Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib reviews of recent-ish DVD and/or Blurays Bone Tomahawk This is one weird movie, or really maybe it’s two weird movies or three. Weird western definitely, of the more bookish Jonah Hex kind of tales. Not the movie, the 70’s version of the Comics is my touchstone. Ol’ Jonah was grizzled as heck and dealt occasionally with some spookier creepier western elements, in a very pulp western type of way. The first few minutes of the film were all about Sid Haig’s ode to Slim Pickens in his portrayal of a deeply cynical murderer and brigand who stumbles across into a burial ground and horrors unseen but seared in your brain in a very verite styled opening. Maybe there are a few short films in this movie that I like more, the more I write about it, defomitely more than when I sat down, to give it a middlin’ review, but thinking about it in review as opposed to the more visceral vibe of right after the movie ends, literally with a thud. If you are a fan of slow moving wester...

Glib Reviews of Recent Movies. The Revenant  - Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu Like Iñárritu’s last film, “Birdman,” I was sucked in early, then spit out just before the ending. I feel like going back and seeing if his early films fail me in the third act as much as his last few. The film as a whole was quite good, cinematically, the actors were amazing if occasionally too mannered. I mean maybe Tom Hardy’s incoherent mumbling was supposed to be incoherent? Even if that is so; it still took away from an interesting character’s arc.  The cinematography, as usual in Iñárritu’s pictures is astounding. Though, I found the Argentinian shot scenes a bit jarring with the much more haunted looking forests than the stuff done in the Rockies, that was supposed to match up. Quibbles though, that. Some stuff was done in a studio in Burnaby also. For me the simple story gave way to non-story, with the prolonged chase at the end, which was much more paint by number...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD/Blu-Ray Releases The Avengers: Age Of Ultron Directed by Joss Whedon Well, it definitely was not as bad as a lot of folks made it out to be this little film. I am a big reader of comic books, and superhero fan, but even I think there are too many superhero movies. While this movie doesn’t quite capture the fun of the first Avengers movie, it scores a lot of points for me, simply by not being called Avengers 2. Oh, there are tons of spoilers in this review, fyi. The initial scene where everything is cgi seemingly except a few cutaways is weirdly out of place in terms of the cinematography, but it is a comic book movie, so I say embrace the cgi. It is supposed to be a bit ‘cartoony’. The lack of actual Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes the whole thing less fun. The second most jarring thing for me was James Spader’s laconic glib take on Ultron. This really threw me for about half the movie, Ultron sounds like a preppy overprivileged lawyer?  ...

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 movies still in The Theatre. Mad Max: Fury Road - Directed By George Miller Maybe it was all the hype, maybe not, but I probably didn’t think this film was as good as I had been told. Don’t get me wrong, it was very entertaining, and I will rate it fairly high on my dorky ‘outta 10’ scale, but simply for sheer entertainment value. Obviously the film passes the ‘Bechdel test’. But it is by no means some sort of Feminist masterpiece, nor is it some kind of misandry masterpiece as the mra nutters would have you believe. What I watched was an exciting, silly, high budget chase movie with lots of car crashes, ‘Road Warrior-esque’ bad guys, and suitably post-apocalyptic backdrop. The look was pretty consistent with the second two Mad Max Movies; Road Warrior (I do not acknowledge the whole mad max 2 nonsense anymore than I do, ‘a new hope nonsense’ [/grumpyoldperson]) and Beyond Thunderdome, which yes, counts. It’s quirky and fun, and also has a couple of ba...

Josie's comics panels of the week aka Glib Reviews of new comics. Originally I did a few of these comic book posts on this blog, then I joined a facebook comics chat group, and started doing them there. But now I feel like, since I am doing these anyway. maybe I should blog them. ***All artwork, etc obviously copyright the various creators and or companies, namely Marvel, DC, Boom, Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, and so on. I am using these images for review/homage purposes. I have no idea if that covers the copyright, but if anyone wants their art taken down shoot me a message and I will gladly do so. I am just reviewing stuff I dig**** So this week DC officially starts it's Convergence Event, which is exactly like Marvel's Secret Wars, but quirkier grimdarkier n whatever. as with all crossover/reboots some of it is dreadful, some meh, mostly meh, but with a few real gems. which really is all I ask from either Marvel or DC, a few gems among the 'born again...

Glib Reviews Of New Movies! It Follows - Directed By David Robert Mitchell It Follows is a great example of how you can make a really decent film with little more than a solid concept, some punchy dialogue, over the top mood music, and a few great locations. The movie itself is a wee bit overhyped in my opinion. It is a very good little movie, but I wasn’t quite as blown away as some folks seem to be. There is little that is revolutionary, rather the movie turns a couple of horror tropes on their heads, and tosses in some really good acting from the young actors in the piece.  In the setup, we see a scantily glad young woman running from some unseen (to all but her) force following her. When we get to our heroes, who are tres modern, though often drive cool older cars. Maybe because: Detroit is the setting. Without spoiling things too much, what makes this film so clever is that it turns the teenage sex (if you do it, you die) movie tropes with some nice twists....

Glib Reviews of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz!  Day 6 I finished up my little quirky Sci Fi of the 70’s solo film fest last night with George Lucas’ other Sci Fi movie of the 70’s and actually his best sci fi movie of the 70’s as far as actual film making goes. Yes, that’s right. THX 1138 is  a “better film” than Star Wars. THX 1138 - Directed By George Lucas Like I say above I was really impressed with how well THX 1138 holds up to over 40 years later scrutiny. It may not be quite as capital ‘I’ Iconic as Star Wars (that’s episode 4 to the young people) but its pretty close. The look and the feel of it, have aged really well and the dystopia that is on display is in my opinion more realistic to today’s viewers than those of 1971. Robert Duvall is the title character, a hazardous materials handler in a giant factory, he spends his days putting rods of plutonium into small spaces (think the opening of The Simpsons, like that) and at night he ...

Glib Reviews Of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz! Day 4 After a mid festival break so I could go to choir rehearsal, I got back on the 70’s Sci Fi wagon last night, which this time was filled with cheese, oh so much cheese, and some disturbingly relevant to the culture of today observations from two very culty Sci Fi flicks from the 70’s. I wanted to write: “Ye Olde 70’s,” just then. Who am I? Stan Lee?  John Carpenter’s not nearly as dated as you remember Dark Star, and the Disney Film everyone remembers as one of the worst of their childhood, isn’t/they aren’t so terrible, not at all.  But let’s get on to the actual Reviews, True Believers! Dark Star - Directed By John Carpenter It might seem too obvious a choice to pair a film called Dark Star, with one called The Black hole. It is indeed an apt pairing. I had quite an enjoyable evening of cheese and humour, as well as some great cornball low budget fx (Dark Star) and some gorgeous han...