Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD Releases Kingsman: The Secret Service - Directed By Matthew Vaughn Loosely based on a comic book that somehow I never read, despite it being up my alley with all the spying and gadgets and gratuitous violence. One of those Mark Millar comics, called “The Secret Service.” I will be searching it out now, as I found the movie reasonably entertaining. It was no From Russia With love or Goldfinger, mind you, or even Layer Cake, Vaughn’s first and for my money, best film, but I have enjoyed all of his five of his Directorial efforts. Kingsman is a lot of fun, with a ludicrous plot line that the characters constantly joke about. Like Millar’s comics there isn’t a ton of depth or story, just clever usage of tropes from the genre. I like the setting the story with an outside independent Secret Service, as opposed to the done to death MI-6/CIA kind of spy movie. Colin firth is great as classy agent Harry Hart, code named Galahad. It’s nice to see h...

Glib Reviews of Fairly Recent DVD  Releases Inherent Vice - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Finally got around to seeing the latest PTA flick, which I had heard a lot of conflicting opinions on. Inherent Vice is also based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, so there are of course some heavy wight ideas going on. Personally the only Pynchon I have ever been able to finish reading is The Crying Of Lot 49.  I had my own sort of mix of skepticism and hope going into this. Tried and tried to get through V. and Gravity’s Rainbow three or four times each, but also, something makes me give up on these books, I usually am so into the books, the first half or so, then something that just happens is that I have put the books down, and moved on to something else. Maybe it’s just timing; and I say this because this is what I see in this film, something that PTA groks about pace and timing, that generally, (with the exception of “The Master, which I can’t seem to stay awake through.)...

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Welcome To Me - Directed by Shira Piven A very sharp, very much with a feminine gaze satire on how the world deals with mental illness, fame, and wealth. Sounds like reality TV? Bingo. Kristen Wiig brings us Alice Kleig, a women filled with anxiety, rage, love and medication. In a familiar plot this very typical modern Oprah obsessed heavily medicated woman wearing her neuroses on her sleeve, wins the lotto.  She decides to fund her own infomercial style ‘talk show “Welcome To Me.” I really don’t want to give much away of the story, but I will say that it all unfolds with impeccable timing, and is alternately making you laugh, cringe, and cry, maybe all three at the same time. Alice is one of those very hard to love characters, her social awkwardness both charms and wears thin as she goes from catharsis to catharsis, kind of forgetting/taking for granted the people who helped her before she won the lotto, as she wins over most o...