"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘O’Shea Jackson Jr.’

Cocaine Bear

Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

COCAINE BEAR is a kind of funny new horror comedy written by Jimmy Warden (THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN) and directed by Elizabeth Banks (Rita Repulsa in the POWER RANGERS movie). I kind of enjoyed it and I’m certainly on board for this type of movie – pretty gory, not serious about anything, spending $35 million of Universal Pictures’ money to get very good bear animation FX in what is otherwise kind of on the level of a PIRANHA or ALLIGATOR sequel.

It’s just a silly goof with a simple nature-gone-amuck premise: a drug smuggling plane dumps its payload in the Chattahoochee National Forest, a black bear finds and eats some of the cocaine, now she’s angrily rampaging around eating tourists and the people searching for the other bags. And she’ll do anything to get more of that stuff. Fiending for it like a bear to honey. (read the rest of this shit…)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Monday, June 10th, 2019

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS is not the perfect American Godzilla movie of our dreams, nor is it one that takes a thrillingly new angle on giant monsters, like SHIN GODZILLA did in 2016. Honestly I expected to like it more than I did, being a devotee of director Michael Dougherty’s previous movie, KRAMPUS. (He’s also the guy who wrote X-MEN 2, URBAN LEGENDS: BLOOD MARY and SUPERMAN RETURNS, and then wrote and directed TRICK ‘R TREAT) But this is the first time an American version feels to me like it’s completely in the spirit of the Japanese films from Toho Studios, particularly the “Heisei period” from GODZILLA 1985 to GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH (1995), so we’re getting there. As a monster fan apparently more forgiving than some of my friends, I found plenty to love about it. (read the rest of this shit…)

Den of Thieves

Thursday, April 26th, 2018

Have you ever seen a sprawling, nearly 2-hour-plus epic about a gang of bank robbers in Los Angeles, the special police unit trying to bust them, the parallels between the groups that make them as bad as each other and give them a macho bond, the chance public encounters they have in neutral spaces before the robbery, and the absurdly high capacity shootouts they have in broad daylight among the public… but that is only heavily influenced by Michael Mann, not actually directed by him? Oh yeah, it sounds like you saw DEN OF THIEVES too. It was okay though, right?

The thieves are led by ex-Marine Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber, 13 HOURS) – who looks a little like a Christian Bale character, but feels more like Bodhi in the POINT BREAK remake – with goons including Evan Jones (Cheddar Bob from 8 MILE), 50 Cent (Young Caesar from GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’) and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube from STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON).

(read the rest of this shit…)

Ingrid Goes West

Monday, November 13th, 2017

INGRID GOES WEST is kind of like a KING OF COMEDY for the smart phone era. Instead of seeking fame by doing something on television our stalker wants to live a blandly glamorous life on Instagram. But this is not just an update of the ol’ “people will do anything for fame” trope we’ve seen in MAN BITES DOG, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, etc. Sure, Ingrid would love more likes and followers, but mostly she wants attention from one specific person who’s famous on Instagram. So, no big deal, she moves to L.A. to try to find her.

Aubrey Plaza (SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD) is outstanding as Ingrid, a multi-layered role that evokes uncomfortable laughs, creeped-out squirms and also some sympathy. She has comic timing, subtle expressions, pathos, and next-level physical comedy in the scene where she first encounters the famous Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen, OLD BOY) in a store and tries way too hard to browse casually. She’s not so much posing for social media as living life as if she’s inside social media. When she first gets to L.A. she rides around on a bike with a forced “say cheese” smile stuck on her face.

She’s a SINGLE WHITE FEMALE reading what Taylor likes so she can go to the places she goes, eat the things she eats, read (or at least hold) the books she recommends. We watch her struggle to construct the perfect inane one-sentence comment, an online activity soon to be repeated IRL when she finds Taylor and, you know, kidnaps her dog. Just as a way to meet her and start a friendship. It’s all cool, don’t worry about it. (read the rest of this shit…)