Humor District

Clint Eastwood and CGI? Well I never… and it’s impressive CGI mind you. Certainly though, at the age of 80 with a countless number of classic movies under his belt and enormous amounts of money he doesn’t need CGI to create a Tsunami effect. He just orders the real thing. “I want the Baltic Sea shipped to the Nevada desert by Tuesday, that and a quart of Valium, my back is killing me.” And I feel for the guy that answered that call, have you ever seen a happy Clint Eastwood? Neither have I. Get Eastwood his fucking Tsunami!

“Eastwood in the more happier of times”

On to the movie, Hereafter. Which has everything setup to be a luke-warm blockbuster, impressive footage, big star – Matt Damon, fairly unknown hot foreign star – Cécile de France and impressive CGI Tsunami or a real life Tsunami – verdict is still out on that one. Can’t see myself bumrushing the theaters to see it.
Synopsis:

“Hereafter” tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. Matt Damon stars as George, a blue–collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near–death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might—or must—exist in the hereafter.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Movies are a good way to escape from reality. After a long day we can pop Caddyshack into the DVD player and all our worries just melt away. That is why most movies focus on the happier things in life, such as seeing your enemies driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their women. Some movies prefer to hit us with a heavy dose of reality that remind us that we don’t always get that raise we want, the girls of our dreams don’t know our names, and sometimes we have to get friendly with a man named Big Ted to fuel our drug habits. These movies will leave you feeling pretty low after you watch them, but they are still great movies. If you haven’t seen them before, beware. There are some spoilers ahead. Spoilers that will make you cry.

Million Dollar Baby

I think most people could have told you that a movie about a woman who wants to make a living getting punched in the face would not end well. Still, the build up throughout the movie actually made us cheer for Hilary Swank as Clint Eastwood coached her from the corner. Unfortunately our initial feelings were correct as Hilary Swank’s character ends up as a paraplegic who tries to chew through her own tongue to kill herself. That and Clint Eastwood cries. It does not get much more depressing than that.

Requiem for a Dream

We recently spoke about Requiem for a Dream being the most effective drug deterrent system of all time. It is extremely depressing as all the characters suffer from drug addiction, causing their lives to go straight down the tubes. The most depressing character is Sara Goldfarb. She is the elderly mother of the main character Harry, and she is chosen to be on a game show in the beginning of the movie. Sara is a kindly lady, and decides she wants to fit into her nice dress for the game show and gets prescribed diet medicine. She becomes addicted to the medicine and begins to hallucinate, and doctors just keep giving her more pills until she is forced to undergo electroshock therapy. That’s why I never go to the doctor.

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky has a knack for depressing movies, as he directed Requiem for a Dream as well as The Wrestler. The Wrestler was a great movie the revamped Mickey Rourke’s career with his portrayal of Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a wrestler who used to be a big star. His career has caused him health problems due to steroid use, but, perhaps more depressingly, it has also ruined his relationship with his daughter. Just when he seems to be recapturing both his career and his daughter’s love, he screws it all up by banging a club slut instead of visiting his daughter and continuing to wrestle after a heart attack. It is a sad look into the life of a severely unhappy man.

Charly

Charly is an older movie based on the book Flowers for Algernon. The basic plot is that an experiment is performed on a mentally retarded man who can’t spell his own name that turns him into a super genius. With his increased intellect, Charlie learns his name is not spelled Charly, finds meaning in life, and also finds the love of his life. That’s when things go downhill as Charlie realizes the effects of the experiment are temporary and his IQ is dropping faster than a dead pigeon. He rejects an offer of proposal from his love and the movie ends with her watching Charlie playing on a playground, once again unable to spell his name.

12 Monkeys

In 12 Monkeys, Bruce Willis plays a convict from a virus ravaged future who is sent back in time to stop the virus from being released. He ends up in an insane asylum with Brad Pitt, who does a great job of being insane, and is also a prime suspect for releasing the virus. Will Bruce Willis be able to stop the release of the virus and save the future? No, he will not. He gets shot and killed right in front of his younger self and the future remains a virus ravaged hell hole.

I realize that reading about all these depressing movies can be somewhat depressing. That is why this post ends with an example of what is best in life. Enjoy.

Popularity: 5% [?]

There was a time when seeing a cowboy movie meant saloons and shootouts, not two guys hugging each other in a tent. Westerns has a certain no nonsense approach to them. There was a man who represented all that was manly, and he’d track the bad guys until he got his chance to shoot them down. Unless of course he was the bad guy, in which case he would have a certain amount of honor in gunning the sheriff down. These men were the reason we asked our parents for little cowboy hats and would pretend the rocking chair was a bucking bronco. None of us could match up to the manliness of these great cowboys though.

Rooster Cogburn – John Wayne

John Wayne played US Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the movie True Grit. He started the movie out as a man who loved his liquor and a cat named General Sterling Price. He didn’t seem like a very promising prospect when a little girl, Mattie Ross, asked for his help in tracking down her father’s killer. He seems like an exceptionally poor choice when a Texas Ranger has already offered his assistance. Cogburn still loves his drink, but he shows that he knows his business when it comes to hunting down the bad guys. He, the Ranger, and Maddie catch up with the killer and Cogburn puts him down and leaps into a hole to save Maddie who has been bitten by a rattlesnake. He then proceeds to carry her to safety. That’s what makes Rooster Cogburn a real man.

Man With No Name – Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood revolutionized Westerns with his portrayal of the Man With No Name. Before him, most stars of Westerns were straight laced guys who went out and got the bad guys and rode off into the sunset. The Man With No Name would also go get the bad guys, he just expected to be paid for it. There is an old saying that if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free. The Man With No Name was good at tracking people down and putting a bullet through them, so bounty hunter was the obvious career path for him. Through him we got to see a more lawless Western, where the fastest (and most accurate) gun decided what was right.

Ben Wade – Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe showed our generation can also turn out a pretty badass cowboy. Russell Crowe played the infamous bandit Ben Wade in 2007′s 3:10 to Yuma. Here we saw a ruthless criminal, but a criminal with honor. When he was captured and taken to the Yuma train he certainly didn’t make things easy for his escorts. They dropped off one by one, until only a simple farmer was left to get him to the train. To make matters worse, Wade’s gang was putting the city they were in under siege to try and rescue their boss. The farmer manages to get Wade to the train, sacrificing his life to do it. Wade saw what his captor had done and showed that criminals can have honor too, shooting his gang and boarding the train to prison of his own free will. Of course he was already well experienced in escaping from prison, reducing his worry of being hanged, but it was still a nice gesture.

Bernardo O’Reilly – Charles Bronson

Charles Bronson is famous for playing the bad guy in movies, but he was one of the best good guys in The Magnificent Seven. He was Bernardo O’Reilly, one of seven hired guns who were paid to protect a Mexican town from bandits. While other members of the gang were definitely in it for the money, O’Reilly formed a connection with the town, especially the children. As a result, he was ready to fight when the bandits showed up. That was more than could be said for some of the others. When they get run out of town by the bandits, Bernardo is more than willing to go back and save those he has grown to care for. When he sees the children in danger he leaps into action and saves them, giving up his life to do it. There’s an example of supreme manliness.

Doc Holliday – Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer gave the best performance of his career as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. He is a drinker, a gambler, and the best gunslinger around. That description already solidifies his reputation as being awesome. Unfortunately, Doc Holliday has tuberculosis and goes through life gravely ill. This doesn’t stop him from doing everything he can to help out his friends though. Even with his poor health, Doc Holliday doesn’t shy away from gunfights. His draw is still the fastest around and no criminal can beat him. He didn’t die protecting his friends because he was too good to be put down by any man. Eventually his health gives out and he dies peacefully, knowing he has done all the good he can. More importantly, he had the best quotes in the movie. “I’m your huckleberry”.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Timothy Okyphant is the star of the new FX series, Justified. In Justified, Olyphant plays Raylan Givens, a US Marshall who has a habit of wearing a cowboy hat and straight up shooting every criminal he comes across. At the same time he is very polite and nice to the criminals right up until they are being taken to the coroner’s office. For some reason, that politeness just makes Timothy Olyphant seem even scarier. Well Justified isn’t the only time Olyphant has played a dude who could kick your ass from here to Timbuktu, here are some of his other ass kicking roles.

Agent 47 – Hitman

Timothy Olyphant almost made Hitman into an enjoyable movie, a big move considering it is one of those dreaded video game to movie projects. It was better than Doom at least. In Hitman, Timothy Olyphant plays Agent 47, a hitman who is framed into a job gone bad, or something along those lines. Basically Agent 47 gets a hit put out on him, has to kill other assassins, and reveal an evil Russian plot. As Agent 47, Timothy Olyphant shows that he can kill people equally well with rifles, machine pistols, and swords. It’s nice to see a well rounded assassin these days. Really, the only knock against Olyphant in this movie is that he didn’t get busy with Olga Kurylenko. He was too busy killing people to enjoy that hotness.

Kelly – The Girl Next Door

Now I know what you’re thinking, how can Timothy Olyphant be considered awesome in a movie where he has a girl’s name? By banging Elisha Cuthbert, that’s how. I know you would all change your names to Laverne if it meant you got to get with her. But I digress. In The Girl Next Door, Timothy Olyphant plays porno director Kelly, who gets to spend most of his time hanging out with naked ladies. To really seal up the greatness of the role, Timothy Olyphant also got to slap the crap out of Emile Hirsche.

Nick – A Perfect Getaway

What is made of titanium and survives a bullet to the head. If you answered The Terminator, I wouldn’t blame you. It is in fact Nick, Timothy Olyphant’s character in A Perfect Getaway. He plays an Iraq War Veteran with a titanium plate in his head and he hunts his own food while on vacation in Hawaii. That sounds pretty bad ass on its own, but then he gets shot. In the head. For most movie characters who aren’t Arnold Schwarzenegger, this means your role in the movie is over. Not for Timothy Olyphant. For him it is a mild inconvenience that allows him to rest up before he jumps off of a cliff and stabs somebody. Think about that the next time you stub your toe.

Hollywood Jack – A Man Apart

I’ll be honest with you, I have not seen this movie. I hear it stars Vin Diesel, has Mexican drug lords, and is really not very good. At all. I just couldn’t leave the fact that Timothy Olyphant played a character named Hollywood Jack off of this list.

Sheriff David Dutton – The Crazies

There are few things cooler than a cop who is allowed to go around shooting whoever he wants. That’s why Clint Eastwood will always be remembered as Dirty Harry. Timothy Olyphant is less loose cannon and more survivor as Sheriff David Dutton in The Crazies. He goes from average small town cop to shooting everyone in sight pretty early on in the movie, starting when a rifle wielding farmer interrupts a local ball game. Throughout the movie Olyphant racks up a fairly impressive kill count as he tries to reach safety with his wife and deputy. The only drawback is how often he himself needs saving, but he makes up for it by being Timothy Olyphant.

Raylan Givens – Justified

Keeping to the theme off cops shooting people, we have Raylan Givens as the last entry on this list. Timothy Olyphant does a great job as the super polite Raylan Givens, who also happens to be the quickest draw in the west, east, north, and south. What makes this character stand out as a true bad ass is the fact that he often warns criminals that he will shoot them the next time he sees them and gives them the option to get out of town. Apparently Raylan Givens watched a lot of spaghetti westerns when he was growing up. Invariably, the criminals he warns to get out of town never leave. He then sees them and, as promised, shoots them. The best part of the show is how everybody kind of uncomfortably tries to tell him he really isn’t allowed to just shoot every criminal he comes across. Then Raylan Givens just smiles, tips his cowboy hat, and leaves to go shoot some more bad guys.

Popularity: 4% [?]