PunkPebbs Reviews

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Spiderman as a goofy b-rate comedy

[1/10 · 6 May 2007]

Never have I uttered the words "Oh God" so many times well watching a movie. What happened to the captivating dialog of the first two films, the interesting characters, the breathtaking special effects. Everything positive that the first two films brought to this franchise seem to be thrown out the window in Spiderman 3. Putting aside all the cheezy graphics that this film brings and what could be the worst performance of Tobey Maguire's career one major thing is missing from this movie...a good director. Sam Raimi has massacred the whole venom plot line of Spiderman. Venom in the comic book makes Peter Parker evil, but in the film he just seems, for lack of a better word, goofy. The whole sequence where Spiderman is taken over by venom, where he apparently turns emo, is absurd. He turns pure evil, even going so far as to dance with another woman in from of Mary Jane. How sycophantic can you get? Terrible, Terrible addition to a great series.

Factotum (2005)

From sheer excitement to utter disappointment

[5/10 · 19 December 2006]

I am a huge Bukowski fan and love everything he's done. So when I heard they we're making a movie based on factotum I was exstatic. Matt Dillon being a part of it just made the movie more appealing to me. But when I finnally got a chance to sit down and watch the film I was really disappointed. The film, having been modernized, loses some of the feeling that you get from Chinasky in the book. In the book most of the events in the story occur during world war II, I didn't like the way the movie translated into modern times, I was lost at the stupid PT CRUISER at the beginning of the film, movies need to avoid such stupid stupid cars, but I digress. A lot of the best parts of the story are cut, or reworked to fit the film. That brings me to my main point, the book is told in the sense that Chinasky is lost, no where to be, no where to go, he is just drifting by, slowly a pattern develops, and the character becomes hilariously painful to watch. The film seems to have Chinaski on a quest and you lose some of the best dialogue in the whole story because of it. My favorite part of the book, where Chinasky is accosted by a large prostitute and has oral sex forced upon him does not apear in the film. This is one of the funniest parts of the book and I kept waiting for it to apear in the film, thinking "it's out of order Brian, it'll be there." But alas it was gone and I wept. This is more like a PG version of Bokowski's actual work. This film has a sort of European feel to it and I feel like some parts of the book have been misinterperted and I don't really like the way the director portrays these characters. Chinaski is supposed to be the mirror image of Bukowski, being that the character is essentially himself. But when I watch Matt Dillon's peorformance I am simply not feeling it. In my opinion this is not his best work. He seems to be trying to hard to be a character. It seems like he just stepped into a pair of boots that were simply to big for him to fill. I think I may be a bit too critical of this film being that Factotum is in my opinion one of the best books of the 20th century. It was just all the build up i think that killed it for me. After reading the book and reading all about how this film was great I ended up a little disappointed. All this aside there are a few moments where you can really feel Bukowski in Dillon's peorformance, for instance when he goes to collect his check after being fired, it was a really well done couple of scenes. There is a part when Dillon (Chinaski) gives his shoes to Ja n and the scene is PERFECT. Outside of those few things I was generally not happy with this movie.

Love in Limbo (1993)

Amazing...

[10/10 · 19 March 2006]

I came across this movie in an Australian hotel room at 3 am. My brother and I were channel surfing and who do we see but a young Russel Crowe. But not the telephone throwing Russel Crowe we had come to know and quasi-love back in the states. This movie, much to my surprise, was amazingly creative and hilarious. It stars a cast of awkward teens with hilarious stories of odd sexual experiences, including a slick salesman,prostitutes, and an unusual sexy mother. If you are lucky enough to come across this film I would strongly suggest picking it up. I have to say this movie was amazingly entertaining and I thank the fine people of Australia making it...