A to Z Blogging Challenge: La Mission

"La Mission" follows a father and son working though their issues. The father, an ex-convict, has to deal with anger issues, and his son has to deal with understanding his homosexuality and his father. To say his father isn't quite understanding and accepting is an understatement.

A Father.

Through out the movie you can tell Che does love his son. He just can't come to grips with his son's sexuality. It is a cocktail problem: part religion, part fear for his son's safety, and a touch of homophobia from not understanding what it means to be gay. It doesn't help that he was in prison, one of the most macho environments outside of the military.

A Son.

Jes is a really strong character. The whole time he stands up for himself. It would have been easy to claim it was a phase or that it was something that could be prayed away. Even worse; it was a white boy... you don't surprise your dad with a white boy. You work them up to a white boy if you live in the hood. Instead he tries to explain it to his dad, and work out with him and pushes back against people as they try to bully him.

Review: Blitz

Review: "Blitz" (2011)

Directed by: Elliot Lester
Starring: Jason Statham, Paddy Considine, Aidan Gillen
Official movie website and trailer 

Synopsis: A ruthless killer is targeting cops. It takes an especially dangerous cop to catch the killer.

Reviewer: Jason
Status: Meh.

Jason Statham is actually 'The Most Interesting Man in the World' in the commercials. It took a lot of effort, but he built a time machine and came back to film them. Statham has been a model, Olympic diver, black market merchant, martial artist in multiple forms - and when he gets the time, he's an actor.

That's why I was sad to see "Blitz." Maybe my expectations were too high from movies like the "Transporter" series where Statham did all his own stunts. This movie was relatively boring.

When I watch a movie for this blog I usually have my laptop open or a piece of paper so I can take notes. This time, I only wrote one thing,  "Joker-Purple." The action is few and far in between and the plot was pretty easy to guess.  

"Joker-Purple"

The villain Barry Weiss reminded me a lot of The Joker. When we are introduced to him he isn't wearing a shirt and has a purple and blue track suit with toxic green sun glasses. Actually, a lot shots they did were reminiscent of how they shot the Joker in "The Dark Knight." Problem is, that is too lofty of a goal for even the best movie. Aidan Gillen doesn't fall flat as a villain, he is just no Ledger.

Face Off: Rubber

FACE OFF: "Rubber" (2010)

Directed by: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1612774/.
Official movie website and trailer 

Synopsis: "Rubber" is a movie that follows a tire (yes, a rubber tire) on adventures. The tire makes things explode. People gather in the desert to watch him. A cop pursues him.

Critic: Tara

"Rubber." Well, at least it wasn't a movie about condoms. It may as well have been, though. I will never get that hour and a half of my life back. Had this film been ten minutes long, it would have been endearing. Unfortunately, it was made as a full-length movie.

The film satirized everything at once, so I couldn't really tell if it was satirizing its own artistic cinematography, but the shots in the film were actually done masterfully. Another thing I liked about the movie was the soundtrack. There are only so many ways that the character of Robert the Tire can express himself, but the carefree music that accompanies his initial journey is amusing and expressive. Additionally, the acting talent are competent, which is interesting consider they interact with a tire.

The tone of this movie is summed up in one line by the character identified only as "black woman" when she says: "She'll start with a good blow job." Yes, the bad tire puns are endless.

Also, this kid in the movie says "It's already boring." It's good when the characters are actually aware that the movie in which they appear is making the audience fall asleep.

I don't consider a movie entirely valuable unless it helps me reflect about culture, country, or self. At the very least, it should make me laugh. This just made me groan and pine for that hour and a half. I should have read a book instead. Lesson learned.

This just left me wanting to slash a tire.


Defender: Jason

I am really watching this movie so I can make Tara watch it. Why? Really for no reason. "Rubber" is a forth wall shattering movie about a tire that comes to life and makes things explode. I feel the need to retype that. "Rubber" is a fourth wall breaking movie about a tire that comes to life and makes things explode. Yes, I retyped it, no copy paste here.

 "Rubber" explores the how we accept so many things in movies just so we can watch. I can actually think of an example of a movie that this happened to me. "Spider-Man." There was a moment where I honestly thought, “Holy Crap, Tobey Maguire is really good at swinging on those webs high above the city.”