Anyone who has read this blog has seen the recent article about Running Scared and it’s official site hosting an oral sex flash game. Sadly, there is little oral sex in this movie. The movie, however, was strangely…entertaining. T-Unit saw this flick the night before I did and reported that he thought the movie was wildly entertaining. I decided to check out the flick.

What I found was an entirely entertaining, gritty, spitting, balls-to-the-wall action fest with a twisted story. The opening sequence alone throws you right into the action, with a drug deal gone bad and dead cops. Paul Walker plays Joe, a low level mobster, working in a small crew. He is given this shiny gun to hide as it is the murder weapon for the botched drug deal. Joe takes it, it get’s taken, all hell breaks loose. The film does a nice job bashing characters into each other and sets a dirty feel throughout the beginning parts of the movie. Walker’s preformance isn’t the stuff of dreams as a mobster, but he plays a pissed off hood pretty decently. His wife plays a pretty good ingenue trying to hold it together, but something tells me the writing was a little wooden for all of the actors. The two boys, to some level are decent enough. The secondary characters were perhaps the most intriguing. The Russian Meth Dealer, or Olli’s father, was particularly off-kilt as a good hearted man who got caught up in drugs and love’s John Wayne. My favorite two characters were the “wholesome couple” with two kids in the back of their conversion van and a nice “play-room”. They were just sadistically vacant of emotion and creepy. The hockey scene was also sick, with a True Romance like blow-out at the end.

With some of the nicer things said, this movie did not have a great script, as the F-Bomb is used at least 300 times a dialogue. The use of the F-Bomb is not artful here, as it is in other mob movies such as Goodfellas and Casino. When Joe Pesci drops the bomb, it’s nasaled in a thick New Jersey that just meshes with the scene. When everyone is dropping it in Running Scared, it feels forced and like the writer ran out of ideas. I love “fuck”, and for me to say it was over-used…means it is really over-used. The character Olli, played by the creepy kid from Godsend , is also really an annoying point for me in the movie. I understand the kid isn’t supposed to smile and be somewhat reclusive yet strong, but this kid just plays him empty. He is creepy and lifeless and I found myself getting really annoyed with his bullshit. Maybe that is good writing, because that little shit would have found my belt across his ass if he pulled that crap with me. The flick could have been shorter with lesser story lines but they all are pretty effective, although some are better than others.

Running Scared is a stylized action flick with some cool points, foundationed with decent acting and cool direction. If you’re into a movie that is riddled with swears, guns, blood, fighting, blood, swears, some sex, swears and blood then you will enjoy the movie. If you could do without the heavy-ness, well your probably a pussy anyways. This movie is cool, and as JoBlo pointed out, almost like Grand Theft Auto brought to screen. Check this out, if you want action. I give this a 7 Bones out of 10 Bones, for bloody, sexy, vulgar fun.

So I once said I’d write movie reviews and baseball stuff on here and I’m doing just that. You saw my baseball stuff, now you see my movie stuff. It’s not easy living in Boston when your under 21 unless your a queer who likes to dance. I do not like to dance and will only do so when incredibly hammered or coaxed to do so by peers(i.e. peer pressure). So in turn, I go to the movies quite a bit with my girlfriend. And let me tell you, going to the movies in the city is entirely different than going to the movies anywhere else.

You can expect the theater to be full Friday night at any new movie. This means expect to sit next to someone without that handy buffer seat. Your tactic of putting a coat there and telling your neighbors that someone’s sitting there doesn’t work in theaters as the annoying cart boy will kindly tell everyone, including you and your imaginary friend, to scoot the fuck in. Ok, so there you are, ready to watch some movie with someone you know on your left or right and on the reciprocal side, a complete stranger.

This is no big deal. I really don’t mind sitting next to a complete stranger…except for one eensy, weensy thing. IF I’m there first, and only IF I’m there first….ask to use the fucking arm rest. Don’t make this a war of elbows. I don’t want to have an elbow confrontation. I don’t like confrontation to begin with and to have to bump elbows for an hour and a half and awkwardly tell my girlfriend about it makes me feel like a big sopping idiot. We can share the elbow rest thats fine….I’m willing to go halves. I’ll take the back half, you take the half closest to the screen. I’m totally not going to go above my half. Once I even asked a girl if she wanted it and she laughed. It’s good to know your neighbors when elbows are involved.

Next, don’t bring fucking Nacho Cheese Doritos to the flick and prepare to crinkle the bag and eat really loud. First off you get the orange fingers that smell like butt after you lick the cheese off and when you laugh the whole row can smell Mexico. Smelly annoying snacks sometimes aren’t avoidable, but don’t make it that bad.

And lastly, where are the youth correctional officers? The next time I go see an R-Rated horror flick I don’t want Lil’ G-Thug and his “gangsta” crew of first graders screaming at the top of their lungs and talking loudly during the previews. Then that guy who’s with his girlfriend stands up and tries to quiet him down and this is what you get:

“Hey can you guys shut up? Please? Shut up!”
“Yo man whatcha talking bout, Shut Up? You best be sitting your ass down fore we cut you! I paid for this movie I’ll do what I want. Shiiiiiittt….”

The guy has no choice but to back down. If he doesn’t, his girlfriend gets to feel even more awkward. They end up moving seats and then I’m left to deal with the thugs without my “guy”. It could have snowballed and I may have been inspired, but that didn’t happen. The worst thing is his buddies jump in and your left on your own against all the scarabs.

With that said, I went and saw “Final Destination 3″ this past weekend with my girlfriend. I really didn’t expect much going into it as the other two flicks were just fun. FD3 was much more like the first movie, which pleased me. The idea has been beaten pretty well, so I knew this was just for the giggles. To say there was a script is to give the movie credit: The script wasn’t it’s strong point, nor should it have been. Instead the script carried a light story to the end which suited it. The acting was crappy; as it should have been. This isn’t a personal journey of Wendy the wunderchick who saw death’s plan. There isn’t any character dimensions and you shouldn’t expect any. The content of the movie laid in it’s action, which it did very well.

The scenes of horror were really well pulled off. A lot of the deaths were pretty inventive and cool. The audience was totally into it, almost trying to figure out which yummy teen was next to die. It was very intriguing to figure out how people were to die. My favorite death is perhaps the truck at the fast food restaurant; totally caught me off guard. The opening scene with the roller coaster could have been done better. It totally captured the emotions of the fear of waiting in line. I felt nervous for the characters. The actual accident is pretty cool, but lackluster in comparison to the first two movies openings. I wanted there to be a shot in the movie much like in the first FD, after Devon Sawa gets off the plane and you see the plane explode in the background. Shot still gives me the heeby jeebys…its haunting. FD3 didn’t have that shot.

The movie was shot effectively, with director James Wong of Willard fame, helming the piece. It’s apparent he had a small movie script to deal with and just made a cool little fun movie. I don’t suggest shelling out $10 bucks to see it, but maybe give it a gander on DVD if you like the series or horror movies in general. Overall it gets a 5 Bones out of 10 Bones for just being fun and not really more.

Stay tuned for more reviews and baseball stuff!

Last week, a writer for the Suffolk Journal went on a tirade on how it was a dissapointing Boston sports year. This outraged me. Insofar, I wrote a counterpoint to his article. You can see this article in cold hard print, or…read it here. Also check out www.suffolkjournal.net for the other kids article.

It is a non-point to say that success in professional sports is measured by how many trophies your respected home-town brings at the end of the season. Who plays little league baseball or soccer and goes home happy without a trophy? I know I cried my damn eyes out. But the point is that we don’t watch little league baseball/soccer/hockey/football with the same intentions as to which the professional sports teams play. That isn’t to say you don’t play to win. Instead, you play the season with realistic goals in mind as well. Two teams that play realistically are the Boston Celtics and Bruins.
No one at the beginning of the season expected the Celtics to come out and run the table in the Atlantic division. The Celtics are a work in progress and have been rebuilding since the Rick Pitino era of deconstruction. The Celtics have identity problems lacking a true captain (sorry Paul) and a consistency of coaching, going from Pitino to O’Brien then to Rivers. Yes, the Green are young and inexperienced…but talented. And for Mr. Collins to say that Danny Ainge is getting younger is wrong: Was it not Danny Ainge who traded younger studs (Davis, Banks and Blount) for veterans (Sczerbiak, Olowokandi)? Building for the future while trying to compete for today are incredibly hard things to do in tandem…yet the Celtics are doing just that.
The Boston Bruins are also in the mix for rebuilding, not just in their organization but in the entire league. After the strike of 2004, teams were thrown into chaos. The Bruins sought to re-sign key players during the off-season and disrupted the chemistry in the locker room. The Bruins are similar to the Celtics as they consist of many youthful prospects, with high ceilings and low experience. They also lack a true captain, pre-Joe and post-Thornton. Despite having an injured starting goalie’s, Tim Thomas, has stepped up. To quote also Mr. Collins in saying that trading “the face of the franchise, Joe Thornton, for three average professionals”, we again see a falsity. Marco Sturm, Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau are all solid players: Stuart and Sturm are all-star quality and Stuart is a player to build around.
The Red Sox were a great team on paper heading into 2005. But as we all know there’s only one type of paper that’s consistent in its use: I’ll give you a hint. It’s in your bathroom. Lacking a true ace and a dependable closer all season certainly did not help the Sox of ‘05. Many fans were coming off the high that was 2004 and expected similar in 2005. What is remarkable about 2004 is that not one of their starting pitchers got injured all year (barring Derek Lowes boo-boo on his thumb and the Schilling Bloody Sock, but really do those count?).With this in mind, the ‘04 Red Sox won 98 games. The ‘05 Sox won 95 games and tied for the overall AL East. Three wins less than the year before with no bullpen, no closer and no ace: Remarkable. And to make the playoff’s again as the wild-card isn’t disappointing so much as it is not 2004. Fans that should be disappointed should be that of the two New York teams, as they’re respected ownerships blew their bank up for the likes of Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran, both busts of the 2005 season. The Red Sox paid their players what they were worth and got their money for them.
The Patriots were a similar situation to the Red Sox and were expected to repeat. But once again, it is wrong to assume that the ‘04 Patriots would be the same when they lose both Coach Crennel and Weis. Then key injuries to star players that Mr. Collins has eluded to as well as free-agent deals that turned bust. An aging running back put the season on one mans shoulders: Tom Brady. Brady had a career year, throwing for more yards and more touchdowns than years past. To say that injuries are disappointing is true; but what the team did with their disappointment is more important. They became an entertaining team toward the end of the season. Are we to be disappointed that the ‘05 Patriots didn’t repeat the ‘04 Championship? Of course, but for what it’s worth, could they really win with their injuries? And for Mr. Collins not to call them a dynasty, claiming that right is entitled to a team that should “win 3 or 4 more championships” I question this: Which team has won 6 or 7 Super Bowls with the same group of guys? The Steelers of the late 70’s and early 80’s won 4 in 6 years and are classified as a dynasty. Patriots are 3 out of 4. You do the math.
“It’s not about the end, it’s about the journey” some stupid high-school senior once wrote in their graduation speech. I was not that senior but I do believe in the hip jargon Just Graduated Johnny used when it comes to sports teams. The Yankees didn’t win all 26 rings from acquiring free-agents every season( Note to Mr. Steinbrenner: Try some home-cooking. Eating out all the time costs a lot and you can get sick). The teams that won consecutively were homegrown. They proved that growing the organization from within is a success unto itself. No team runs the table and dominates the league without going through some growing pains in years before. Just because the Red Sox and Patriots didn’t dominate or sprinkle fairy dust, and the Bruins and Celtics are struggling doesn’t mean the season(s) are a failure. They are more just another growing pain in the long life of an organization that will eventually lead to another parade down Tremont street. Oh and the Pittsburgh Pirates do have a chance. They’re just in growing pains…not the Kirk Cameron ones either.