Welcome assholes! This will be the first in Shouting Ground’s exclusive rapid-fire review segment entitled “Shotgun Theater”. It’s open to reviews of anything you please, just organized into a common format. For Shotgun posts, keep your reviews to a single paragraph (1 para, but go as long as you have the wind for)…and like I said, blast anything from movies to trailers, software, games, consoles, politicians, soda, music, hooters, anything. Shotgun Theater is an attempt to bring to written form the format of the “coming revulsions” episode of a Thousand Cuts. I’m also going to resurrect the extremely popular “Arousal Scale”, to be attached to each shotgun blast.
Today I’ll be firing three rounds straight from the hip…covering Michael Clayton, Gone Baby Gone, and Death Sentence. I’ll throw up a warning if I get into any spoiler material so’s I don’t ruin the movie if you haven’t seen it.
Michael Clayton
Going into MC, I didn’t know what to expect since none of the trailers or commercials showed anything that could hint to the thrust of the movie except for George Clooney running through and/or looking around a forest, and yelling at Tilda Swinton “Do I look like I’m negotiating?!” Without going into too much detail, the movie unfolds much like a John Grisham movie, i.e. The Firm or The Rainmaker. If you like legal dramas, you’ll be very pleased. If you like great acting by more than one person, you’ll be extremely pleased. Tom Wilkinson is fantastic, George Clooney is pretty great, but while Tilda Swinton was above average (guess that’s not saying much these days given the median quality of acting…i.e. dogshit) I don’t think she gave an Oscar-worthy performance. She made her character believable, but she didn’t pop off the screen like Tom Wilkinson did. That being said, I can’t remember who she was measured against for Best Supporting…nor if I had seen any of their films. The pace of the movie is again, similar to a John Grisham film…but shouldn’t put you in a coma. Arousal Scale – Magic John Stone for Michael Clayton: Vlasic
Gone Baby Gone
WTF you say? Ben Affleck’s directing a movie? Sure to be an abortion right…given his recent stringy mess of diarrhea. Ah…lest we forget he and Matt Damon wrote an Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting. So maybe while he doesn’t seem able to choose great acting roles for himself, he might just know something about making fucking movies. MJS says “Shit yeah he does”. Gone Baby Gone is a great goddamn movie. Not only are great performances turned in by Casey Affleck, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, but Michelle Monaghan is pretty decent as the female lead (the only reason I point this out is I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Rachel Bilson’s worthlessness in Jumper)…she actually plays a believable role as a person with a brain and beating heart, contributing to the motion of the film instead of simply providing aim for an erstwhile boner. You might remember her from Mission: Impossible 3, but you might not. She’s some creepy amalgamation of several actresses, including Katie Holmes (how do you think she got the part opposite the Cruise Missle?). Anyways, fuck her…back to the movie. The Elder Affleck is able to make this movie different by changing the pacing of the plot from a normal movie, just when you think it should be nearly ending, you find out its not…and you’re kept guessing. Great first effort. Arousal Scale – Magic John Stone for Gone Baby Gone: Stone Cold
Death Sentence
Released around the same time as The Brave One, both movies slipped into the big shitter of cinema quickly after being released. However, having seen The Brave One, I had to see this for comparison…with fingers crossed that the director wouldn’t try to get the Bacon to flash his cock for the eighteenth time. Enough with the dick talk… While this movie was a serviceable thriller, I can’t help but feel depressed after watching it…JT would love it. I will say that it did avoid some of the pitfalls of the Brave One, i.e. unexplainable stupidity by law enforcement. I won’t say anything more about that. And while DS did have its share of gruesome killing, I’ve seen it all before…and by much more convincing people than the Bacon. That being said, the Bacon did do a good job of portraying a normal guy that was thrust into the situation of the movie, including some of the hesitation I think a normal person would have in some of the situations. And in closing, John Goodman looked bad in this movie…like John Candy during Wagons East bad. Have a rice cake or two, old buddy. Arousal Scale – Magic John Stone for Death Sentence: Hobbled
March 11th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Cheers on the write ups and awesome segment title!
I definitely have to check out Gone Baby Gone and others, but who has the time these days. I made the mistake of on-demanding the Comebacks and nearly puked a stool-sundae. Fuck that movie’s simple ass attempt at humor. Don’t these assholes watch their dailies and think to themselves “do I really want my fucking name on this dog-shit?”
Sorry to derail here, but for fuck’s-sake it was goddamn terrible.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Yes, excellent coverage of all 3 films! I look forward to more rapid fire reviews in the future!!
March 11th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Should we (you, John Stone) start making up arousal scale graphics for all the varying forms? That sounds like a project, eh, eh?