Kick-Ass

By now, I'm sure everyone's at least heard of the movie Kick-Ass. After opening on Friday April 16th, it has been the center of much controversy. It's about a high school student named Dave Lizewski who isn't special in anyway. He's not a nerd, he has no special powers, and he has no training in how to fight. In fact, the only significant thing about him is that he loves comic books. It is this love for comic books and superheroes that gets him wondering why he can't be one himself. With this logic alone, he buys a costume and goes out to try and make a difference in the world under the name "Kick-Ass". Soon after, he is videotaped stopping a group of muggers and becomes an internet phenomena. This feat sparks the publicity of even more heroes.

Walking into this movie, I was expecting to see something along the lines of Mystery Men(1999 - one of my favorite comedies growing up). However, what I got was COMPLETELY different. It became very evident why there was so much controversy surrounding this film. At different times in the movie, two different main characters were graphically beaten within an inch of losing their lives. At another part of the movie, two characters were savagely beaten and set on fire on public television. A few parts in the movie made me extremely uncomfortable, not knowing if I should laugh or be amazed at what I was seeing on the screen. In the end however, I'm a fan of the shock factor. And there was plenty of that in this movie.

I applaud everything this movie did for generating controversy and getting people talking. There were actually a few memorable shots that were unlike anything I've seen in a movie before. Fantastic acting by Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz as Big Daddy and Hit Girl added a whole other dimension to the video. Their characters and backgrounds were as interesting, if not more interesting, than the main character. Big Daddy trains his daughter to help him kill Frank D'amico, the man who framed him and had him sent to jail. I don't want to spoil the ending, but the dark humor and incredible action sequences are absolutely worth checking out. This isn't a movie you'll want to miss out on. Here's the trailer in case I haven't already generated enough interest!

Trailer

Hot Rod

I saw "Hot Rod" for the first time last night, after hearing very similar reviews for a long time; It's stupid, but you'll laugh. And they were absolutely right. This movie deserves no awards and there is almost nothing special about it. However, it's one of the better comedies I've seen in a while. Maybe it just touched on my sense of humor a little more then most feature films do. Actually, some parts seemed to have an SNL feel to them with the help of Andy Samberg, the main character.

Samberg's character, Rod Kimble, is trying to raise $50,000 to get a life-saving operation for his stepfather whom he hates. However, he is only doing this so that he can fight his stepfather once he is back to full strength. Kimble plans on raising this money by having people hire him to do professional stunts for parties and various events.

At various points in the movie, the story strays away from the key plots to include pointless scenes. For example, in one scene, Kimble gets hit by a car going very fast and in the next scene he's perfectly fine. Another one is when him and his stepbrother say "cool beans" to each other and the editor turns it into a song using just the sound of them saying "cool beans". They are all very funny, but have nothing to do with the movie. In fact, it just draws attention to the fact that you are watching a movie and that they are actors. The stepfather, played by Ian McShane, does a great job of portraying a mean and hurtful antagonist. The stunts were very funny as well, most of which were not landed. To sum everything up, don't watch this if you're only interested in seeing a well written and well made movie. The only thing you'll get out of this movie is some good laughs. If you like to play a movie as background noise while you're doing something, this one's perfect.