Burn After Reading

Cast: Everyone

Synopsis: I'm really not sure what happens in this film in spite of watching it in it's entirity only a few short hours ago...

Review: George Clooney's nuts and takes his shirt off, Brad Pitt's a crazy guy who, in spite of looking like a total douch-bag and dork-face, still looks hot, Frances MacDormand is quirky and says things like "Oh for Pete's sake!", John Malkovich gets all frustrated and swears at people (While in a floral dressing gown, holding a gun in one hand and a shot of liquor in the other), Tilda Swinton plays a stuck up bitch and J.K. Simmons once again plays an angry guy with a desk job.

What more could you need in a movie?

An automated sex dildo swing chair?

Done!

The perfect movie...

In Short: This review was already short...

Biggest Positive: Doesn't stop to let you cease being entertained from start to finish

Biggest Negative: I'll probably forget it existed and confuse it with a bunch of Wes Anderson and Spike Jonez films after a couple of months

Burn After Reading's Website

Trivia: I was going to see this at the cinema when it came out but when I read my ticket stub I burned it afterwards (obviously), and so was refused entry.
I set fire to the DVD Sleeve when it arrived in the mail today but fortunately my wife wrestled the DVD itself into the player before I had a chance to read the cover.
My attempts at setting fire to my TV screen were fruitless.

Sick Girl

Another installment in the "Masters Of Horror" TV Series...


If you're not familiar with the "Masters of Horror" TV Series then let me give you a brief summary. Basically it's a series of one hour long programs created by directors who typically make horror movies for the big screen, when they create these episodes they typically either:

a) Use it as an excuse to just show a bunch of tits for an hour (It's on HBO)

b) Create some sub-standard story that they obviously wanted to make but knew they didn't want to waste their good time making a full movie out of it

or very rarely...

c) Correctly use the format their given to tell a wonderful short story... this hardly ever happens

Now, as I was perusing through the plot summary's of some of the episodes I hadn't seen yet I saw this one and noted that it was directed by someone I had never heard of (This is supposed to be Masters of horror, let's not forget), involved a "lesbian tryst" and was about some tropical insect getting loose.
This to me meant that it was probably going to be one whole hour of topless lesbians making out while a large unrealistic looking prop spider stalks them slowly while using all sorts of Freudian symbolism and gratuitous lesbian orgy shots. This may not sound at all bad for some of you but when I watch a horror film that's not what I'm looking for so I continuously skipped past Sick Girl and watched some other episodes and a few regrettably shitty movies before finally saying "Well... I guess it's time to endure..." and starting up Sick Girl by Lucky McKee

Thankfully (dum dum dum!) I was entirely wrong about this episode and while there are moments of lesbian boobage and there is a particularly odd looking bug the piece overall was a well-acted, well-written and superbly directed hour. It isn't often we see lesbians in horror films (or possibly most any films) be anything but sassy boring sluts but in Sick Girl the pair are as awkward and fumbling as any straight couple you might expect to see in any Wes Anderson film (I dunno whether comparisons to Wes Anderson films are good to you but they are to me, so that was a compliment) and it seems to me from watching this that Lucky McKee, on writing this, seemed to do what I think is wise in making a horror film that actually stands out, by thinking about the horror plot second and concentrating for the most part on the characters who were all well written and likable. To me that just makes for a story that you actually want to follow rather than just some movie where a bunch of teenagers endlessly run at a guy with a chainsaw to see who can die in the most ridiculous way... fun though that is, it definitely makes for a more lasting greatness if the film is well written.

Which Sick Girl was!

I'm going to give this 4/5 but it might just be because I was expecting a pile of trash when I started watching it. Maybe if I watched it expecting it to be great, as you might now if you haven't already seen it, it would get a more average score but rest assured it's worth checking out!

The Man Who Sued God

This film I've been meaning to see since it came out but hadn't gotten around to it until last night. The reason it took so long, I think, is because I had basically all but lost hope in films starring Billy Connolly. Not that he's not funny, quite the opposite in fact, I think he's an extremely funny comedian but no film that I had seen to date truly made his character even remotely as funny as the man himself (A few films had him play roles well and very well - A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Fido, Who Is Cletis Tout? - but just not any roles as funny as he is) and others, such as Beautiful Joe, seemed to believe that by just having him present they didn't need to worry about having a funny script because he was there, which obviously isn't the case when someone is acting out your script. You need to have a script written to match the comedian.

So I was hesitant to see The Man Who Sued God perhaps because I expected it to be really lame and have Billy's character be another waste of a great talent but fortunately enough, I was wrong - The Man Who Sued God makes perfect use of Billy and is (almost) as funny as his stand-up routine for at least 50% of the movie and I realized what made his character better in this film...

Billy was pissed off!

In other films he had been complaisant, quaint, quirky but in this he rants, swears, shouts and screams just as much as his better stand up routines therefor making this film a much more compelling view than most of his films - if you're looking for Billy himself to be funny that is.

The only flaw, as far as I can see, is that it's a relatively dull plot and extremely predictable. You know right from the start that the ending is going to be a good one and the only challenge we have is trying to work out how it's going to get there and what amusing obstacles might stand in the way of our angry hero. Call me "weird" if you must, but I think I just prefer watching a film that you don't know is going to end up good or bad and leaves you a little tense. Unfortunately I suppose most comedies don't really do that which is probably why I spend much more of my time watching horror films that are probably 50/50 in how often they have happy endings.

I also think the love story could have been completely dropped from the movie without doing it any harm. No-one needs to see Billy Connolly do a full on open-mouthed kiss with anyone at anytime and expect to keep their lunch.

Sorry Billy!



The Man Who Sued God's NetFlix page - you can actually watch this online for no charge if you already have a NetFlix account if you go to that link before the 31st of December. Hurry!