Beware mysterious cursed objects from the Orient: “Case 39″

Hey, do I have a surprise for you today, amigos. For while your humble public servant Gunmonkey was cavorting about Kuala Lumpur, I got a chance to take in a few movies. One had been released in the States for a while, but the other was a mystery. After consultation in a few ancient texts (okay, IMDB) I discovered this was actually the fabled Case 39! Doubtless you’ve heard whispers of this movie’s existence. Maybe you thought it was something innately unknowable like the Holy Grail or the Loch Ness Monster. Perhaps you thought it was simply a myth.  Like flying saucers or moderate Republicanism. Nope. It was very real. Very real and very, um, dumped into movie theaters on the other side of the world. And when you come across an artifact like that there is only one thing to do: put on your fedora, coil your bullwhip and venture into the treacherous depths of cinematic peril.

Dennis Quaid gets punched by an angel: “Legion”

So, it’s gotten to the point where just seeing Dennis Quaid’s name makes me react involuntarily. For a year I managed to sleep through incoming and outgoing artillery barrages, but see the words DENNIS QUAID—together or separately—and the next thing I know I’m curled in a fetal ball rocking and keening, while desperately trying to get to my happy place (it entails Corn Nuts and green Orion Slave Girls—let’s not belabor this point). Anyway, Legion, the latest crapfest Quaid decided it would be a good idea to appear in, doesn’t even roll any cast credits in the title cards. Maybe Hollywood has figured out that when audiences see Quaid’s name in the credits, they immediately flip from “I’ll give this a chance…could be entertaining…” to “Oh God no….fuck no!” But in Quaid’s defense he’s really only one ingredient in  the dreck-on-a-bun that is this movie.

Seeing Movies in Kuala Lumpur…

Hey there, loyal readers (or bored pilgrims who stumbled across this site while researching chicks in glasses and/or Rosario Dawson). I’m coming to you from Kuala Lumpur for the next couple movies. I’ve been dispatched here on a brief assignment. While I can’t give you details, if, when you’re reading this, you are not the slave of a race of fiercely colonial porpoise-people, then I’ve been successful.

Sharks, canals, swordfights, and Stevie B! “Sharks in Venice”

When you really think about it, why aren’t there sharks in Venice? The damn place is all canals, surely there should be some sharks in the water, right? Or some jackhole squids. Or even a couple of friendly octopi just hanging out listening to some Four Tet? I’m sure there’s a good reason, and I could Wikipedia it, but I’m not. For I have a movie to review, and that movie is Sharks in Venice. It features sharks. It features Venice. It features one of the lesser-Baldwins. Really how bad could it be? Okay, read those last sentences again.

Gunmonkey Presents: THE WORST MOVIES OF 2009!!!

Okay, well I’ve put this off long enough. Time for Gunmonkey’s Worst Films of 2009!!! Now before we dive head-first into last year’s vast reservoirs of crap, a few words about my rating standards. Mostly I leave direct-to-DVD flicks off this list. I mean, saying Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus was one of the worst films of last year is a bit like saying last year February happened. I mean, no duh. Of course it was one of the worst films of the year. It’s called Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, fer chrissakes! I think pretty much everyone involved in the movie knew they were making one of the worst films of the year (nay, the newborn millennium). No, I like to reserve space on this list for cinematic releases that someone in Hollywood decided, amid doing lines of coke and surfing for midget porn on the Internet, to throw money and talent at. These are the movies that has every advantage over their B-movie brethren and still screwed the pooch.  So without further ado…

Gunmonkey Presents: THE BEST MOVIE STUFF OF 2009!!!

Sorry this is so late. Illness and the overall suckatude of 2009’s cinematic offerings delayed the hell out of this post. I gotta say, I almost didn’t do one this year. I mean, the best thing I can recall from my movie watching experience in 2009 was seeing Eliza Dushku in a thong in Nobel Son, and that movie wasn’t even an offering from this year. Nonetheless, I let Bangkok go to work on me, got my sabai on (read what you will into that), and decided to try an ac-centuate the positive. And for my troubles spent five days writhing in agony with abdominal pain. Anyway, enough about the martyrdom of your faithful Gunmonkey, here is The Best Movie Stuff of 2009!!!!

The renegade at Baker Street: “Sherlock Holmes”

I am sure that the new big screen treatment of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal detective has already sent Sherlock Holmes purists into fits of apoplexy. Personally, I’m okay with that, since purists are almost always apoplectic about something (there are 007 fans who are upset that Bond’s housekeeper, May, has never been worked into the scripts). Besides, it was high time that Holmes was liberated from the deerstalker-hat (which he never wore in the original stories) and “Elementary, my dear Watson!” (which he never said).  To this end, Robert Downey Jr. is loosed like a wrecking ball on the popular image of Holmes, with the result of creating an interesting, compelling, endlessly watchable new take on a classic hero.

Mila Jovavich just totally lied to you: “The Fourth Kind”

Apparently, Nome, Alaska is the epicenter of UFO sightings and encounters. This, at least, according to the utterly disposable The Fourth Kind. Nome, the movie posits, has scores of disappearances a year. The FBI has unleashed an army of investigators to figure out what the hell keeps happening to all those Nomians. Tons of people suffer from various anxiety-related disorders that are actually caused by the repressed trauma of alien abduction. Basically, what I’m taking away from all this is that if you go to Nome, you will almost certainly be butt-raped by aliens.

James Cameron dances with blue cat/monkeys: “Avatar”

Watching Avatar in 3D is to be immersed in a completely alien and unique world. The reported 300-500 million that James Cameron blew on it is all right up there onscreen, mostly in form of the Na’vi—tall blue creatures with catlike faces and monkey-like tails. That these are our main characters and that they are rendered as realistically as any of the flesh and blood actors opposite them is a testament to the decade-plus that Cameron spent pioneering the technology he needed to bring his vision to life. Look past the 3D and what you basically have is The Last Samurai in outer space, only if Tom Cruise and Koyuki were blue cat/monkeys who looked deep into each others’ eyes and solemnly intone “I see you.” Yeah, it’s incredibly silly. But damn it, it’s expensive and realistic-looking silliness. And that’s sort of the problem with the movie.

Who let the dogs out? “New Moon” (for Barry)

Because if you read my review of Twilight you know it sure as hell wasn’t for me. As a matter of fact, until Barry requested it, reviewing this movie ranked just below “being waterboarded and/or sexually-humiliated at Gitmo” on my list of things to do. But Barry is a dedicated reader—occasionally using this blog to procrastinate from his law school studies, and that sort of dedicated readership needs to be rewarded. So it was that I snuck into a showing of New Moon alone (the work-wife, at whose pad I’m currently flopping while I’m in the States, was busy attacking her neighbor’s car with a hooligan tool she apparently keeps for just such a purpose), and, once the shame, discomfort, and overall creepy sexual-predator vibe was erased by the comforting darkness of the theater, I settled in for another journey to Forks, WA. And then the pain began.