of her own.

This is what my nose used to look like

But disaster strikes! Some local punk rich kid pushes her stack of grocery carts which in turns wipes out our two BMXers which in turn gets poor Nicole fired. Check out her stylish boss.

Damn!! I am one sexy mofo

The two BMX dudes and Nicole team up together and try and figure out a way to get money. Nicole needs a bike and the two guys bikes were badly damaged in the shopping cart accident. Then we cut back to the bad guys who are dividing up their spoils from the bank job and we get to meet their boss who goes by the name “the Boss”

I am The Boss! Not Springsteen dammit!

The Boss tells his crew about their next job which will be hitting a remote controlled payroll truck. In order to do this job they are going to need special walky-talkies that come all the way from the USA (It’s an Australian film). The boss has one of these walky-talkies already but he has a shipment coming in for more that his crew will pick up at their normal drop-off point. Meanwhile, our three heroes are still thinking of a way to make money and they come up with a plan to get clams from the sea piers. Of course they find more than just clams, they find the bad guys walky-talkies.

I hope it’s filled with Cocaine!

Unfortunately for our heroes, the bad guys saw them as they were leaving and they know that they have them. Our heroes go off to sell the walky-talkies so they can fix and buy new BMX bikes.

Next we are treated to a chase scene through a cemetery. The bad guys don’t want to be recognized so they wear masks, scary masks of course. The chase scene in the cemetery is a long set piece which was pretty much impossible to get any decent screenshots from since the quality of this DVD sucks so much ass. While in the cemetery the kids use the walky-talkies to communicate, what they don’t know is that the walky-talkies work on the police band so the cops can hear everything they say, this also pisses off the cops because it’s supposed to be a restricted radio band. From the way they are talking the female cop below figures out they are BMXers and that the people they are looking for are kids on bikes.

Are we out of donuts again?

The kids finally escape from the bad guys in masks and then let the air out of the bad guys tires, those crazy kids.

The next scene the kids have sold enough walky-talkies to outfit Nicole with a new bike, the guys get the parts to fix theirs and they also buy some kicking rad new outfits.

aww man, why does my helmet say Judy on it?

We are then treated to an awesome montage of Nicole ripping things up BMX style. I guess now would be as good a time as any to mention this. The bike riding stunts in this movie are really quite pathetic, I am not at all exaggerating either, these aren’t pro bikers doing the riding, I think it was the directors son and a couple of his buddies. Wheelies, standing on the bike while it’s moving and bunny hopping are about as cool as the tricks get.

Anyway, while the boys fix up their bikes with the new parts they send Judy (Nicole Kidman) off to get another walky-talkie because the fat rich kid who was there when Judy got fired wants to buy another one (they sold them for 20 bucks but they charged the fat rich kid 30, those crazy kids). When Judy goes to get them though two of the bad guys, Whitey (the albino looking guy) and Moustache (the bad guy with the moustache), confront her.

Gimmie the shirt!! I want the pink BMX Bandit shirt!

While the bad guys are talking to Judy she turns on the her walky talkie which ends up leading to a couple of construction accidents (don’t ask) and eventually the boys, whose names are PJ and Goose by the way, overhear that she is in trouble and come rushing to her aid. Along the way they also get in chase with the fat spoiled rich kid because they steal his ice cream.

Hooray for random and totally unnecessary explosions!

PJ and Goose of course get there just in time to save Judy. But the bad guys aren’t done yet, the chase continues. Somehow they end up at a waterpark and our happy trio takes their bikes down one of the big waterslides.

The best stunt in the movie

The chase doesn’t end here either, it keeps going. Approximately 33 seconds out of getting out of the water our trio of heroes are bone dry and back on the road running away from the mean bad guys. The chase takes them through a rugby field at one point where hilarity of course ensues.

Eat my dust suckers

After the rugby field the chase continues…. yes still, through a mall where more hijinks occur. It’s amazing that in this chase no matter if the bad guys are in their car or running around they never gain nor lose ground on our heroes. You would think they would have no problem catching up their car but nope, doesn’t happen. You would also think that our heroes would quickly out distance them when the bad guys are chasing them on foot, but again, nope.

Dammit Billy, next time I am driving

The chase finally ends when Whitey starts to drive. You see, it’s Moustache’s car and he is the driver but Whitey is always trying to drive but Whitey is a retard. Whitey ends up crashing the car and the kids get away.

Quick, grab me. I’m floating away.

The big chase scares our three heroes and they finally decide to go to the cops. They tell them what they have done and the cop decides to give them a break because he is glad to hear that the two bad guys are back in town and there just happens to be a big reward out for the two of them. The kids caused a lot of damage with there shenanigans (see the random explosion above) and the reward money will help pay for it. The kids are told not to do anything stupid but of course they are stupid so they do stupid things. They decide to take matters into their own hands to make sure the bad guys go down. To do that they enlist all of their BMX friends.

I just want to dance!

The kids decide to steal evidence from the police and then use it as bait to get the bad guys to chase them. Once the bad guys start to chase them they will contact the cops, the cops will catch them and the kids will get the reward money and build their BMX track. The plan back fires though when The Boss kidnaps Judy.

Quick, grab her pants I have been looking for a pair like them for months.

The kids and their recruits have spread out all over town and they follow the bad guys cars, using the walky-talkies to keep in touch. The cops, who have been able to hear everything going on with the walky-talkies the entire movie which is why the kids are in trouble, overhear this and spring into action. The kids finally follow the bad guys to their hideout and just when things are looking bad for Judy the mob shows up to save the day.

Warriors, come out to play

The kids are armed with cocain bombs apparently, it makes quick work of the baddies.

Cocaine, it’s a hell of a drug

Unfortunately, the bad guys end up getting away, and they kidnap Judy again. PJ sees this at the last minute and chases down the bad guys truck on foot, he quickly grabs on to the back in an amazing show of heroism. Goose follows chase on his bike. Eventually Goose catches up with the truck and hops onboard. Goose and PJ finally stop the truck by making it collide with a foam fertilizer truck.

It’s my turn to play with the hose!!

Eventually the cops come and then the movie cuts to BMX track. Apparently their plan worked and they got their own BMX track, woohoo.

Tom Cruise is a faggot.

I don’t think I have ever laughed as hard in a movie theater as I did when I saw the first Jackass in the theaters. I honestly just couldn’t believe some of the stuff that I was seeing and I found it absolutely hilarious. I never watched the show on MTV (I avoid that channel like the plague) and I was skeptical go see it but my friend talked me into it and I am glad that he did. When I saw that a sequel was coming out I knew that I had to go see it, preferably after a couple of beers. I did exactly that over the weekend.

Jackass Number Two is hilarious, I will say that I liked the first one better but not by a lot. They definitely upped the stakes in the sequel with some of the stunts being a bit crazier than the first but for some reason the original just seemed to have more original and silly stunts, the stunts in the first one were just more ridiculous.

Chances are this isn’t a movie to bring your girlfriend to. I am sure there are exceptions but every girl I have talked to either has zero interest in seeing it or saw the first one and absolutely hated it. My buddies girlfriend saw it with us and she said she almost walked out on five different occassions.

Since the movie has zero plot and is just a collection of random stunts lets talk about some of the funnier or crazier stunts in the movie. I would suggest that you stop reading here if you don’t want to spoil what you are going to see.

After the opening credits where the guys of Jackass are chased through suburbia by a herd of bulls we see a cage with a hole in the side and there is a snake in the cage. Chris Pontius then takes his cloth covered penis (with a mouse face drawn on the end of it) and puts it through the hole in the cage. There is a string attached to the end of his penis which Johnny Knoxville tugs on to move his penis around eventually getting the snake to strike.

In Fire Hose Rodeo, Dave England is holding onto a fire hose which is suspended from a crane. The fire hose is then turned on and Dave holds on for dear life. He is eventually thrown free bloodying up is ass in the process.

You know those things at fairs and stuff where you can test your strength by hitting something with a sledgehammer and seeing how far you can make the thing go up? In this skit Bam goes to the top of the pole, drops down his pants and puts his ass on the top. Instead of a weight that goes up when you hit it with the hammer there is a dildo.

In one of the more extreme stunts, Steve-O puts a fish hook through his mouth and then jumps into the ocean with sharks swimming around him. Gnarly.

A few of the guys are in a limo going to what they believe is a photo shoot. When the limo stops in a parking lot a couple of the other guys quickly run over to the limo and put a bunch of live bees through the sun roof and then pour marbles on the ground outside of the doors.

Medicine Ball Dodgeball. They play dodge ball with medicine balls, which are very heavy. In the dark.

Someone drinks horse semen in the movie.

In one of my favorite skits in the movie two of the guys climb inside big tractor wheels and then are rolled down a hill.

The last skit in the movie is hilarious and probably the best one in the movie. I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to spoil it but it has so many different levels and is simply hilarious.

After a week of missing the movies I got back in the groove over the weekend and saw Martin Scorsese’s new film The Departed. Scorses is one of my favorite directors, I think he is one of the most talented directors of all time and I was very excited to see this. In short it didn’t disappoint, it is so good that it may finally get Scorsese the Best Director Oscar that has so far eluded him (man was he robbed on Goodfellas, fuck Kevin Costner and Dances with Wolves).

I would also like to go on record saying that I think Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most talented younger actors we have, there I said it. I have felt this way for a very long time, pretty much since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and my opinion was cemented in Basketball Diaries (a film which he co-starred with Mark Wahlberg, I will get to him in a minute). DiCaprio gets a lot of flack and he has his fair share of detractors but I feel it all stems from Titanic which many people detest. He has so much hate for him due to that movie it is ridiculous. Anyway, I think he is very talented and he was excellent in The Departed.

I also happen to be a fan of Mark Wahlberg, I think he is a pretty damn good actor and I now think of him as an actor who used to be a rapper and not as a rapper trying to be an actor. His performance in Basketball Diaries really was quite a surprise to me, he was excellent in that film. His performance in Boogie Nights is what really earned my respect. He is really good in The Departed, he plays a guy who seems to be a real asshole but I think his personality is justified in the context of the movie and his job.

Matt Damon is a decent actor, I have nothing really against him and I love him in Dogma (he gets to deliver one of my favorite lines in Dogma “Hey, you know, fuck you, man. Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulphur is like an endurance trial man. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of soccer.”). He is excellent in this movie getting probably the meatiest role in the film.

Jack, good ole Jack. Thankfully this is a departure from the Jack that seems to turn up in most of his movies in the last ten years, you know the ham it up to the camera and borderline overact Jack. This is a Jack I don’t think we have ever seen, he is a scumbag in this movie and he is turns in an incredible performance.

I highly recommend this movie, it’s hard to go wrong with this cast and hell, it’s Scorsese, what more do you need? Go see it.