"Skrinkle begat Skroddle and Skrinkle and Skroddle were the Lego blocks of a strange new world he was building for us all. I Somehow, his dopey language caught on like his stupid parties."

Year: 2003

Directosr: Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato

Writers: Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, James St James (the book Disco Bloodbath)

Based on the true story of the fall of the club kid Michael Alig, and how he murdered a drug dealer and his roommate Angel Melendez.

I mostly wanted to watch this movie, because I used  to love it when I was about 12 years old (how fucked up was my taste in movies anyway?). Another reason was that it took me so long to realise Wilmer Valderrama was in this movie. When I first saw this movie, I watched in YouTube - no kidding in about 10 parts! - and there was even a notification or something like that, saying "Yes, that's Wilmer Valderrama", and I just realised that this year! Amazing... Also I kind of wanted  to see this again, because it wasn't too long ago that Michael Alig actually got released from prison, right?

There's something I should've read before watching the movie again, or maybe I need to do another review after reading that... But I have a copy of Disco Bloodbath and I've been wanting to read it. But James St. James' style is quite weird and when I got that book (I was 12) I didn't think I could read it. So, I don't know what's in the book, I don't know what really or "really" happened, I can't know which parts have been exaggerated. Maybe I should've done some proper research...

But oh, the characters and the dialogue seem so corny after all these years! A 12-year-old doesn't think about that so much but now... Some scenes and things and dialogue made me cringe a little. It's mostly how Michael Alig seemed in this movie. Again, I can't really know what Alig is really like, but in the movie the character seemed so immature, someone who had never truly grown up. I don't know if this is actual Michael Alig, or Macaulay Culkin's acting - or Macaulay Culkin himself!

Now that I'm talking about Macaulay Culking, it's time to appreciate the casting. Some choices are of course weird (Marilyn Manson, whose performance was apparently a spot on), but when you look at the big picture, it actually works. Everyone whose character matter in the story seems very good in their role. Maybe all of them don't seem realistic, but when the movie is like this anyway... it doesn't seem to matter.

What is the movie like then? It's hard to think it actually takes place in this very real world. It just seems so much more twisted and wonderful, like a really fucked up Wonderland, which turns out not to be so wonderful after all, but a really brutal one. 

The cinematography is colourful and almost playful, which affects that "fucked up  Wonderland" feeling a lot. But when the scenes were brutal and sad and all, the effects, filming and colouring were different. The cinematography in this movie is pure art, it's amazing on its own, but of course it's even more amazing. The music too is also amazing, and everything said about cinematography goes with the music too.

In short, Party Monster is an interesting film, even if you don't view it as a biography. It's peculiar and well-made, definitely worth seeing, even if it isn't the best movie made - after all it's not worth seeing many times, because the story is easy to learn by heart. There are several other movies about the subject, documentary/documentaries too. Maybe it would be more interesting to watch those, than this movie many times.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

6 / 10

"Listen, I've been married for twenty five years to the same wonderful, infuriating woman. And granted there are days when I want to light her on fire but I don't, because I love her. And that would be illegal."

Year: 2008

Director: Tom Vaughan 

Writer: Dana Fox

Joy and Jack both go to Vegas for their own reasons, and the morning after they realise they got married, and they win three million dollars. Argument about who the money belongs to leads to divorce: which they can't get unless they live together six months, trying to make their marriage work.

I mostly wanted to watch something, because I've been so lazy during July I haven't written anything - at least not on my blog. So I took the first interesting looking movie on Netflix and watched it. 

The start of the movie is very interesting, it was both typical and not typical for a romantic comedy. And when they want the divorce, the scheming between Joy and Jack is fun and even clever. This movie has everything you'd want from a romantic comedy, but that doesn't necessarily make it good. There are elements and plot points so typical in this movie, all the originality feels very insignificant. This movie seems to have almost every typical trope possible. Then again, I wasn't expecting this to be something special or in any way original. 

And I might be wrong on this, since I've only seen him play two different characters, but... I have a feeling Aston Kutcher can't really act. He was almost exactly the same here than he was in That 70's Show. Is he only that famous and popular because of his looks, because it seems that way.

So if you want a stupid romantic comedy to watch with someone special, this might be your movie. But don't watch it expecting it to be brilliant. 

☆☆☆

3 / 10

"You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of." "But you have heard of me."

Last night I had a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon with my friends. That took 10 hours alltogether, and I've slept like three hours. That is one of the reasons why I'm doing one post of all the four movies instead of four individual reviews. After all my memory might be quite blurry after such a long night. 

First of all, the stories of all the four movies (and possibly the fifth, too, I bet) are all very interesting. The progress of the stories is captivating, and so are the stories and the elements used in them. I've always loved how they used actual legends, and when they didn't, they made the stories seem like they could be real legends. Also mixing legends and spicing them up made the stories really amazing. If I'd have to say my favourite, I can't. The Curse of the Black Pearl is of course amazing, but then again I love At The World's End, which wouldn't been anything without Dead Man's Chest... And then again the quest to find the fountain of youth in On Stranger Tides is amazing. All the stories are more or less amazing, especially when you've been watching these movies since you were a kid.

There's one very unique thing about the characters in these movies, compared to typical fantasy movies. In Pirates Of The Caribbean, the audience can really like all characters. The world isn't just divided to good and evil in this movie, which is amazing: even the "bad guys" have motives, and usually those make them so very human. Like Captain Barbossa is supposed to be the bad guy in the first movie, but you can still understand what he and his crew are going through, and  you feel bad for them, and seeing Barbossa after the first movie is like wow, amazing, he's back. You can find some humanity in everyone: Davy Jones, Blackbeard... Even Cutler Beckett, even though he's a total ass. Still all the characters have flaws, some more than others. All the characters are so very well written. They aren't just characters, they feel so very human.

I love the action scenes in these movies. Most of them are in some way clever and funny, and that's amazing. Of course some action scenes aren't as good, because there are way too many people fighting at once, and it's hard to keep a track on what's happening. (At The World's End, mostly). But especially the fight about the key between Jack, Will and Norrington in Dead Man's Chest was a really good one, it is hilarious and exciting, and it's easy to remember and to keep track on.

And I have to say, I'm still kind of amazed by the effects. Especially in the first one, the cursed crew was done so well considering the movie came out in 2003. 

And if there's a movie series with perfect soundtrack, it's this one. You could say everyone knows "He's A Pirate", but there are so many other great tracks there, especially At The World's End has amazing music.

I love these movies mostly because they are exciting - all the fights, all the storms and curses and everything... It's all very thrilling, sometimes even when you've seen the movie already. The movies are even funny, even though it's typical action adventure type of humour, but it made all of us laugh here. Even if the movies are not perfect, the structure, humour and  thrill are close to perfect.

I kind of hate to say this, but even though I was sort of excited about the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, it is kind of like the weakest link of the bunch. The story is amazing, they used amazing legends there. There's just that something is missing. And I kind of want to blame it all on Rob Marshall, because Gore Verbinsky did such a marvellous job. Either it's just how different the story was (without Will and Elizabeth), or Verbinsky had something Marshall doesn't.

Still, I'm excited about the fifth movie. I don't actually think they are just prolonging the series way too much. There just is such a strong bond between the first three movies that adding anything else would seem kind of useless. But I think the writers can still offer a lot to the world we've known since 2003. Pirates of the Caribbean are good, they are amazing adventure movies with interesting characters and all that. I say let them make movies as long as the writing and the characters are still as good, but if characters start to become bland and the amazing structure goes wrong, then I'll complain too.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Year: 2003

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9/ 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Year: 2006

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

7 / 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Year: 2007

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Year: 2011

Director: Rob Marshall

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert, Tim Powers (novel "On Stranger Tides")

☆☆☆☆☆

5 / 10

"If I don't get home before 8, she puts on the sweatpants. And once the sweatpants are on, I get nothing."

Year: 2009

Director & Writer: Mike Judge

"Joel, the owner of an extract plant, tries to contend with myriad personal and professional problems, such as his potentially unfaithful wife and employees who want to take advantage of him."

- Summary written by Anonymous

I've spent most of the summer watching That 70's Show and Arrested Developement. I was looking through Netflix and I found this movie, and I got interested because it has both Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis in it. And since I haven't written reviews in July at all, I thought I need to watch something, so I chose Extract.

This movie had many actors and actresses I knew. Well, I mention Bateman and Kunis earlier, but there also were Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, J. K. Simmons Clifton Collins Jr... It was weird seeing some of them working together, I mean I never thought I'd see Affleck and Bateman in same movie, I don't know why. But they really did work well together, and I think those casting choices made the movie more interesting. When you've seen Bateman mostly in comedies and Affleck in more serious movies, it makes the audience quite unsure on what to expect from a scene where they both are together. 

The story and plot were interesting, and I loved how many different things were happening at once. Also it was much more interesting than the summary made me think. Also there were a lot of characters the viewer didn't get to hear about a lot, like Kunis' character is still kind of a mystery to me.

Extract somehow reminded me of Leaves Of Grass, because this one too somehow looked and sounded like it could be a TV movie or a TV show. It's something about the cinematography and the music. They were both just fine, by the way. I especially enjoyed how they used the music during those few scenes with the gigolo Brad. 

There was all kind of humour in this movie. There was little bit of everything. That could work, but usually it just makes a certain viewer to respond some kind of humour, and not everything.

This movie is easy to watch. It doesn't require much thinking and pondering over the subjects and all. Also it wasn't too emotive. In fact it might've been too little emotive, since I guess I'm not feeling much anything after the movie. 

Extract had a lot of potential. It's a decent flick, but it left me quite cold. Technically it's well made and it has decent actors, good writing and all that. But for some reason it doesn't live up to that potential it has.

☆☆☆☆☆

5 / 10