Hot Nerd Girl

Category: Reviews

  • RED: Really Excited Dork

    First image that popped up on a Google search. This is the right poster… right?

    Actually, it stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous and if this movie proves anything, it’s that they don’t make them like they used to.  I say this for two reasons.  There is the obvious one: the movie revolves around older and much more experienced agents battling it out against younger, less experienced agents.  And the less obvious one: they don’t make actors and action stars like they used to.

    My friend Wayne and I stayed out late on a school night to see RED (he’s a teacher so I’m not kidding when I say that).  Partly because it’s based on a DC graphic novel of the same name, and partly because we hadn’t hung out since High School and it was an excellent reason to get together.  Plus, if he had backed out he probably knows that I wouldn’t have taken “no” for an answer 😉  So thanks for seeing it with me Wayne!

    On to movie reviewing…

    The Good Guys: (I type this with a smirk on my face since all anyone in the movie does is kill people)

    Bruce Willis is in fine form in his patented role as a professional badass playing cat and mouse with the people who done him wrong.  I’m pretty sure it’s a character type that was invented for him.

    Morgan Freeman has cancer again (ie The Bucket List) and is excited to get in one last hurrah.  I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to NOT like Morgan Freeman.  He’s freakin’ awesome.  This might just be my favorite role that John Malkovich has ever played.  If he hadn’t been surrounded by a bevy of equally talented performers he probably would have stolen the show…inside of a pink pig stuffed animal.

    I love Brian Cox.  He was in X-Men.  That is reason enough.  In this movie he plays a ruskie convincingly.  I prefer him with his beard and he does not disappoint here.  The casting directors displayed a flash of brilliance when they brought in Mary-Louise Parker to play Bruce’s love interest.  I am absolutely convinced that no one else could have played this role.  She holds her own against the masters and displays some of the best comedic timing in the movie.  See kids?  Weed is a good thing.  Just kidding.  Don’t tell your parents I said that.

    Even I think this is hot.

    The piece de resistance (and a HUGE reason why I went to see this movie) is Helen Mirren.  I think people forget that she’s played many a badass lady and focus on the fact that she’s older and British and must therefore be prim and proper.  Bullshit.  Granted, she arranges flowers and makes tea and crumpets, but the site of seeing her fire a semi-automatic while wearing a white ball gown will forever endear her to me.

    The Bad Guys

    Karl Urban has done an excellent job of ingraining himself in the nerd lexicon.  From Lord of the Rings to Pathfinder to Star Trek, he seems to choose his projects based on how many conventions he can rely on as an older, washed up actor.  Smart man.  He’s the only “bad guy” you really care about.  He starts off a cold and calculated drone of the system but his wits kick in and it becomes clear that he really just wants to do what’s right (side note: in my humble opinion, KU would have made an excellent Thor. Chris Hemsworth…aka Kirk’s ill-fated daddy…better step up).

    Rebecca Pidgeon (who?) plays KU’s boss.  She’s about as expressive as a brick wall but can work a power suit better than most.  She twists KU’s balls in a bunch while pretending she’s a fellow, if slightly-higher-up drone.

    And for the ladies…

    Here it is, my 2nd movie review ever on HNG, and I’m writing about Richard Dreyfuss again.  God bless the second wind, it has served him well.  Richard Dreyfuss is the baddest of the bad and he REALLY wants you to know it.  In fact, he helpfully reminds you of it in every one of his scenes.  I can see why someone would get annoyed by that.  Personally, I thought it was pretty funny.  The rest of the baddies are nameless and forgettable with the exception of an explosive redhead.  Faceless as they may be, they play their parts with gusto.

    I was expecting the action and I was not disappointed (you’ve probably already seen my favorite shot in the trailers, the part where Bruce exits his stolen cop car mid-spin while firing his pistol).

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayFfMfN5AvE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

    However; what pleasantly surprised me was the humor and the gratuitous violence.  We’ve already established that I am a big fan of both.  The only time I wasn’t laughing was during the dramatic climax…a part I’m assuming was not intended to be laughed at.  There were a few intended chuckles but I kind of missed the humor I’d become accustomed to during that part.  In their defense, I’m not sure that it could have been incorporated properly without making it cheese-tastic ala Zoolander.  I was also delighted at the body count and the manner in which they were dispatched.  Who knew a bullet fired at an RPG would do that??  The RPG itself was a bit superfluous, but you won’t see me complaining about it.

    All in all, well worth the $13 ticket price.  Heck, I would even see it again in the theatre.

    Riotous.  Electrifying.  Delightful.

    4 out of 5 SCI-FIVES!

  • My Top 10 Campy Horror Films

    In honor of Halloween, or Samhain, or however you choose to refer to it, here is my list of the most awesomely cheese-stastic and hi-larious horror flicks of all time.

    10. Anything based on a Stephen King novel

    "That's right. I'm seducing you…. with my EYES!"

    From Carrie to The Mist I counted 82 (!!!) film adaptations of Mr. King’s work.  That’s no small shit.  Some of them are the best horror films of all time like Misery and The Shining.  Some are cheese-tastic wonderlands like It and Pet Cemetery.  They’re all pretty freaking scary.  Mr. King gets on the list, if for nothing else, than for the sheer volume of work based on his novels.

    9. Tales of the Crypt: Bordello of Blood

    A vampire brothel being run out of a funeral home.  Corey Feldman finally getting his turn at vampire glory.  Dennis Miller running a private detective business out of a porn theatre.  Angie Everhart as the mother of all vampires.  What more do you need?  Besides some sunblock that is.

    8. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

    Some people will argue with me about whether or not this counts as a horror film.  It’s my list and I say it counts.  So there.  Besides, it’s got “horror” in the title.  I don’t feel that I need to explain any further.  It’s got music and dancing and sci-fi and Tim Curry in drag.  In 2005 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by non other than our own Library of freakin’ Congress and was declared “culturally and historically significant.”  How many musical horror comedy rock operas can say that, hmmm?

    7. Child’s Play

    Coincidence? I think not.

    When I was a kid we had a doll that came from some family member long gone and had been passed down through the generations.  This doll was kept in a pillowcase in the far reaches of my closet because I was the girl and Lord forbid my brother have a doll in the back of his closet that no one will ever see.  I got curious one day and pulled down said doll in pillowcase.  I remember seeing the back of the head first.  That in itself was pretty creepy.  I turned the doll around and her eyeballs had fallen out of their sockets and were rolling around in the back of her head.  They suddenly stopped rolling and were staring straight at me.  Needless to say, I have never and will never look upon the face of that doll again.  Dolls are creepy.  Period

    6. Gremlins

    What child of the 80’s didn’t want a mogwai as a pet when they were a kid??  This movie contained enough unforeseen violence that it helped convince the Motion Picture Association of America to reform its rating system.  Drops of water, not great but manageable for a while.  Food after midnight.  Baaaad.  The main lesson gleaned from this film: never buy anything in Chinatown.

    5. The Lost Boys

    Oh, the horror that is teen angst.  I’m pretty sure “Santa Carla” is supposed to be Venice, CA.  Gang-ridden or not, how many coastal cities in California do you know of that would let an earthquake crumpled hotel just sit there instead of building something else on the property?  Just sayin’.  It’s a bunch of brat packers running around looking cute and causing trouble long before Stephenie Meyer ever dreamed up her saccharine covered Twilight vamps.  My favorite character is Grandpa.  I may be a vegetarian but I can appreciate some good taxidermy.  He gets the last word: “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach…all the damn vampires.”  Grandpa’s been around the block a few times.

    4. From Dusk Till Dawn

    "Hey…. wanna make out?"

    Personally, I love Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (when he’s not making stupid kiddie films).  They are rather good at satisfying my desire for action, gore, and lewd comedy.  I think that sometimes people forget that George Clooney was even in this movie…what with the Cary Grant Junior image that has been built up around him…something I’m sure he finds hysterical.  Hot Mexican vampire strippers.

    I’m sorry, do I need to say anything else?  Didn’t think so.

    3. Drag me to Hell

    "WHY DID YOU SCREW UP MY CAFE LATTE!!! IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO MAKE!!!"

    I hear the theatrical version of this movie fell apart at the end.  Luckily I didn’t see it in the theatre and instead rented the Director’s Cut.  This is not a movie for those with weak stomachs but if you can handle your gore and an ungodly amount of disgusting fluids going into a pretty girl’s mouth, then this is the movie for you.  It stars Alison Lohman as a really sweet girl who really pisses off an old gypsy woman the first time she tries to be tough at her job.  I really hope I never piss off an old gypsy lady.  The demon, Lamia, tortures you for three days before doing exactly what the title entails.

    2. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

    And we have found cleavage even I am jealous of.

    This was one of my very favorite movies as a kid.  So much so that I actually dressed up as Elvira for Halloween one year.  Talk about goth done right.  It’s hard to believe that Cassandra Peterson was 37 years old when this movie came out!  The moment that will be with me until the day I die?  When Elvira chucks her stiletto high heel and it lodges in her Great Uncle Vincent’s forehead.  Brilliant.

    1. Evil Dead series

    My explanation for this need only go as far as the name “Bruce Campbell” but for those who haven’t seen it I will explain further.  Horror and comedy together (intentionally) is Sam Raimi’s genius.  Inspired by low-budget horror films at drive-ins and HP Lovecraft, he created an epic trilogy of awesomeness centered around Ash (Bruce Campbell) and a series of deadites created by Ex-Mortis.  Watch all three (Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness) in a row and it will be the best Halloween you’ve ever had.  My favorite lines: “Honey, you got reeeeaaal ugly!” and “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”

    Groovy.

  • X-Men Series II = greatest trading cards ever

    It might shock you to learn this.  But I was, at one time, the owner of a complete set of X-Men Series II trading cards.

    It’s true.

    I also collected baseball cards, because like any self-respecting tomboy I played baseball, not softball.  Softball is for chicks.

    But Series II was my most favorite set of any kind of cards I ever collected.  (I know this sentence isn’t grammatically correct and yet I choose to type it that way anyway. Deal with it).  The Fleer Ultra series was OK, but it just didn’t have quite the same magic to it.

    The tall, narrow type on top.  The dramatic action shot below.  The statistical data on the back.  They were pure perfection.  I even had the cards from the cartoon series with the film strip border.  They were great as reference material or for just sitting down and reading.

    And then one day my brother stole them.

    He also collected baseball and X-Men cards.  It was something we did together as loving siblings.  We would walk up Country Club Lane to the comic book store and buy them and trade them.  We also went through a pog phase but try not to hold that against us.  I kept my cards in the same navy blue binder in nice segmented card protector pages on a shelf in my bedroom.  They never deviated from that spot and I never took them outside.  At some point my brother lost a few.  I remember thinking, damn, that sucks for him, at least I still have all of mine.

    The next time I pulled my binder out, the ones he happened to be missing were now missing from my binder.

    WTF.

    I took mine back.

    He stole them again.

    Little shit.

    This went back and forth for years until he finally hid them where I couldn’t find them.  My brother, my own flesh and blood, saw fit to steal and hide my own X-Men cards from me and had the gall to claim that I had stolen them from him.  As if.  This is the kid who opened up his Superman death comic when he was explicitly told not to and the kid next door had a perfectly good opened one he could have read instead.  And he accused ME, who won’t even open the Star Trek Christmas ornament box?  Psssh.

    I never did find my X-Men cards after that.

    So I stole his star ships.

    Three beautiful Enterprise models, the Enterprise NCC-1701, NC-1701 refit and Enterprise NCC-1701-D.  All beautifully hand painted by our Dad.

    What?  He didn’t appreciate them anyway.

  • Fish like boobies too – Piranha 3D Reviewed

    Oh crap! Fish!

    Spoiler Alert!

    You have been warned so don’t get all pissy and blame me if you haven’t seen it yet.

    Part of my nerdiness is a love for all things graphically violent.  I’m also a smart chick who can cuss like a sailor.  Deal with it.

    It’s been a while (saaaay 30 some odd years) since animal attack movies had their heyday.  But really, who doesn’t love giant mutant bunny rabbits attacking Janet Leigh?

    So I was both worried and excited when I saw the trailer for Piranha 3D a while back.  It looked like Chris Parker and Marsellus Wallace in cop outfits with hordes of horny teenagers gyrating to generic techno music in the background while they talk about a fish.

    All of this is true.  But it’s also super awesome.

    A quick note about the 3D.  It’s obviously post-production 3D which is kind of a bummer.  But compared to other attempts at post-production 3D, it’s pretty darn good.  But your eye knows when it’s being tricked and some of the underwater scenes are a bit hard to focus on.  The above ground, daylight scenes don’t even seem like 3D, which is good because then you’re not thinking about it.

    I will admit I jumped a few times and was clutching my Star Trek sweatshirt to my chest.  My male companion, however, did not.  Being a chick is lame sometimes.

    Anyhooters.

    The plot may not be complicated (teens raid lake for spring break, earthquake releases prehistoric piranhas, piranha’s eat teens) but the movie strikes the perfect balance between making fun of itself and taking itself seriously.

    Save your self Jerry! Stop screaming in my face!

    The blood is gratuitous.  Jerry O’Connell announced on KROQ that they broke the record for the amount of fake blood used in a movie.  The lake (Lake Havasu renamed Lake Victoria) is literally filled with the stuff during the climax of the movie.  The director, Frenchman Alexandre Aja, comes up with some brilliant ways of showcasing the gore.  Eli Roth (of bad ass Jew Inglourious Basterds fame) gets decapitated by a speedboat.  A topless blonde extra gets sliced in half by a snapped cable.  Porn star Riley Steele gets eaten from the inside out while a horrified Jerry O’Connell (in an inspired turn as a Joe Francis-type) looks on only to have his penis chewed off and then ultimately spit up by a piranha.

    The boobies are plentiful.  From both the stars and the extras alike.  Brit Kelly Brook and Steele are “Wild, Wild Girls,” a not so subtle parody of “Girls Gone Wild.”  Kelly is likable and Steele has some surprisingly well acted moments.  Of course, they share an extended naked underwater make out scene set to a brilliantly chosen piece of classical music.  I’m told that Steele showed up on set not knowing how to swim and had to be taught.  How does a porn star not know how to swim?  Whatever, it was pretty freakin’ hot.

    The cameos are perfect.  Richard Dreyfuss sends Matt Hooper into movie history with a hilarious last hurrah to open the flick and Christopher Lloyd is present in all his Doc Brown glory as a local fish expert.  In our theatre, both characters received thunderous applause.  Even minor characters are played by well established actors giving you the sense that people read the script and just had to be a part of it.  Cause it’s just that awesome.

    Swimming with the fishes…

    Elisabeth Shue is a bad ass Sheriff with no fear.  At one point she gives a delightful shout out to her Adventures in Babysitting days (a big plus for this Thor obsessed Norwegian).  Ving Rhames is going through the motions a bit until the scene where he sacrifices himself for the very teenagers who ignored him when he fired off his gun and told them to get the hell out of the water.  A boat motor makes for an excellent weapon against fish by the way.  At least for a while.  The mopey kid from Vampire Diaries (lucky bastard is the grandson of Steve McQueen) does a pretty good turn as an irresponsible older brother sucked into the world of Wild, Wild Girls.  But even better is Brooklynn Proulx as his witty and adorable younger sister Laura.  Jessica Szohr is cute but forgettable as lucky bastards love interest.

    The piranha’s themselves are pretty gnarly looking.  They have red eyes the color of dried blood and almost look armor-plated and slightly skeletal.  Whoever designed them did a good job of making them look prehistoric.  Even their egg clusters are creepy.

    And, of course, they’re just the babies.  Mommy makes her entrance at the very end in a move that would put Shamu to shame.

    A rollicking good time filled with plenty of laughs and a scary moment or two.

    3.5 out of 5 SCI-FIVES!