Archive for January, 2010

Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted January 27, 2010 at 7:56 pm

A Review by Jason L. King

Starring: Bret Hart, Blade Hart, Owen Hart, Stu Hart, Vince McMahon
Directed by: Paul Jay
Rated: R for brief language and violence
Movie Released: 1998
IMDB Link

Final Grade:

If you seek out any male that was born in the 80’s you will be hard pressed to find one that wasn’t a WWF fan. Now known as the WWE, The World Wrestling Federation of the 80’s was a different time. It was a time where big names like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant ruled the earth, fighting off evil villains such as The Undertaker, The Million Dollar Man, and Ravishing Rick Rude. Back in those days there was black and white and no shades of grey. A wrestler was either the hero or the villain. They dressed up and played out some of the most outlandish characters the sport has ever known. But at the end of the day, you knew the good from the bad. The good guy always stood up for what was right, and even if he lost at the end of the day, it was because of a good ol’ fashioned “screw job” by the bad guy.

The film Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows takes you back to that time, when pro-wrestling was in it’s 80’s prime, all the way up to the 90’s WWE/WCW showdown. The film follows Canadian wrestler Bret “The Hitman” Hart for a year behind the scenes of the pro wrestling universe. Hart tells his tale of his upbringing, and being the son of famed submission wrestler Stu Hart. As director Paul Jay follows Bret for a year behind the scenes of pro wrestling for his documentary, he gets to witness the unfolding of perhaps one of pro wrestling’s most controversial WWF real life career endings, known to wrestling fans as “The Montreal Screw Job.”

Before you go off dismissing this documentary as a complete joke, hear me out on this one. Director Paul Jay does a very nice job of taking you behind the scenes in the wrestling world. If you’ve ever wondered how the day in the life of a wrestler is like, Jay’s film gives you a inside look at the life of a WWE legend. The Hitman was known through the 80’s as the hero in pink and black, the excellence of execution and one of the greatest technical wrestlers of all time. Bret Hart brought fans enjoyment for years as Bret “The Hitman” Hart, and it is very interesting to see Bret’s take on how the character developed, and how much the character he plays is much like the person that he is. The mixture between the two characters, and sometimes the fans not being able to separate one from the other is very interesting. Jay’s camera follows Hart from event to event, witnessing everything from the planning of matches (sorry kids, it’s pre-planned you know!), to the actual execution of them.

The film’s eventual climax, is the behind the scenes lead up and execution of “The Montreal Screw Job” and the events that followed. The screw job, is the final night of the then Champ Bret Hart’s WWE career, before he was “urged” to move on to competitor WCW by Vince McMahon. Hart was supposed to leave the ring victorious that night, leaving his Hitman character behind as a champ and home town hero, only to vacate the title the next night and head off to WCW. However, Vince had other plans and unbeknown to Bret, he conspired to con Bret out of his championship. This real life, back stage battle between Hart and the WWE owner led to bad blood and behind the scenes blows between the Harts, Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and Vince McMahon. It is interesting to just to be a fly on the wall and watch this unfold.

Where this documentary goes wrong is that Bret Hart becomes preachy and tiresome by the film’s conclusion. Even if you grow up loving the Hitman, you have a hard time believing his “I’m the victim” story line, because that theme seems to run deep. You can trace these antics all the way back to his rocky upbringing by his father, who Hart respects and fears. Hart begins preaching about the “glory days” of black and white, right and wrong and how wrestling is no longer a “family show.” The late 90’s became the time of the Monday night battles, WCW’s NWO vs. McMahon’s Degeneration X on the other channel. According Hart, because of this the fans began cheering for “shades of grey.” Fans were more into wrestlers that were vulgar and in your face like DX and Stone Cold Steve Austin, rather than the wholesome heroes of before. Once again, Bret plays the victim, claiming “the fans turned on him”and left him behind for a worse alternative.

All in all, if you were or are a pro wrestling fan, I think this documentary is worth checking out. Like most documentaries, it is one sided, biased and pushes an agenda, but the behind the scenes stuff is still fairly interesting. If you are not the WWE fan, the documentary still holds some weight. It’s flows well, and shows you a rare behind the scenes look at a sport that few others have gained access to. And yes, I do call it a sport. Even if the matches are planned, it takes skill to do what they do. If POKER is a sport, if NASCAR is a sport, I think you can call Hulk Hogan and athlete as well. Many will debate that statement I know. But that is not the point of this documentary or the review itself.

As for Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, I say check it out. It’s an interesting flick. More than likely this will be a love it or hate it type of documentary. But I say give it a shot and see what you think.

At the time of posting, this film is available to view commercial free for free online. You can Click here and have it open in a new window for viewing.

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Filed under: Documentary, Movies

Fighting

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted at 6:45 pm

A Review by Jason L. King

Starring: Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard, Brian J. White
Directed by: Dito Montiel
Rated: PG13 for brief language and violence
Movie Released: 2009
IMDB Link

Final Grade:

I love it when you can go blindly into a movie by looking at the title only, and yet still believe you know exactly what this film is about. So, when I looked at the title of the film Fighting, I was lead to believe that this film is about fighting. I suppose the film did center itself around the title premise, but not enough to truly title the film Fighting. After all, for a film about fighting, there sure wasn’t a lot of fighting going on….

Fighting is the story of a homeless, down on his luck street hustler (Channing Tatum) who is taken in by street wise con (Terrence Howard). Together the two of them begin promoting Tatum’s character in local, small time underground fights in an attempt to get rich quick.

Like I said before, the film is titled Fighting, with very little fighting in it. So at least on that front, the film fails miserably. And to top it off, the film features a very non-climactic film ending fight. Surrounding this tale about a guy who beats the snot out of other people who like to beat the snot out of people, we have a bad love story, a poorly explained back story and a clan of very one dimensional characters that few will care about.

Channing Tatum is terrible in this flick. I know that many will ask did I expect more? Not really. Tatum is there are eye candy for girls and not much more. However, Tatum is one of those people whom I assume girls like to look at but wished they didn’t talk. It’s kind of like what guys think when they see Jessica Simpson. None the less, they let Tatum speak in this film, and speak he does. He sounds like a mentally challenged circus monkey, blubbering through lines that he must have heard just minutes before. Acting along side him is Terrence Howard, who I KNOW can make a good film. However, here he just doesn’t stand a chance. His street wise con character is so boring and one dimensional it is hard to even care about his existence. Mix that in with a soft spoken, breathy, nasally charged speech pattern he gives the character and you actually quickly begin to wish that Howard was off the screen.

The story behind Fighting is never truly explained, which may be the reason I cared even less about the characters involved. We have no idea why Tatum is homeless, but we do know it has something to do with a falling out with his wrestling (or martial arts?) coach and father. Apparently we find through Tatum’s love interest’s “ASK.COM” search that he punched his Dad out, and then his Dad coached some other kid to victory. It just so happens that he must fight this kid in the end. Side note: Who in the world uses ASK.COM? I mean c’mon, I know people “Google” people all the time. So much so that “googled” has become a word. But how many times has someone ASK.Com’d you? Anyhow, all that aside, when asked about his past, Tatum’s character begins pout and tells them to never talk about his Dad. On the other hand, apparently Terrence Howard’s character is a con artist, who helps out homeless kids. His back story is poorly revealed as having something to do with one of the “big time” under ground fight promoters (played by Luis Guzman) but had a falling out for some reason.

One would hope that even if poor character development was an issue, you would think a movie about fighting would at least have cool fights. We see Tatum punch out a street thug, then we see him fight a pretty boy and get his butt kicked. He wins only by accidentally throwing the kid head first into a water fountain. He then fights a 400 lb Mexican man that goes no where. He fights a martial arts master and then finally his father’s apprentice. Sadly enough you really don’t care about any of these fights. In fact, many of the fights he is losing so badly you have a very hard time believing that he could actually win anything, especially against these supposed “great underground fighters.”

The only redeeming thing I took from this movie was a performance by Brian J. White (I know him most notably as Tavon from “The Shield”). It’s nice to see him working even if he is playing a stereotyped, one dimensional character. Since first seeing White on The Shield, I’ve always enjoyed the “cool, smooth talking” characters he plays. But he’s not in this movie nearly enough to make a difference, and much like Terrence Howard any abilities he has as an actor are stifled by the stench of this film’s story line.

I wish I could say I found enjoyment in Fighting, but I simply did not. For 2 hours I stared at the TV screen and thought to myself, “There are so many better things I could be doing with my time.” Sadly enough I continued to watch. Don’t make the same mistake I did. If you want a film about “Fighting” pick up something like Fight Club and skip this one all together.

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Filed under: Drama, Movies

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted January 20, 2010 at 9:33 pm

A Review by Jason L. King

Starring: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Bill Heder, Owen Wilson & More…
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Rated: PG for mild action and brief language
Movie Released: 2009
IMDB Link

Final Grade:

When a movie makes a boat load of money, you just can’t resist making a sequel. It’s sad, because sometimes you have to realize that lightning never strikes the same spot twice, no matter how much money you throw at it. Myth or truth, we’ve all heard the saying before and unfortunately the producers for Night at the Museum 2 must have missed school the day that old saying was taught.

Capitalizing on the huge success of the original Night at the Museum, Ben Stiller and friends return once again for a sequel to the 2006 Christmastime success that went on to make millions more on DVD. Stiller’s character, Larry Dalley, is now millionaire, making his cash from infomercial like products such as a glow in the dark flashlight. But when he hears the the Museum of Natural History is packing up the old exhibits and taking them to the Smithsonian archives, he finds himself missing his museum exhibit pals. And when he gets a call from his old exhibit friends who are being tormented by a once wax Egyptian Pharaoh, Dalley must break into the Smithsonian and save his old wax friends.

What this movie does well, is it brings back all of the old characters that you know and enjoyed in the original film and plops them down in a new scenario. However, the characters have evolved a bit and now have learned to live in the museum harmoniously together. Therefore, the plot begins to revolve around them teaming together to stop the other “exhibits” that don’t want to play nice. With that, you get a whole new cast of characters including an evil Pharaoh (played by Hank Azaria), Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon Bonaparte and more. With each of them wanting control of the tablet that brings them to life, they break out into a bitter battle that only Larry can stop.

Once again, Stiller does a great job in his role. Sure, sure, it is Ben Stiller playing Ben Stiller but you still have an over all fun time watching him. Many times when Stiller isn’t playing a “goofy” character like Derek Zoolander, I find him rather annoying. However, The Night at the Museum films seem to work well for him. Along side him you get a fun supporting performance by Owen Wilson, once again returning as Jedidiah, the pocket sized cowboy. Along with Hank Azaria joining the cast, the film welcomes new comers Amy Adams (Amelia Earhart) and Bill Hader (General Custer), as well as a plethora of other new characters. I mention Adams and Hader because they do a great job in some stand out performances.

Adams plays Earhart with ease, and while I always pictured Cate Blanchett playing the role, I really did enjoy the performance that Adams gave. She brought life to the Earhart character and I think for young-ins that have no idea what Earhart did in real life, it may spark their interest to find more out. Hader as Custer may have been one of the funniest characters in the whole movie. Hader plays the unknowingly dim witted Custer who barges head first into battle in a way that only George W. Bush could rival. As Hader’s character tries to come up with the perfect battle signal that will mean “attack” with out saying “attack” you find your self laughing out loud at the sheer stupidity.

Unfortunately, where this films goes wrong is that it becomes a cluttered mess. They manage to to take all of the old characters and introduce something just shy of 400 new characters and have them walking around Washington D.C. undetected. When you aren’t spending your time going “Who is that?” you are wondering how security in Washington D.C. is so lax that they don’t see memorial sized Abe Lincoln walking around the outskirts of the Smithsonian. Mix that in with the massive amounts of damages to structures, windows and buildings and you soon are longing for the contained space of the Museum of Natural History. At least in the original, you understood that the exhibits that come to life are not spotted because they pretty much stayed in the confines of the museum.

When you aren’t wondering if the rest of D.C. is dead and not noticing this, you are bombarded repeatedly by museum exhibit after exhibit coming to life and making quick and pointless appearances. There were so many characters I actually began to think I was watching a Brett Ratner version of X-Men and not Night at the Museum. Just like Ratner’s obsession with putting nearly every X-men ever created in X-men 3, the makers of Night at the Museum felt the need to try and include every one from history. Oddly enough, I think the only person they didn’t have make a cameo was Hitler, whom I thought would have made a nice addition to the Waxis of Evil. (Get it Waxis of Evil? Because they are all wax….never mind)

When this movie was all said and done, I’m not ashamed to admit I found enjoyment in it. While it is certainly not as good as the original and has many flaws, you find your self enjoying the ride. Well, at least enough to watch it once. Because Night at the Museum 2 felt forced to be “bigger”, “louder”, and “better” than its predecessor the end result became a cluttered film worth a one time view. However, this film carries very little re-watch value. All in all though, for a family movie night this film might be worth picking up at the local rental store. You just might have a good time, and have the kids asking about historical figures. And what’s wrong with having them watch a movie that might inspire them to learn?

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Filed under: Comedy, Family, Movies

Blood Creek (aka Town Creek)

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted January 17, 2010 at 9:19 pm

A Review by The Mike

Starring: Dominic Purcell, Michael Fassbender, Henry Cavill
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Rated: R for language, violence, domestic abuse, sexual content
Movie Released: 2009
IMDB Link

When I spied that Joel Schumacher’s Blood Creek was making its DVD debut this week, I decided I had to say something about it, entirely due to the circumstance of the flick. My local bargain theater was one of the “lucky” ones that received a one-week run during a September dump by Lionsgate Films, and I managed to be one of the few to experience this relatively unknown, yet slickly polished, horror flick.

Blood Creek begins by telling us of Adolf Hitler’s attempts to harness occult powers during his reign of power in the 1940s, and introducing us to a German Officer (Inglorious Basterds’ Michael Fassbender) who comes to a small Virginia farm to try and harness a rare power. After acquiring a blood-sucking power that’s not unlike a vampire’s, the German chap is trapped by the family and the film suddenly jumps ahead to present day. After a family subplot is quickly resolved, two brothers (Prison Break’s Dominic Purcell and Stardust’s Henry Cavill) end up at the farm, which is still being terrorized by the undead Nazi blood-sucker. Purcell’s character seems to have been a part of some experimenting done by said sucker (I’m unsure if anyone told him the War ended, unfortunately), and the story unfolds from there.

If you’re a little lost in that description, you’re not alone. Blood Creek is a muddled film, which many have attributed to a “butchering” of the script by Schumacher during production. There are plenty of loose ends and slightly explained occurrences throughout the film, and I recall scratching my head while trying to make connections often. The actors don’t do much to help with this, as they shift through the dim setting quickly and never seem to have a full understanding of what they’re trying to say either.

I’ve never been a member of the lynch mob that’s still after Schumacher based on his Batman films, and I actually enjoy a majority of the films I’ve seen from him. And in his defense, Blood Creek is a very good-looking film with heaps of gore and a lot of atmosphere. The villain is very impressive to behold and would definitely terrify me if I ran into it in a back alley, as well. The Nazi ties add to the intrigue of the film early on and really help it become interesting, until the story gets twisted up in itself like I already mentioned.

In total, Blood Creek is a slick bit of horror entertainment at its best and a incomprehensible mess at its worst. If it were a film from a first-time writer/director who’s simply getting his feet wet, I’d probably be forgiving of its faults. But coming from an established Hollywood director, it’s a bit of a disappointment. I won’t condemn the film entirely, as I do think it’s worth a rental based on its atmosphere and original concept, but I find myself sad that the whole thing wasn’t put together more carefully. There was a good movie inside this one, and unfortunately it got lost during the process.

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Filed under: Horror, Movies

End Game

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted January 15, 2010 at 7:51 pm

A Review by Jason L. King

Starring: Kurt Angle, Jenna Morasca
Directed by: Bruce Kohler
Rated: R for language, violence, domestic abuse, sexual content
Movie Released: 2009
IMDB Link

Final Grade: ***
*Also unanimous Winner of the Box Office Boredom’s “Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls” award for achievement in movie “terribleness”

After watching The Marine 2 on dvd movie night, The Mike and I decided to continue our pro-wrestler theme and thanks to our local Redbox, we came across a film called End Game. End Game stars Olympic Gold Medalist, former WWE wrestler and current TNA wrestler Kurt Angle as a crazed killer/rapist being tracked by the police. The film left Mike and I both speechless, and it wasn’t because it was good! If anyone knows of a petition floating around that will ensure that Bruce Kohler is never allowed to make a film again, please let me know. I know Mike and I will both be begging to sign it!

Way back in the day (which was a Wednesday by the way), The Mike and I watched a movie called “Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls.” Upon the completion of this film, we both realized that this film was the absolute worst movie we had ever seen. We began rating films on a scale of “Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls” to 10. Many films over the years have gotten close to a unanimous “Carnival of Souls” ratings but very few have ever achieved it. One of the very few to come to mind was Stallone’s remake of Get Carter. But I feel more than confident in announcing that we have a new winner. Kurt Angle has made a film that achieved “Wes Craven Carnival of Souls” status.

The film has the production value of a film that is actually lower budget than a porn film. Very few times in life do you watch a film, and say “I really wish this film had the production value of a WWE film.” Sadly enough, that came out of The Mike’s mouth while watching it. And I couldn’t agree with him more. WWE production studios quality are leaps and bounds better than anything we saw in this film. When the sets didn’t look like they were standing on the reject streets of Sesame Street, they looked like the worst green screen work you have ever seen, even though they were using real life places (and filming) in Angle’s hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the film we actually commented that one of the back drops for a diner called Tom’s Diner actually looked like something they would use to “set the scene” for an SNL sketch. It should be noted, even though the film mentioned a place called “Tom’s Diner” the diner featured at least in this film has nothing to do with the Suzanne Vega song. (What’s even sadder I remembered the song, and it’s title Tom’s Diner when seeing the building). When you think of that, it’s kind of ironic the song Tom’s Diner has nothing to do with a diner, and the diner featured in this film actually has nothing to do with the plot!

The actors, if you dare to call them that, seemed like they were reading their lines for the first time. They were delivered with out any emotion and there wasn’t even a glimmer of chemistry between any of the actors involved. Starring alongside Angle is reality show, “Survivor: Amazon”, contestant Jenna Morasca, who got her spot in the film probably by simply showing up to the audition. I’ve seen retarded chimp pretending to be Michael Corleone act more convincingly than Kurt Angle did in this film, and surprisingly enough- Angle was the best actor in this film. It’s actually painful to watch these characters on screen. I have seen job training videos that have been of higher quality than this.

Filled with plot holes and a plot that makes no sense, this film is a disaster from the get go. I mean this film has everything you could never want in a film. If actors who can’t act isn’t enough, the film starts off with a Kurt Angle having sex with a hooker in a scene that goes at least 2 minutes past the way too uncomfortable mark. And it just doesn’t stop there. We have strippers who are more clothed than anyone else in the strip club, we have Kurt Angle dressing as “Buffo The Clown” to kidnap a cops daughter (for reasons that are never quite explained), and scenes of Angle battering women (but looking more fake than even the worst pro wrestling could ever look). The director tries to cover plot holes by throwing in bits of dialogue after the fact just to fill plot holes. There are 2 side stories that never go anywhere, one involving the cop and an affair with an exotic dancer (and roommate of one of Angle’s victims), and that same exotic dancer wrestling with the idea of stopping stripping and going to join a really poorly choreographed dance troop. The cops in the film are so incompetent, you never understand why they are doing what they are doing, and you never once feel like they are even getting close to capturing Angle’s character. Suddenly one of them just “meets up” with him on a boat and begins to battle over a gun.

To be honest, one could go over and over everything that is wrong with End Game until they are blue in the face. The film actually angers me just thinking about it. The Mike and I watched it on Wednesday night. On Thursday night we had another in depth discussion on how terrible the film was and declared it “Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls” worthy (which is lower than an “F”), and now I am again re-hashing it as I write the review. Truth be told, I feel as though I have given more thought to this film than anyone involved in it has.

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Filed under: Action, Movies, Suspense
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