Cleaning out the queue

This one's for tmoney. I figured an easy post would be to copy and paste my returned movies off Netflix and then write an little something something about each. I may have mentioned a few of these here before, but fuck you.

Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries - Getting into this, better late than never. This is the first 3 hours of the first season of the show. It's exciting to have an intelligent show with all its episodes stretched out in front of me. This is my Wire replacement. Mythical planet called earth indeed.

Bender's Big Score - It's new Futurama, what more do you need?

Zodiac - I enjoyed this. It was super long, which means it has to be good to hold the interest. Jake Gyllenhall is a newspaper cartoonist obsessed with catching the Zodiac killer back in '70s San Francisco. There's also the underrated Mark Ruffalo as a cop. Noirish period piece serial killer thriller police procedural with a journalism ethics hook. True story.

The Host - This flick is surprisingly awesome. You can never go wrong with a monstrous creature chasing down and eating asians. But it has more going on than just that -- there's themes of questioning authority and anti-Americanism. Highly recommend you check this one out. Plus did I mention it has asian people running from a giant monster?

City of God - Oh Brazilian child-gangsters, is there anything you won't do? Apparently not, after watching this. This 'based on a true story' tale of hoods growing up in the a Rio de Janiero slum is just outstanding if not for the faint of heart.

American Gangster - Yet another real good 'based on a true story' police procedural. But where Zodiac has the newspaper lens, this plays it straight cops and robbers. Worth seeing. I wish I could have made arrangements with drug operations in the middle of the jungle during the Vietnam war.

The King of Kong - Who knew the world of classic arcade games was so ruthless and cutthroat? This documentary explores how one laid-off engineer challenges a decades old Donkey Kong record high score held by hot-sauce magnate Billy Mitchell. But Mitchell isn't about to see his record fall without using all the leverage he has built up through his years of connections with the Twin Galaxies web site. This movie rules.

Black Snake Moan - Well this movie's marketing campaign could be summed up by 'scantily-clad Christina Ricci.' Which was good enough for me, but there is actually a lot more going on here I suppose. Blues guitarist Sam 'Lazarus' Jackson tries to help the sex-addict by chaining her to his radiator. Also, Justin Timberlake is a GI who suffers from anxiety attacks for some reason. 3 stars.

Hot Fuzz - See Here.

The Lookout - This bank heist caper centers around Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as a brain damaged high school jock turned janitor. You may remember him from Brick, or possibly as the kid in Third Rock from the Sun. It's a coming of age tale about a man coping with a life-changing disability by getting involved with dangerous criminals and hooking up with Isla Fisher. 'Whoever has the money has the power' makes a lot of sense.

Wet Hot American Summer - I recommend watching this with the 'more farts' track turned on.


A Scanner Darkly - Blah blah, Philip K. Dick story about drugs, paranoia, mind control and government conspiracies made into digital animated film starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr. and Wynonna Rider.

The Hoax - Retelling of Clifford Irving's fabrication of a Howard Hughes biography. Marked by solid performances by Richard Gere as Irving and Alfred Molina as Dick Suskind. Playing with facts is fun.


That's it for now, I got 'Half Nelson' in the mail today -- time to start rebuilding the list one drug addicted inner city teacher at a time.