MasterChugs Theater: ‘Piranha 3D’
Posted on September 2, 2010
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It’s not as scary as it needs to be or as clever as it thinks it is, but Piranha 3D (or just Piranha, though not to be too confused with the Joe Dante movie of the same name) is at least as gimmicky as those fabled 3D films of yore. With all the pointless 3D cartoons and joyless 3D Clash of the Titans conversions, at last here’s a picture that tosses its cookies, its coffee cups and its D-cups right in your lap.
And that’s okay. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Red Cliff’
Posted on August 19, 2010
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John Woo has set himself a new challenge in Red Cliff, and that’s to be as old-fashioned as possible. Returning to his roots after a stint in Hollywood, Woo has made the most expensive film in mainland Chinese history, a pleasantly traditional picture that marks a new direction for one of the world’s premier action maestros.
Woo’s classic Hong Kong films with tough-guy titles like Bullet in the Head and Hard Boiled featured intense, focused, almost balletic contemporary gangster shootouts that seemed to redefine what these kinds of movies could do.
Though it stars Woo regular Tony Leung, Red Cliff, by contrast, is a both throwback and change of pace, a massive historical epic that used four writers, three editors, two directors of photography, 300 horses and a cast and crew that came close to 2,000. And oh, how it is epic. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Dinner for Schmucks’
Posted on August 12, 2010
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Dinner for Schmucks, directed by Jay Roach and based on a 12-year-old French movie known in English as The Dinner Game, is in some ways an exemplary modern Hollywood comedy. It treads a careful boundary between nasty and sweet, balancing the rude humor of humiliation with an affirming, tolerant, almost scolding final message: Be nice! It dabbles in sexual naughtiness without dreaming of going too far into complicated zones of lust and betrayal.
And, most of all, the film collects a cast of performers who know how to be funny. The success of this movie, following a formula upheld by just about any recent hit comedy you can name, lies as much with supporting players and plot-derailing set pieces as with the central story and characters. Jemaine Clement as a pompous, goatish artist; Zach Galifianakis as an I.R.S. flunky who believes he has the power to control other minds; Lucy Punch as a lovestruck stalker with no control over anything: these are the people who propel the movie on its meandering, offbeat path toward a madly farcical climax followed, inevitably and less happily, by a soft and sentimental dénouement. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Inception’
Posted on July 29, 2010
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Here’s the quick and dirty review of Inception: go see it. It’s a phenomenal movie. Go. NOW.
You’re still here. Why are you still here?
Go.
NOW, I SAID.
Okay, fine, click the jump to read more words from me about it. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Beer Wars’
Posted on July 22, 2010
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A war is brewing.
It’s not the type of war that you see in the Transformers movies, where you have two sides fighting a civil war, though differing philosophies are part of the reasons behind the battle.
It’s not a war between two equally matched sides. No, this is definitely more of a David versus Goliath type of battle.
To tell the truth, this war isn’t even one with blood. That is, unless you subscribe to the “money is everything” theory seen most prominently during the eighties. In that case, something’s being bled dry.
What we have right here are Beer Wars. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Predators’
Posted on July 15, 2010
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In 1987, in the midst of his heyday, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in Predator, an action sci-fi mixed genre film that won over both critics and movie-goers. But just like everything successful in Hollywood, the studio system attempted to build it into a franchise. The first sequel, Predator 2, was made in 1990 and both Alien vs. Predator and AVPR: Alien vs. Predator – Requiem arrived in the last six years. A mixed bag commercially, the films received a common line from the critics: a big thumbs down. While containing the same alien species, there was no linear connection between the sequels and the original film (the final two films merely an excuse to get two of cinema’s classic creatures to do battle). With Nimrod Antal’s Predators, the fifth film in the line, that pattern comes to an abrupt and blissful end. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Mystery Team’
Posted on July 8, 2010
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Movies from sketch comedy groups can be dicey propositions. The formats aren’t really conducive to each other. Sketch comedy can be hilarious one moment, then the next moment it’s crickets chirping. If the group is good, they can move on quickly and forget about things. But movies are a whole other monster to tame. what could sustain three to five minutes can be awkward in this new format. Some groups can pull it off, and you get great films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brain Candy and Super Troopers. Mess it up, and you’re stuck with Miss March.
And there’s not a lot on this earth that’s worse, cinematically speaking, than Miss March.
Now we have Derrick Comedy, an internet sensation full of gentlemen whose names all begin with a “D,” though curiously, none named Derrick. Whether you find this clever or stupid will help determine whether or not you will enjoy Mystery Team. Going by this scale, however, it pleases me to no end that Mystery Team is a rather clever and hysterically funny movie with its heart in the right place that potentially puts the Derrick boys at least on track with the Broken Lizard fellas. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Born On the Fourth of July’
Posted on July 1, 2010
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Hey kids and kittens. Chug is absolutely booked solid with work this week. As such he’s running a MasterChugs flashback to tie in with this coming weekend’s events. Enjoy.
Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July is not an adaptation of the memoir by Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, though that’s what the credits indicate. It’s most certainly based on it, but it’s not necessarily an adaptation of the memoir. It’s an indulgent style showcase for Stone, who, with his longtime cinematographer Robert Richardson, employs every act of film trickery imaginable that doesn’t involve CGI effects. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Be Kind Rewind’
Posted on June 24, 2010
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In its sweet, lackadaisical way, Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind illuminates the pleasures and paradoxes of movie love. Its two main characters, a pair of Passaic, N.J., loafers named Mike and Jerry, are devotees of the Hollywood mainstream, paying tribute to well-worn classics like Ghostbusters, Driving Miss Daisy, Rush Hour 2 and The Lion King. The way they express this affection lands Mike and Jerry in a spot of copyright trouble, but they (and Gondry) provide a welcome reminder that even the slickest blockbuster is also a piece of handicraft, an artifact of somebody’s nutty, unbounded ingenuity and the potential object of somebody else’s innocent, childlike fascination. Read more
Written by Chris "Chugs" TaylorMasterChugs Theater: ‘Slither’
Posted on June 17, 2010
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An alien meteorite falls upon a small town and infects a man who can’t seem to showcase his love for his wife. The man slowly, but most assuredly, begins to turn into something that cannot be described other than to say a “really horrible monster but totally awesome effects”, and slowly infects other townspeople who all turn on the mayor, sheriff and others, who are attempting to escape and kill the lead infected. Got all that? Great, now sit back and enjoy the show!
If you’ve seen or heard anything for Slither, directed by James Gunn, any pictures from some of its gross-out moments, you pretty much have a solid idea of what it’s all about: fun, horror and really gross stuff. If you enjoy those elements, as well as homages to cool horror flicks of the past, the typical 50s “small town” set-up, mixed in with some memorable dialog (with the best clearly being unprintable) and enjoy the acting stylings of Nathan Fillion, the great Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry, this film is sure to twinkle your horror toes, particularly if mutating monsters, slugs, zombies and really disgusting scenarios are your bag o’ chips. The film starts off with your typical small town set-up, establishing all of the characters slowly, but surely, and teasing us with some effects as the “alien” being lands in a field outside of town; however, once the extra-terrestrial being infects Rooker’s character, the fun really begins as he mutates and the fit hits the shan.
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