The Godfather Part I - It's about damn time

Okay so everyone knows that Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" series of films are among the critical god tier of 20th century motion pictures. Embarrassingly enough I must admit that before today I had never seen, in it's entirety (though I've seen bits and pieces of the movie many times),  The Godfather (1972) staring an all-star cast of cinema gods like Al Pacino (Scarface), Marlon Brando (Guys and Dolls), James Caan (Las Vegas, Elf) and Robert Duvall (True Grit [1969], Apocalypse Now).

The Godfather is an amazing compelling account of the trials of tribulations of the power that comes with control and the pain and prosperity it can bring. Part I revolves around the Corleone crime family (one of the big five mafioso families in post WW2 America) and the leader Don Vito Corleone (Brando).

The movie begins on the day of  Don Corleone's daughter's wedding, and the tradition of friends of the family friends and business associates requesting favors of Don Corleone. You learn off the bat, through a tense conversation the ideals of honor, tradition and vengeance that are held by Don Corleone. The opening wedding scene introduces all of the main characters and themes of the movie in a beautiful way that at no time feels rushed or forced. You are introduced to Vito's son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), who has just come back a hero from WW2, Vito's other son Santino "Sunny" Corleone, and the families many henchmen.

Mr. Ed gets iced

Though Vito Corleone seems very calm and controlled you can tell he is a man of great control. You are proven this early on when he makes a movie director an "offer that he cant refuse" when he asks him to allow a friend of the family to be in his new war film. When the director refuses Corleone has his consigliari place the severed, bloody head of his prized race horse in his bed as a warning.

The Corleone family is stepping into a new world of crime, beyond their typical dealings in gambling and booze, they must weigh the possibilities of  moving into the new, and profitable, world of narcotics. When Don Corleone refuses to enter the drug trade he his gunned down in the street; creating a war between the 5 families. This forces the mostly passive, Michael Corleone to protect the family and their interests while Vito is in the hospital recovering from the many bullets that were pumped into him.

Pacino will never stop being badass.

From here the story is about the changes that Michael goes through and his rise and hold as the to-be new leader of the family. I could go on all day of the details of this movie but I don't want to give to much away, especially if your like me and hadn't seen this film and wanted to go into it with a clean slate. The Godfather part I is one of few movies I could call nearly perfect on all levels. Near perfect shot composition, score, acting, continuity and screenplay are all beautifully weaved together to create of one of the greatest films to ever touch the silver screen (and my computer screen).

I would suggest that anyone who loves movies that they have to see this, and I feel quite ashamed that it took me so long to see this film. I give The Godfather Part 1 a very well deserving 10/10.

R.I.P. Ryan Dunn

Lemmy - The embodyment of rock n' roll

Okay so I know it's been a while since I wrote anything and to be honest I've sat down and wrote like 20 different half entries and then deleted them cause I wasn't feeling it. I've even watched a ton of movies lately its just been sooooo incredibly hard to find the motivation with everything going on in my life. So I figured that I would just force myself to write about one of movies I saw recently; the 2010 documentary Lemmy.

Okay so, the focus of this film is the front man of the pioneering thrash metal band Motorhead; Lemmy Kilmister. Any one who is into metal has a clear picture of Lemmy in their head: long hair, welcoming mutton chops, a giant witchey looking mole on his cheek and a gravely cigarette and booze infused voice. But it wasn't until I saw this film that I really realized how seasoned and epic this dude really is.

So basically this film is about his past as well as his present. Through the old footage of him playing in the 60's through to the 2000's and the plethora of interviews from rock and metals most important figures you see just who this guy, who's old enough to my grandfather, really is. In the 60's he rolled as a guitar tech for freaking Hendrix and toured as was around the biggest acts of the time. Through the 60's Lemmy was in a fairly big band at the time called the Rockin' Vickers who had a few big singles in Europe. In the 70's he joined a popular space rock band called Hawkwind where he developed his bass style of using chords and double stops as apposed to alot of the bass players at the time who would stick to the single note basslines, this style (as well as the insane loudness and the sheer chunkiness of it all) basically became the signature sound of Motorhead. In 1975 tho Lemmy was fired after being arrested at the US-Canada border in Detroit on cocaine charges (that were dropped eventually because it wasn't coke, it was speed).

That year Lemmy met up with a group of meth addicts that he connected with and started the first incarnation of Motorhead. They were of course well known for their song Ace of Spades which has been in like 14,00 different videos games (one of Lemmy's hobbies is gaming). Of course over the years they switched out and fired members and now Lemmy is the only origional member in the band, but he is still rocking like his counterparts in their 20's.  Lemmy is now an aging rocker living in a shitty little LA apartment, living the hard life, and jamming with greats like Metallica and Dave Grohl

He lived his life for rock and roll and all of the party favors that came with it: lsd, weed, meth, JD and his always present Marlboro red's. You would expect that after like 40 years as a rock star constantly drinking and doing drugs would have destroyed his body and his brain like many of the other rock stars who hardly made it out alive.

This film was really really well filmed well researched and well developed. The interviews with some of rocks greats were great and you really got a feel of the amount of respect the music community gives him. I absolutely loved this doc and give it a speed-infused 9-10.

Mighty Putty

RIP Billy Mays

So about 4 years ago i bought this amazing pair of Sony MDR-7505 Professional headphones for college, that sounded absolutely amazing, for like $150.00. They got me through 2 years of college and then the arm connecting the part that goes on top of your head to the left ear piece snapped! I tried duct tape, gorilla glue, gum, my own skin but nothing seemed to work. I figured these headphones were completely done for so I used my old Behringer's from high school and put the Sony's on my shelf to gather dust.

Fast forward to just before Christmas 2010. I'm standing in line at my local Walmart scanning the impulse buy items when i spotted Mighty Putty!

Sony Headphones broken in the same way

 So I picked up these 2 tubes of green crap and took them home, not knowing if what Billy was yelling about was real (Oxy Clean has never steered me wrong). So I got home, took a butter knife and cut off a section of this sulferish smelling, modeling clay-like grey goo surrounded by a green outer shell. So as per the instructions i sat there for a few minutes rolling this stuff in the palms of my hands until it became malleable and gray. 

I grabbed my headphones and connected the broken pieces and molded the putty around the parts to connect them, and then I set it down to dry and played Black Ops for a while. Low and behold when I checked the Mighty Putty was completely concrete solid and had made a perfect connection. I've been wearing my repaired phones while on my computer, out walkin' around, and mowin' the lawn and they are perfect and there is not one single sign of wear in the putty.

The finished product

So this stuff is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to stick things to other things permanently. The only downside I can see to this stuff was the smell as i was kneading it, and to be honest it didn't really bother me that much. It gets a very deserving 9ish    

   

127 Hours

Right off the bat I must say that I wish I saw this movie when it was in theaters last year, because it was fucking awesome. Director/writer Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) did an amazing job of recreating the harrowing survival story of adventurer Aron Ralston, portrayed by James Franco (Freaks and Geeks, Pineapple Express, Spiderman).

So if you don’t know (or you’ve been under a rock for the last year [BAHAHAHAHA]) 127 Hours is an inspiring story of survival against insurmountable odds and also a story of how the things and people we take advantage of come back and can be the last thread that keeps us alive.  From the opening scene you can see a hint of the cinematic awesomeness that went into this movie as you see scenes of thousands of people moving, cheering, living showing the amazing situations in which people come together in swarms juxtaposed. After this you are given a taste of who Ralston (Franco) is: a young man with a thirst for adventure. Ralston leaves his house in Utah in the very early morning hours, with a bike, rock climbing equipment and all of the other adventurer accoutrement. Ralston then drive excitedly, in the dark, to Blue John Canyon.

That morning Aron throws some Phish on his MP3 Player and heads out into the vast Utah canyons with a handy cam recording the whole adventure. We are presented with stunning shots of the canyons and far-stretching, dry rolling plains. Ralston bikes for sometime before setting out on foot to find a location he was eagerly set on getting too in record breaking time; until he meets up with some fine hiking honeys. He takes the two girls out to some crazy underground pool and chills and flirts with them and shit before setting back out on his journey (the real Aron Ralston claims that this did not actually happen and he only showed the girls some rock climbing tips, other than that Ralston claims that this film is as close to a documentary of his situation as you could get). 

This is where the story really takes off and where the “meat and potatoes” of this film lays. While traversing the cliffs and crevices of Blue John Canyon Aron steps awkwardly on a boulder and falls into a crevice; trapping his arm between the boulder and the wall (I guess you could say he was stuck between a rock and a hard place =\ ). Aron goes through his supplies which consisted of some carabineers, ropes, a small amount of water, a dyeing head lamp, some food, his cameras and a crappy multi-tool. Over the next  6 days Aron must overcome and survive the mental and physical extremes his body goes through as he struggles for food and water.

While he’s trapped with the boulder, Aron must delve deep into his mind to find the motivation to keep living and trying. During this time you are presented with scenes from his life where you see the many relationships that he has had and left behind and the impact that they have on him.

127 Hours is one amazing movie which really plays on your emotions. During this film I found myself looking back into my own life and the people I’ve forgotten about or left behind. I often overlook the people and situations in my life that have forever  changed me and given me the opportunities to live the life I’ve been so blessed to have. I love and hate when movies do that to me. SO ANYWAY, 127 Hours was absolutely awesome and on my inconsistent scale receives a 9.3. That is all.   

Limitless - lesson of this movie: doing drugs will make you popular and successful. It's crack time!

The night after I saw Suckerpunch I ended up going right back to ye ol' movie house to watch Limitless, starring Bradly Cooper (The Hangover) and Robert De Niro (Godfather Part 2, Meet the Parents). I had seen a trailer and a few TV spots and found the concept of this movie kind of interesting, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the story would not live up to the concept. Thankfully they did a decent job on this picture.

After the intro you are introduced to struggling-lowlife-dirtbag writer Eddie Morra (Cooper), who as had a severe case of writers block that is ruining his life. He starts to run out of money fast and his girlfriend up and leaves his stank-ass. A few days later he runs into his sisters former coke dealer ex-boyfriend who suddenly seems to be happy, successful, and to all outside appearances a legit guy. The brother, says hes working for a pharmaceutical company and hands him a new pill the "company"  invented and was pending "FDA Certification". On his walk back to his apartment, and realizing he has nothing to lose, he takes the small
 transparent pill.

This is when the movie really comes together story and cinematic wise. When he takes the pill the film goes into this really really unique continuous zoom that's really hard to explain in words. It's almost as if the camera is zooming into a picture in a picture in a picture and creates a perfect image to go along with how Eddie is supposed to be feeling. Soon after he takes the pill he starts writing his book and cleaning his life up at an insane pace. The rest of the film is about the trials and tribulations of having access to such an amazing catalyst. You get to see the fame and happiness in the life that the pill can create, but also the horrible downside.

Limitless was a really fun and interesting watch. Though it was a great film for the most part, it was not without its flaws. The main problem with the movie was the story, at times things jumped and moved around and skipped ahead so fast that it was sometimes hard to keep track of where things were going. Though it was a little frustrating once or twice in the movie it was still overall a great flick.

I give it an 8.64/10

Ricky

So I must say that Trailer Park Boys is one of the greatest television shows in Canada's history. That is all.

"Don't fuck this up, those damn cigarettes in there is our life. And for fucks sakes man, take a shower! You look like a hobalo"