Choke
DVD Review: Choke
Starring: Sam Rockwell / Anjelica Houston / Kelly Macdonald / Clark Gregg
Director: Clark Gregg
Rating: Major R
Writer: Based on “Choke” by Chuck Palahniuk
Released Date: February 17, 2009 DVD
One writer who is not exactly known for subtly would be Chuck Palahniuk. His novels are abrasive, offensive and yet completely hilarious. It’s a guilty pleasure I guess you could say and Choke is probably one of the worst as far as out-right repulsiveness of all his works. I knew this movie was going to be funny but I also watched it with a bit of apprehension due to how uncomfortable the novel of his I am currently reading has been so far. I was prepared to be shocked and possibly nauseated by its content from the beginning.
I was not disappointed by the gross-out factor but like his books the movie had a deeper meaning behind the unabashed crudeness of the character’s behavior. The basis for the story is surrounding Victor (Sam Rockwell): a self proclaimed sex addict who is completely incapable of having a meaningful relationship due to his unconventional and perhaps emotionally abusive upbringing by his mother played by Anjelica Houston.
The backbone of Colonial America
Victor spends most of his time as a “tour guide” at a colonial park and has a habit of fake choking on food in restaurants in order to have wealthy sympathetic individual feel that they have saved his life. Once these strangers have “saved” him from choking he depends on their charity financially for the rest of his life as a sort of responsibility he feels they have for rescuing him. The money he receives allows him to pay for a private hospital for his mother who suffers from severe dementia barely knowing who he is when he visits her.
There is a pretty even balance of shock-humor, witty dialogue and drama in the film that gives it meaning and makes it somewhat identifiable. It is full of metaphors and sucessfully pulls of visually projecting the writing technique of Palahniuk. I was horrified at times by the events that take place but like whenever I watch WifeSwap I just can’t look away no matter how bad it gets. The ending ties up things rather well and still leaves a bit of mystery to the story which I think is good. I enjoyed it but I wouldn’t watch with many people because it’s rather offensive.
Bottom Line: VERY DARK DRAMEDY W/ MAJOR SHOCK VALUE
The Rocker
Starring: Rainn Wilson, Christina Applegate, Jeff Garlin, Teddy Geiger
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: DVD Jan 27, 2009
Rotten Tomato’s 73%
This is just a short review since there isn’t really much to say about The Rocker that you probably couldn’t already guess from the commercials. I am a big fan of Rainn Wilson from his role on The Office so I was looking forward to seeing this movie. As I had expected he did a really good job and managed to keep the PG-13 rating so the audience isn’t just limited to adults.
I was also really impressed by the music in the film which was very good thanks to Teddy Geiger who plays Curtis. He has a great voice and has quite a few other musical credits that I didn’t even know about. Overall this is a pretty funny movie that’s worth renting and even watching with your parents. Oh and the cameo’s from the SNL guys & Bradley Cooper were totally hilarious. Not the mention those outfits…seriously there should be a museum for the horrific attire that was made popular in the 80′s. Those fashions belong behind glass, and should stay there forever.
Best One Liners:
A lot of elevators play Celine Dion – that doesn’t make it right.
Are you kidding me? Look at him, it’s like Abercrombie is making people now.
Some people carry a rabbit’s foot; I like to rock a pocket of puke.
Bottom Line: TOTALLY RENTABLE
- The Dead Girl
Starring:Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, Josh Brolin, Brittany Murphy, Kerry Washington, James Franco, Rose Byrne, Giovanni Ribisi, Mary Beth Hurt
Rated: R (Language etc.)
Release Date: DVD May 15, 2007
Writer Director: Karen Moncrieff
I got to see this movie last night on Showtime and watched the whole thing even though I hadn’t planned to. It just caught my attention and pulled me in to the point where I just had to see what happened next. Here is a brief synopsis from IMDB.com © (jhailey):
In Los Angeles, a story about a dead girl, told in five chapters. A woman, miserable in her circumscribed life caring for her domineering mother, finds a body. Somehow, this discovery allows her to change. At the morgue, the sister of a girl missing for 15 years believes the body is that of her sister; this liberates her. An older woman, married to a man who pays her little attention, finds evidence in a storage unit; how will she handle it? The mother of the dead girl, who left home some years before, visits the last place her daughter lived and makes her own discoveries. Last, we flash back to the victim’s final day.
I thought that this movie was very thought provoking and extremely well written. Not the mention that the performances by the cast were right on point. Every single character had a key role to play and you could easily empathize with each woman’s individual struggle with their circumstances. Every character’s story brought you closer to figuring out what happened to this girl that in one way or another connected them.
The story starts out with Arden (Toni Collette) who finds the body. She is completely repressed and controlled by her sadistic mother. When this body is found she seems to turn a corner in her life and set herself free. Then it moves on to the sister (Rose Byrne) of a girl whose family fell apart after she disappeared 15 years earlier. She plays this character, Leah, with a great deal of passion and really portrayed depression in a way that I could connect with.
Next it moves on to Ruth (Mary Beth Ray) who plays the neglected and frustrated wife of an introverted man. She makes a shocking discovery in a storage space of her husbands. Ruth is a character that it is easy to dislike right away and who really holds to key to the entire story. What she does with it I won’t say because it will ruin the ending.
Melora (Marcia Gay Harden) plays a mother who’s daughter ran away years ago for reasons she never understood until she finds the place her daughter last lived at. There she uncovers the heartbreaking life that her daughter was leading and why she ran away in the first place. In the end her story is filled with a renewed sense of purpose in life. Lastly Krista’s (Brittany Murphy) story fills in the remaining gaps and we find out how her last day was spent.
All the characters were important to the story and gave you a different perspective on the lives that people lead. This was one of those movies that makes an impact in your mind and stays with you, unlike most of those more expensive films that you forget the moment the credits role. I think possibly the most underappreciated role in this film was that of Rosetta (Kerry Washington) who did an amazing job portraying a character that I wouldn’t have ordinarily pictured her playing.
Bottom Line: WELL WRITTEN MUST SEE DRAMA
- Blind Mag
Starring: Alexa Vega/ Anthony Head/ Sarah Brightman/ Bill Moseley
Rating: R (Gorey Stuff/Diry Words etc.)
Release Date: November 7, 2008 (Limited)
I had heard about this movie through my EW magazine and thought I might give it a shot. I don’t normally do musicals even though I enjoyed Sweeny Todd (Johnny Depp) quite a lot. This movie had even been compared to Sweeny Todd for its horror element mixed with music, but I must say this was no Sweeny Todd. I didn’t know a whole lot about it when I started watching it but the film tries to explain itself in the beginning through what tries to be Comic style illustrations.
Once those end and you start hearing the music and it was a bit of a let down. At least with some of the other musicals I’ve seen the lyrics seemed to actually belong to a song, a song that you might even want to buy the soundtrack for. In this movie, that wasn’t the case at all. Lyrically it was a huge disappointment. Most of the songs were mixed up and had no real vocal rhythm. It was as if they took a movie that wasn’t intended to be a musical and tried to make the dialog go along with some music which turned into a sloppy mess.
The vocals weren’t too bad for some of the characters but others like Bill Moseley had no business singing, ever. The gore was not bad and quite fitting for a horror type film unlike in Sweeny Todd where the blood was bright red and very fake looking. The best highlight of the film was Sarah Brightman who played Blind Mag. She was amazing vocally and her costume and makeup I thought were superb. If the movie had been simply about her character I think I would have enjoyed it more. Her brief solo operatic performance was very nice but her part in the film was unfortunately secondary to a lot of the bad lyrics and not so great vocals.
I had read that this was going to be what some called an “Instant Cult Classic” but honestly in comparison to other horror type musicals like Rocky Horror Picture Show and Sweeny Todd, this was not worthy of such praise. I doubt in 10 years people will be going to independent movie theaters dressed up as the characters and singing along.
The ending of the film didn’t explain a whole lot and left you wondering why all the loose ends weren’t tied up. These unfortunate plot holes only added to one of the last shots of Paris Hilton who honestly shouldn’t have been in the movie in the first place. When you cast someone like her in a film it looses a lot of creditability.
Bottom Line: DISAPPOINTING MUSICAL
