Cashback

Posted by Rik at 4:38 pm
Jan 282010

Cashback tells the story of Ben, a heartbroken, young employee of Sainsbury’s Supermarket. When Ben is not busy doing whatever he’s supposed to be doing, he freezes time in order to undress unsuspecting female shoppers. If you think this is the perfect excuse to put a gratuitous amount of boobs in a movie, then you are correct. But guess what else? Vagina! Tons of full-frontal nudity. What could possibly go wrong? You’d be surprised.

The movie begins with a slow-motion shot of a very angry young lady screaming (what one assumes are) expletives. In place of the young ladies screams is a narrative by our protagonist, Ben. The narrative starts with this opening scene, and it doesn’t stop for nearly two hours! Every single detail of this movie is explained (in further detail) by Ben. Call me crazy, but save that shit for the book. Sure, there is a time and place, but the great thing about film is that it is able to convey all of the unspoken aspects of a film in such a way that a narrative is unnecessary.

Aside from the over the top narration, Ben is just plain boring. I couldn’t care less about this dude. In an apparent attempt to distract us from this point, the writer/director, Sean Ellis, peppers the entire film with outrageous comedic moments. I didn’t find myself laughing once. Every joke in this movie is absolutely contrived. It’s as though Ellis is so pretentious that he cannot allow himself to recognize true humor, and that’s too bad considering the movie is billed as a romantic comedy.

All in all, Cashback is too hip for its own good. If you are in the market for a romantic comedy, check out Out to Sea instead. Seriously, nobody can deny the Walter Matthau/Jack Lemmon power duo. If you are desperate to see a bunch of boobies and a decent amount of trim to boot, watch the first 20 minutes of Cashback. But I imagine you would have a better time finding the same thing anywhere online.

I give this movie: 1 kick to the gonads (out of a possible 1 kick to the gonads)

Synopsis:

Ben, a heartbroken young artist works at a shitty supermarket, complete with a atypical asshole boss, goofy co-workers, and a not so mildly attractive young cashier. While working, Ben often stops time in order to undress ridiculously hot and unsuspecting female shoppers so that he can “sketch” them. Ben is totally bummed about his recent break-up, and spends most of the movie talking about how and why he is in love with the female form. This explanation legitimizes his nasty habit of all but raping ridiculously hot and unsuspecting female shoppers. In a shocking turn of events, Ben falls in love with the mildly attractive young cashier. During all of this, nothing funny happens. The end.

A Second Opinion

I got a joke for you. Okay…what do you get when you mix the narration of “Fight Club”, the tone and abstruseness of “Donnie Darko”, and the character archetypes of Justin Long vehicle “Waiting”? Give up? A six hour long pretentious piece of garbage that plays out like a jumbled mess of watered down bits of much better movies. HA.

But seriously folks, despite all that, Cashback managed to score an extra point with me for having the chutzpah to place not one, but two naked old man farts in between chunks of self-indulgent voiceover within the first five minutes. Kudos, Cashback. Kudos.

-Trent

P2

Posted by Trent at 2:57 am
Jan 282010

As you can see, today was not only packed full of adventure, but was more productive than usual – all thanks to a little movie called P2.

Scarlett from G.I. Joe plays Angela, a New York businesswoman who stays at work late on Christmas Eve due to her addiction to workahol. When her car won’t start, she seeks the help of the parking garage security guard Tom, played by the bag-filming guy from American Beauty. Tom can’t seem to make the car start either…but that’s only because HE SABOTAGED IT CUZ HE’S A NUTCASE. He does the ol’ “knock you out with chloroform then put you in a pretty dress and chain you to a table so you will have Christmas dinner with him” routine, but pulls a total rookie mistake by unchaining Angela so she can watch him run over a dude that got fresh with her at the office Christmas party. (Way to go, jackass.) So, of course, she books it and Tom has to chase her for like an hour, stopping only for a minute or two to sing along with “Blue Christmas” and get down with a teddy bear. Then, because she wasn’t satisfied with just being on my “Girls Who I Find Far Less Attractive As Blondes” list, Angela mercilessly stabs a dog to death with a tire iron, thereby causing me to create a whole new list called the “Girls I Can Never Find Attractive Again Because Every Time I Look At Them, All I Can Think Of Is The Time I Saw Them Stab A Dog To Death With A Tire Iron” list, on which she is (currently) the only entry. Anyway, then it’s a lot more chasing and screaming and whatnot. Will Angela manage to get away from her assailant without killing any more dogs?

Click here to ruin the end of the movie for yourself. ▼

So, all things considered, if you’re into the “scantily clad girls running from homicidal maniacs” type of thriller and you have 98 minutes to kill, you could do a lot worse than this movie. I give it 3 out of 5 murdered-ass dogs.

A Second Opinion
Tom’s just a dude who’s got a shitty job as a parking attendant. Tom’s got a mega crush on Angela, but she’s way out of his league. So he kidnaps and forces her to attend a delightful Christmas eve dinner – just the two of ‘em. But wouldn’t you know it, there’s just no pleasing this girl! Pretty dresses, roses, make-up, dressing up as Santa Claus! Is this chick made of stone or something? Sure, Tom’s got a few problems, but just try finding good old fashioned dude like this now days. Take the kidnap and murder out of this movie, and you’ve got yourself a charming boy-meets-girl story, but the clever addition of kidnap and murder helped to keep my attention on an uneventful Monday morning. Give P2 a watch, and try not to feel a little bad for my boy, Tom.

-Rik

Boy Eats Girl

Posted by Trent at 2:32 am
Jan 272010

boy eats girlSimply looking at the cover of Boy Eats Girl is bound to raise a few questions. For example: “Is this movie a Shaun of the Dead ripoff?” The answer to that is “No”. Then you may ask “Is this movie anything like Shaun of the Dead?” The answer to that is also “No, aside from the fact that there are zombies in it”. Then you’ll probably ask “Does this movie have any of the people from Shaun of the Dead in it? Does it have any of the wit and charm of Shaun of the Dead? Have you ever seen Shaun of the Dead? Isn’t Shaun of the Dead a totally great movie?” The answers to those questions are “I don’t think so”, “No, it doesn’t”, “Yes”, and “Yeah, it really is”. Once all the Shaun of the Dead questions are out of your system, you’ll begin to ask yourself the really important questions:

Does this movie have a completely awesome scene involving a thresher and bunch of zombies getting chopped the fuck up?

Yes. It rules.

Was this movie made in association with the Irish Film Board?

As a matter of fact it was.

Do you almost see boobs a couple of times?

Almost.

Is there an actor in this movie named “Tadgh”?

Nope. His name is Tadhg.

Does an old lady ever crash a moped then get eaten by zombies?

Just once.

Are all the high school kids played by 30 year old actors/actresses?

Yup. One of them kinda looks like a bloated Todd Stashwick.

So is this movie as awesome as I think it’s gonna be?

Probably not.

Oh. Should I watch it anyway?

I dunno. Sure.

So, if after all that you decide you do want to watch Boy Eats Girl, may I suggest not clicking the “spoiler alert” link? As the name would suggest, it contains spoilers. If you decided this movie can suck it and you’d rather just go watch Shaun of the Dead, read this bad boy to the bitter end. Or don’t. See if I care. Fuck you. Dick.

Synopsis:

When a very handsome but unpopular high school boy thinks he sees a girl he likes giving head to some dude, he decides to kill himself. He wusses out at the last second but then his hot mom accidentally kills him anyway. Fortunately, the hot mom works in some mysterious underground catacombs so she steals a book of voodoo rituals to bring her son back to life. Unfortunately, there was a page missing from the book so instead of coming back to life, he turns into a zombie.

The zombie dude goes to the prom and bites some asshole’s face – turning him into a zombie as well. The asshole zombie bites a bunch more people (including a guy named Craig) and pretty quick, everyone in town is a crazy-ass zombie.

Spoiler Alert! Click here to ruin the movie for yourself ▼

And that’s that.

Not good enough to really remember, but not bad enough to get pissed about, I give this movie 2 out of 5 misinterpreted blowjobs.

Payin’ the bills…

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