Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

02 February 2008

7eventy-5ive, dir. Brian Hooks, Deon Taylor (2007)

STEVE says:
Here's how bafflingly stupid this Scream wannabe is: We're at a college party. Our heroes are playing a phone-prank game called "Seventy-Five". Marcus (director Brian Hooks pulling double-duty) explains the rules: "You have 75 seconds - that's one minute and fifteen seconds - to completely trick the person on the other end of the line into believing what you're pitching is absolutely real. If they hang up, you lose. If they laugh, you lose. Or if they're simply not buying the bullshit that you're pitching, you lose."

Okay, so in a classy montage sequence, we see a couple of these calls play out. Some work, some don't. Then it's Scott's turn. Now Scott somehow manages to dial the same random number that Marcus dialed ten years ago when he and some of these same kids were playing 75 at a sleepover, and - get this - just happens to reach the same psycho who, later that night, came and killed all of their parents who had been partying in the next room. (Why didn't he kill the kids, the perpetrators of the prank? Well, we wouldn't have a movie then, would we?) This whole set-up may seem preposterous, but when Scott is revealed to be the killer (not the original killer, no, presumably he's still roaming free) and we learn that the number he dialed wasn't so random - it was his buddy who was in on the whole plot with him - it becomes less preposterous and more contrived.

So they get freaked out and hang up, but the killer calls back. They hang up, and he rings again, but they just let the phone ring and ring for the rest of the night. Rather than, you know, take it off the hook or something.

Eventually, one of the party girls answers the phone. The voice on the other end asks for directions to the house. Now one might assume Scott had given his buddy the address long before, but then we wouldn't have had the most magnificent bit of direction I've ever seen (which I'll get to in a moment). "Bimbo Barbie" gives the address to the guy, and Kareem, one of the other cookie-cutter characters, starts yelling at her. Marcus rushes in to break up the argument, and Kareem explains, without taking a breath, "Man, she all be answerin' the damn phone, giving out the damn directions to somebody, man, we been watching that phone ring all night!" To which this Bimbo replies, "What is your problem? It was the Pizza Man!"

Now here is where Brian Hooks proves either that he should never direct again, or that he has nothing but the deepest contempt for his audience.

Marcus repeats, "Pizza Man?", then turns to his left - there's a pizza, half eaten, on the table. Indicating that the Pizza Man had already been there, get it? Well, in case you didn't, Marcus looks straight ahead where there's another half-eaten pizza. Okay? Got it? No? Well, fear not because Marcus looks to the sofa where there's yet a third half-eaten pizza!

Fuck you, dude.

I really don't know what else to say about this. It wasn't scary, it wasn't funny, it wasn't worth my time.

1/5

N1KK1 5ay5:
Isn't numbers in title just the lamest thing? I wa going to go to bed after the Vin Diesel movie, but ended up suffering through 7eventy 5ive instead. If ever I wanted the chance to go back in time...

So, to be fair, when this movie first arrived at the shop, I had no intention of renting it. Not because I thought it was crappy horror (Lord knows we can't keep away from those), but because I thought it was an action-cop movie. That's what the jacket art says to me. And because it has numbers in the title. Well, a customer told me it was an excellent film, full of twists and turns, and something really different and new. I took her word for it, because someone else also recommended the film to me. So, I gave it a shot, actually quite intrigued about the whole thing. I thought it could be a Severance -- it looks like shit, but it's actually really cool.

Now, I'm shocked at these people. How anyone could label this movie different and original, let alone even remotely good had to be insane. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and man have I seen some shit.

The film is poorly written, poorly acted, full of cliches and plot holes, and, when deconstructed, makes very little sense at all. I can't believe we made it through the whole thing. But then we did watch Thr3e.

I'll never believe another customer.

My T0P T3N 7eventy Five Why-oh-Whys...
1. Why-oh-why did the killer attack the parents in the beginning when it was the kids making the prank calls?

2. Why-oh-why did the kids all get adopted out rather than move in with relatives?

3. Why-oh-why was it important that Haircut cheated on Blondie with a fat girl? It had no relevance at all to anything in the story.

4. Why-oh-why did no one hear the murders going on in other rooms in the house?

5. Why-oh-why did the cops say the kids were spread all over the country, and yet here were so many of them at the party?

6. Why-oh-why did the cops show up at the end? Why did they go missing for about 45 minutes at the end of the film just to show up at the last minute, kill the wrong kid, and then (presumably) die? How did they find the house, why did they go there, why were they going there?

7. Why-oh-why did everyone in the film say the original murders took place "10 years ago" and yet Marcus says it was 12?

8. Why-oh-why was Marcus still playing this game after the carnage 10 or 12 years before? If these kids were in the circle during the original game, why did none of them go, hey, no, this was that game that got our parents slashed up and us all adopted out!

9. Why-oh-why did Haircut bag out those cops so severely? That went nowhere.

10. Why-oh-why were there two Scotts in the bathroom scene? Here is an explanation for the ending by someone on the Database who you just know is one of the writers:
"Scott" isn't actually Scott, he's William - one of the kids at the beginning who survived. He's the geeky kid with the glasses who picked up the phone in the middle of the night. The real Scott, was the other brother at the beginning, who was leaning over his mothers body and staring at geeky William (fake Scott).

The fake Scott whose at the party and is one of the killers, is - in short, taking his brothers name as they look exactly the same. The guy in the hoodie in the bathroom was the REAL Scott, that's why Marcus stared at him as he hadn't seen him since the incident when they were kids.
I have nothing else to say. Except: Rutger Hauer, you are disowned.

No stars.

Find Me Guilty, dir. Sidney Lumet (2006)

STEVE says:
Something about Find Me Guilty felt less than cinematic to me. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were watching an HBO movie. Not that that's a bad thing, but I was surprised in the end to find that it had a cinematic release.

It was interesting to see Vin Diesel in something that didn't have explosions in it every ten minutes, but I still don't see any acting awards in his future. He was likable enough as Jackie DiNorscio, the gangster with a heart, defending himself on a conspiracy charge in what would become the longest mafia trial in US history, and of course you want to see him beat the wrap.

But whether he's guilty of this charge or not, he is - by his own admission - guilty of many others. He's not a good guy, and we shouldn't be in his corner. As prosecuting attorney Sean Kierney says upon hearing one of the female jurors thinks Jakie is cute:
"Does she have any idea how much money these bastards cost her? If a hammer and a nail are used - her house, her daughter's apartment - every fucking thing is costing her more because of these 'cute' guys. She sees a truck carrying concrete? She's paying for it. Garbage being picked up at a restaurant? She's paying for it. She buys perfume from France, gloves from Italy? She's paying more because it came off a fucking boat! Not to mention that they fucking kill people from time to time!"
A compelling argument. But wait, Kierney wants to put our guy in prison. So what do we do? Well, let's make him a weasely schmuck. I hate when movies do this. It's a short cut that bypasses character development altogether. And casting Linus Roache just seals the deal. It's less than I would have expected from Sidney Lumet.

Worth noting, though, is Peter Dinklage as Ben Klandis, one of the defense attorneys. Apart from his standing on a riser to speak to the jury - and even this is done without making a joke out of it - nothing is made of his stature. He plays the role as a guy who's a lawyer, not a dwarf who's a lawyer. I'd love to see him get more work of this kind.

2.5/5

NIKKI says:
I enjoyed this movie really for the history lesson more than anything else. I was definitely intrigued by how the whole thing played out, knowing nothing at all about the story. The biggest mob trial in history is won seemingly because one mob man chose to act as his own attorney, revealing a blue-collar character with skewed moral decency to the jury who just ate it up.

Vin Diesel was convincing as Jackie DiNoscio, and kept the entertainment level high. Steve was on to something, though, when he said the thing felt like a TV movie. It did, and, as we discussed after the movie, it balanced poorly it's comedy and it's drama. Linus Roach as the prosecuting attorney pointed out so many reasons why this mob group deserved to go to jail, and yet we were rooting for Jackie, so suave and funny and likable.

So, yeah, not a hit, not nearly a miss. Just somewhere in between.

2.5/5