Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib Reviews of Movies on the Netflix Deadpool  - Directed by Tim Miller The very first movie I have watched on Netflix in 6 months.....You know given that I’m such a big superhero comics nerd, you’d think all the super-movies out there would thrill me. They are okay. And occasionally they are good, sometimes not very good at all. But I’d say we have enough in this recent wave of them to say the average is pretty average, really. I enjoy watching them, even the crappy ones just because they are my comic books sort of come to life. But mostly I’m disappointed when they aren’t animated. I like comics because of the form more than anything. Graphic narrative storytelling aka comics have always been my first love, go to media to entertain myself. Something about real life versions of super folks though irritates me. Is it the cheesy dialogue? I read and love lots of comics with cheesy dialogue. Really, for me each comic book (or graphic novel) whatever the style of ...

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 DVD Releases Matinee Double Feature Edition, kind of. I recently watched a couple of DVDs based on the recommendation of one of my former co-workers from my video store days, which ended in 2014, but seem like ages ago somehow. Both films were pretty disturbing, and despite the very big differences in style and sensibility, had the same kind of message, that ‘regular’ people do very bad things sometimes, and sometimes they pay a karmic price, but sometimes not at all. Nasty Baby - Directed by Sebastian Silva An interesting double bill, which in my case means I watched one of these each over two afternoons. It’s been ages since I did an afternoon movie watch, let alone two days in a row. Nasty Baby came first, directed and starring Sebastian Silva as a queer artist named Freddy living with his boyfriend Mo in what seems to be Brooklyn. He has some pretentious video art installation ideas using adult babies. All the characters are intriguing...

Glib Review of Ant-Man - Directed By Peyton Reed I liked a great many things about Ant-Man. The action scenes were good, the sfx I thought were quite good, the story was an interesting spin on a Marvel character I know very well, having been a comics nerd since the early 70’s. The changes in character from the comics to film universe are pretty reasonable. I thought Paul Rudd was great, as was Michael Douglas, and Evangeline Lily. I liked the family dynamic, and Bobby Cannavale is always great. The scene, not to spoil anything, with The Falcon is one of the best 'getting to know you' superhero fights on film. but.... but something about this movie bugged me. Groan.... True story though. I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. But the things I thought gummed up the works, were Lang’s sidekick ethnic stereotype buddies in crime. Michael Pena gave it his all, but a lot of the humour these guys were supposed to add fell flat for me, which messed up the pa...

Glib reviews Of recent DVDs The Wolfpack -Directed By Crystal Moselle Do you like documentaries about charming but creepy outsider weirdo artists or families? Who doesn’t? I keep thinking that film makers are going to run out of odd but relatable weirdo families to follow around. Lucky for me, and director Moselle, that hasn’t happened yet.  I don’t want to spoil it much, but the premise is simple. An alternative couple who find the world around them to be super toxic, decide to have a lot of kids, and to home school and raise the kids in public housing in the lower east side of Manhattan. They have seven kids, 6 boys who don’t seem to have much age difference between them, the oldest being maybe 20 or 21, it seems. They rarely venture outside, but of course make their own fun in the apartment. they do so by recreating their favourite movies from scratch, using quite ingenious home made costumes and props that bring to mind that cult hit from a few years ago, Be K...

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 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...

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 5 Phase 4 - Directed by Saul Bass Another 70’s cult classic that I had never seen before, despite bringing the dvd home 2 or 3 times over the years I worked at the video store. One of those movies that I just kept putting off, never in the mood for it. That’s part of my raison d’être in getting back into blogging more often; as much as it is to get me writing every day, it is also to catch up on movies and TV that I have been procrastinating over. I plan to move my TV and comic book reviews from my facebook groups to my blog, more posts, wider audience, they say. So why post only on FB, where it is mostly just my friends seeing it? Anyway, onto the movie.... Legendary Movie Title Designer Saul Bass (from Vertigo to Goodfellas, so many insanely great title sequences, by Bass) only made one movie. It’s a very unique picture, wherein the titles actually appear as part of the structure of the film, through...

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...

Glib Reviews of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz! Day 2 of my Blog Film Fest of classic and not so classic 70’s Sci-Fi Most of the flicks I am reviewing are of the more obscure, or cultish variety, in fact. Not bothering to include Alien, Star Wars, or Close Encounters in this little fest. When I do these week long or so film fests of my very own, I am more interested in things I either haven’t seen, or maybe only seen once or twice back when said movie came out. I have seen maybe close to 10,000 movies, yet there are still thousands I haven’t seen. Some of which might even be decent flicks. Anyhoo, last night I did my first double bill of the festival, and was up way past my bedtime. If I do that again, I will start a bit earlier. You know I am dedicated to doing this little self festival, when I chose to skip (and pvr-ing) watching my two favourite network tv shows last night, The Flash, and Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Last night’s pairing was the W...