Movie Review: Contagion

           I can’t say that I’d ever really want to watch Stephen Soderberg’s first post-retirement film, Contagion, ever again. Yeah, it stars everybody. Yeah, it’s good in that it's well told, entertaining/anxiety inducing. Yeah, it can be viewed as a metaphor/commentary on the current financial crisis and one of its primary motors (fear and its tendency to spread very, very quickly, especially in light of how connected all of us are, today). But the effect of whole thing was to make me just want to throw up my hands in a feeling of near-total hopelessness/powerlessness. After I’ve washed them.


Of course.

Movie Review: Warrior

            Maybe it was the fact that this reviewer had just broken up with his now ex-girlfriend only a few hours prior to seeing the UFC-themed, sports-drama Warrior, and/or that he identified on multiple levels with the film’s older-brother/every-man/fighter character “Brendan” (Joel Edgerton), but damn, Warrior was an emotionally powerful film.

Sure, Warrior was occasionally contrived, hard to believe, and over-acted (particularly by Tom Hardy as the younger-brother/fighter “Tommy”), but isn’t that what sports-dramas (“spramas”?!?) are supposed to be? This reviewer sure thinks so. And damn,  this reviewer loves himself some Nick Nolte--

   

--as the brothers’ abusive, recovering alcoholic father “Patty.”

That said, I almost went to see Warrior again a few nights after seeing it the first time. Yeah, my second viewing would have been a free one with buddies, but I still would’ve considered seeing it again even if it hadn’t been for free.

I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to Net Flix, Red Box, or On Demand it, but if it happened to be on TV or if somebody I knew were watching it and asked me to partake, this reviewer’d have no qualms watching Warrior at least one more time.

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses

            I probably wouldn’t pay any more of my hard-earned cash-money to rewatch Horrible Bosses (although I didn’t really pay to watch it the first time because I watched it at the Lake Twin, where I work); I probably also wouldn’t On Demand, Net Flix, or Red Box it; but I definitely wouldn’t mind rewatching it were it to show up on the old Bube Tube. Horrible Bosses is, often, very, very funny.

Sure, Horrible Bosses is stupid and crass and, well, crass, but it’s also funny, and, occasionally, hilariously so. For example, the scene in which Colin Farrell, brilliant as Jason Sudeikis’s horrible boss, “Bobby,” is shown amongst what one assumes are prostitutes and sh*t-tons of drugs in what turns out to be his (Bobby’s) office is, in this reviewer’s opinion, hilariously funny. Charlie Day is also, even though one knows that he’s merely being his It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia self, impossible not to be constantly amused with/laughing at. EVEN Jennifer “I should’a quit LIFE as soon as Friends ended” Aniston is humorously grotesque/sexy as Charlie Day’s horrible boss, “Julia.” And then there’s Jamie Foxx as “Mother-F*cker Jones,” which, I mean, come on, just his name (and the story of how he got it, in particular).

             For me, the one, big detractor in the whole film was Kevin Spacey, and not because he wasn't not good as Jason Bateman’s horrible boss, “Dave,” but because he was just so much better in almost the same role 15-20 years ago. I’m talking about the incredibly dark and insufficiently remembered Swimming with Sharks, in which Spacey plays a maniacal film producer who pushes one of his assistants--a young Frank Whaley, whom I just love--a little too far.

If you want to see a smarter/darker/more poignant version of Horrible Bosses, and a truly sick/brilliant Kevin Spacey, check out Swimming with Sharks. If coke, Jennifer Aniston’s titties, Mother-F*ckers, and tooth-brush-ass-wipings are more your cup of tea, stick with Horrible Bosses.