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Nov 26 2018
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Movie Review – Widows (2018)

It’s a heist film that stole nearly 2 and a half hours of my time!

BQB here with a review of “Widows.”

When I saw ads for a film about the wives of dead criminals who get together to pull of a heist of their own, I thought that idea seemed like a cool idea for a movie.

Problem is, I went in expecting a tight action movie and got something different altogether.  Frankly, it’s less about the heist and more of a study and meditation on life in inner city Chicago, how a corrupt system keeps people down and out, forced into a life of unhappiness and people can only break out of it if they lie, cheat, steal or you know, commit a massive and unlikely to succeed heist.

At the outset, the movie has a great pedigree.  Gillian Flynn of “Gone Girl” fame co-wrote the script with the flick’s director, Steve McQueen of “12 Years a Slave” fame.

The cast includes Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Michele Rodriguez, Colin Farrell, and well, more stars than I can mention and the surprise is somehow all these big names were talked into sharing the limelight.  It’s an ensemble cast where no one really gets a lot of time in the sun but rather, each is a cog in the machine, doing their part as you wait to see what the final output will be.

Viola Davis leads the squad of women who need to pull off a robbery in order to appease the gangster their late husbands stole from.  Along the way, they’ll have to face their own demons.

Veronica (Viola) is a teacher who always kept her nose clean and had lied to herself, telling herself her husband wasn’t a thief but some kind of businessman though she always knew the truth and she clearly despises the world of hoodlums and losers she will have to wade into.

Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) seeks the independence of owning her own clothing store, though her husband had racked up so much gambling debt that she loses it.  She wants it back.

Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) has grown use to a life of being beaten by her ex-husband, having convinced herself that attaching herself to a rich man like a barnacle is the only way to survive, but hopes the robbery can break her out of this life.

Besides those three, there are multiple sub-plots and characters, all who intersect, Colin Farrell as a third generation Chicago politician forced into a life he doesn’t want by his father, Duvall, and being challenged for his seat on the city council by Brian Henry, the gangster the babes owe money to who is looking to move out of the world of underworld crime to the world of political white collar crime, strangely a step up.

It’s pretentious.  Full of itself.  It has a lot of twists for the sake of twists.  There are twists where you are like “Holy shit I didn’t see that one coming!” followed by “Hey wait a minute, this twist doesn’t make sense.”

Gillian Flynn built her name on the super-twisty “Gone Girl” but I hope she doesn’t fall into the Shamalan trap of trying to build a twisty career.  Hitchcock might have been able to keep the twists going forever, but few can and sometimes it is necessary to move on and seek a non-twisty career.

It’s good.  It’s worth your time though I think a half-hour to 45 minutes could have been chopped off without missing much.  The heist is cool but they do make you wait and wait and wait for it.

If you came for a tight, solid action flick, you will be disappointed.  If you wanted to learn how the system sucks and how it sucks people in and leaves them with no choice but to do bad shit to get by, you came to the right place.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  Skip the theater and rent it.  You’ll need your couch to be comfy on this long time commitment.

 

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Nov 25 2018
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Movie Review – Creed 2 (2018)

Hold onto your zhopas, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of “Creed 2.”

It’s funny. After “Creed 1” I was like, “Ha! Now Creed Jr. should go to Russia and kick Ivan Drago’s ass to avenge his father!”

Well, turns out Hollywood thinks just like I do.

Hard to believe, but I remember being a little kid in the movie theater watching Rocky and Ivan go at it and now so many years later I am watching their sons go at it and then returning to my blog to tell my 3.5 readers about it.

In case you forgot, in Rocky IV, during the 1980s Cold War era, Apollo dies in a fight against Ivan.  Rocky, Ivan’s couch, failed to throw in the towel and blames himself for Apollo’s death.  He then returns to Russia to train and fight Drago and bring back victory to America.  USA, USA, USA!

In this go around, we learn that the 1980s loss to Rocky caused Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) to lose his standing, respect, and wife.  He had to flee to the Ukraine and live in poverty.  Among the ashes, he trains his son, Viktor, to rise and become a great boxer.

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), Rocky’s protégé, is challenged.  Blah, blah, blah, Rocky says no, Creed says yes, shit happens, will he live or die etc.

By now, the Rocky formula, after 8 films, is ingrained in our heads.  Someone ones to fight.  The fight looks insurmountable.  Death and destruction is likely in store for the hero.  The hero stands his ground.  He gets knocked down but he gets back up to take more punishment, thus a metaphor for life.  In the end, he wins the unlikely victory.

Hard to believe Rocky flicks are still being made after all these years but they are still going as strong as ever.  And after each one I’m like, “I can’t see how they could think of another one after this” but now I realize they will.

To the film’s credit, the Dragos are humanized.  In the original, Drago is shown to be a cold, uncaring monster, a product of Communism, the result of a government that was willing to divert all of its resources away from the poor and into a fighting machine that would wage war for the USSR’s honor.

In this installment, we see that Russia doesn’t like a failure.  While Rocky was able to walk away from boxing and open a restaurant, Drago has become a joke and wants his reputation back.  Viktor has trained his whole life for this and it hurts him that his mother (Brigette Nielson) left him.  Both are fighting for respect and it is weird…though you root for Creed, you also want an ending where the Dragos will be accepted by their country again.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  In theory, the idea of a sequel to Rocky IV in which the sons of Creed and Drago fight to avenge their fathers sounds idiotic and childish but in reality, they managed to pull it off, give it heart, and make it worthwhile.

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Nov 22 2018
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Movie Review – Robin Hood (2018)

He stole from the middle-class (i.e. me and my ticket price) and robbed me of 2 hours.

Or did he?

BQB here with a review of “Robin Hood.”

Yeah, I know.  That line above was catty and it is more or less what other critics are saying.  Truth is, I had a hard time with this one because there are parts of it that are quite awesome and overall, it is an enjoyable popcorn flick that had the potential to be truly great had it just been tweaked in some areas.

Taron Egerton, Hollywood’s favorite Brit these days, plays Lord Robin of Loxley, forced to leave an idyllic life of schtupping Maid Marion in his fabulously swanky castle to go off to war and fight the crusades in Arabia.

An early scene shows Robin and co. dressed in garb that straddles the line between ancient and modern and an inner city battle is a bit reminiscent of what American soldiers might have seen when they fought enemies in the Middle East in recent years.  I assume this is intentional as a commentary on modern war but then again, there are a number of touches, dialogue, and unfortunate clothing choices that make the viewer wonder if the film’s historical expert was out to lunch for most of the production.

In other words, this is not just Robin Hood.  It’s Woke Robin Hood.  When John (his real name is unpronounceable by the average English speaker for comedic effect), played by Jamie Foxx, an Arab who explains to Robin that this war and all wars since the beginning of time are scams designed to make the rich richer off the backs of the poor (I suppose we could debate this back and forth forever), Robin returns to England and dawns the hood.

From thereon, he becomes a superhero style fighter.  By day, he remains Robin, using his wealth and influence to gain the Sheriff of Nottingham’s trust and by night, using that trust against the evil, war tax collecting politician by stealing his ill gotten gains and distributing them to the impoverished masses.  He’s like a Batman of long ago.

To its credit, it does have a powerful anti-war message and viewers might be struck with the irony that politicians have been pulling on the citizenry’s emotional strings to support wars since the beginning of time and it is a cycle we may never be free of.  Unfortunately, the way it is done is a tad heavy handed, a bit too modern for a historical piece, and at one point where there is a casino night where the wealthy wear elaborate, Hunger Games rich people style garbs as they play roulette, those sticklers for historical accuracy will cringe.  If you can keep saying, “It’s just a fantasy” then you’ll be ok.

STATUS: Truly, there are many cool scenes, awesome fights, stylish goings on and so forth.  Egerton, Foxx and cast do their jobs well.  It’s worth the price of admission but like I said, it’s a good film that you’ll watch and then never care to see again and that’s too bad because a few plot changes and some more attention to historical details would have made it a great film with long lasting appeal.  Alas, in time (like my books) it is destined to hang out in the Sherwood Forest of the 99 cent bin forever.

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Nov 13 2018
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Movies

Movie Review – The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)

Thrills!  Chills!  Vacuum bags!

BQB here with a review of “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Off the bat, I’m going to address some of the criticism I’ve been reading about this movie.  The reviewers have been saying this is a cheap reboot, a makeover in the age of superhero movies, turning the great Lisbeth Salander from a deep character to a cookie cutter heroine that can be mass produced for endless sequels.

Balderdash, I say.  In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Stieg Larrson’s “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series about a young goth punk chick hacker and bitter middle aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist who team up together to fight crime in Sweden was all the rage.

Alas, for whatever reason, no American sequels were made immediately after 2011’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (featuring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara).  The original Swedish films starring Noomi Rapace live on, chronicling the entire three book series and I found them enjoyable and in some ways, better than the American version as they were more authentically Swedish (obviously) though they lacked the big budget explosions and effects that Hollywood can provide.

Back to the critics, I think they misunderstood the film.  Salander’s character isn’t dumbed down into a superhero.  Far from it.  Unlike every time there’s a new Batman movie and some Hollywood suit insists that half the film be spent on watching young Bruce Wayne’s parents get gunned down on the way home from the theater for the 1,000th time, this movie is an immediate continuation of the 2011 film, just with new actors.

In other words, the audience isn’t treated as a bunch of dummies.  Salander’s whole history isn’t rehashed, her relationship with Blomvquist isn’t explained, you, the viewer are expected to already know the past before you walked in, either from seeing the first film or reading the books or at least having heard something about the series before.  At any rate, Superman flicks might need to keep showing that space pod crash down on the Kents’ Iowa farm for the millionth time and Spiderman movies will always show young Peter sad that he didn’t stop Uncle Ben’s killer, but here, you are trusted to not be a dummy who already forgot the first film.

Claire Foy is great in the role.  Blomvquist, on the other hand, is given a total makeover and turned into a young studmuffin (Sverrir Gudnason), thus proving my point that Hollywood has reached a point where it will never again portray anyone over 40 as being either useful or good or productive or admirable in any way, shape or form.

Salander has hit her stride in this film.  After the buildup in the original, Lisbeth has perfected her ability to use her hacking skills to be the avenging angel of battered and abused women all across the Nordic lands.  Meanwhile, Blomvquist must decide whether to put his career above or below his friendship with the hacker.

Critics have complained that Salander is supposed to be a feminist hero but alas she’s been turned into some kind of male tough guy action star and I think they miss the point here.  Salander isn’t just a feminist hero but also, a realist hero.  Sure, she makes doors open, cars crash and causes all sorts of mayhem with the push of a cell phone button, and that is a super power as unlikely as the Flash’s speed, but whenever her hacking skills won’t save the day, she improvises by doing what mere mortals in her situation might do, i.e. stick a gun in a bad guy’s face or zipping away on her motorcycle and side swiping a cop car in the process because, no human, man or woman, is perfect.

Perhaps the gild is off the lilly for this series in some respects.  Something can only be new and fresh for so long before it becomes old and comfortable and familiar.  In its heyday, this series was considered quite original.  But at any rate, I think fans will be pleased that the film stays true (for the most part except Mikael isn’t a bitter, washed up old man anymore) to the source material.

Plot?  Salander is hired to steal a program that would give its user complete control over all nuclear missiles in the world.  She’s hired by the program’s inventor, who regrets ever making it and feels it should be in the hands of no one.  Alas, “the spiders” i.e. a criminal organization run by the family she escaped from steal it from her and she’ll have to enter a world she thought she left behind in order to get it back.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  Critics are dumb.

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Nov 05 2018
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Movies

Movie Review – Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Scaramouche, 3.5 readers. Scaramouche indeed.

BQB here with a review of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

As a young man, Farrokh Bulsara had a ridiculous, almost supernatural and unwavering level of confidence in himself.  Where most of us reach our late teens and early twenties and decide selling out our dreams in exchange for financial stability is the safest way to go, Farrokh, who later changes and embraces his new name, Freddie Mercury, has talent and believes in himself intensely.

All he needs is an opportunity and he finds it in the form of a struggling band.  College students Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon are on the rocks and about to call it quits when Freddie confidently sings a few notes in front of them and the rest is history.

Freddie is a showman’s showman and the front man to end all front men.  As Queen’s star rises, he engages the audience, gets them involved, makes them feel like he is singing to all of them individually.  He goes to war with the music industry establishment, fighting the good fight to convince them that his rock opera style (music that tells stories) will be a hit.

Comedian Mike Myers has a cameo as Ray Foster, a music industry big shot who tells Freddie his 6 minute song “Bohemian Rhapsody” sucks and will never make it.  This is ironic, given the fact that Myers, in his 1990s movie, “Wayne’s World,” introduced Queen’s music to a whole new young generation.  I can tell you I had never heard of Queen until Mike and Co. started banging their heads to Bohemian Rhapsody in their car.

Freddie struggles with demons, both in the music industry and in his personal life.  He adores Mary Austin, the love of his life, but it can never be because he’s bisexual.  Worse, as he gains fame and fortune, he collects a contingent of hangers-on who feed his ego, urging him to indulge all of his vices – rampant, indiscriminate sex and drugs, drugs and more drugs.

His cross to bear is that he believes himself to be a genius (right in many ways) and so wants to hear he is right no matter what, even when he is wrong.  He wants to hear non-stop that he is  and wonderful and special and there are plenty of yes men who tell him this but this leads to behavior that ruins his life.  He is better off with his bandmates, who are his family.  They clash and fight but they also tell him the hard truth – that he needs to clean himself up, get away from drugs, find a solid relationship instead of a different sex partner every day and so on.

This is a breakthrough role for Rami Malek who, for years, I recognized as a familiar face, but never learned his name until now and like the character in his film, his portrayal is genius.  Hopefully unlike his character, the success won’t go to his head.

Although it is early in the season, I smell Oscar potential.  Few of us will ever experience Mercury’s level of fame, but the lesson may be that a little confidence in ourselves can go a long way towards finding success.  Further, maintaining humility and loyalty will help us keep that success once it is achieved.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

 

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Nov 03 2018
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Hunter Killer (2018)

It’s a coup!  BQB here with a review of “Hunter Killer.”

A US sub is lost.  Gerard Butler plays a sub captain sent with his crew to investigate.  Shenanigans ensue.  The Russian President is taken hostage by his military and if that subversion is successful, well, I don’t want to give it away but suffice it to say the stakes are high and it becomes in America’s best interests to save the Russki Prez.

The investigation mission becomes a rescue mission and it’s action galore.  There are some undertones of Hunt for Red October though this film is all on its own.  I’ll give it to Gerard Butler.  His performance in “300” was great and after that I always thought he was kind of wooden, but he excels here as the captain who earned his stripes the hard way, by working his way up through the ranks as opposed to those who went to officer school and were awarded a high rank without getting their hands dirty.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Oct 22 2018
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Movie Review – Bad Times at the El Royale

This movie may be about bad times but if you see it you’ll have a good time.  Zing! I’m so witty.

BQB here with a review of Bad Times at the El Royale.

3.5 readers, I’m just going to say it.  This is the best movie I’ve seen all year and frankly, one of the best new films I’ve seen in a long time.  I went into it thinking it would be decent but was blown away by its style and originality and I love it when I can give a glowing recommendation right off the bat.  Go see it.  Go see it now.

The El Royale is a hotel that straddles the California and Nevada state lines.  In the 1960s it was a hot spot for the rich and famous, though by the 1970s when this film takes place, it has been long forgotten.

A series of guests check in at the same time.  There’s the obnoxious traveling salesman (Jon Hamm doing his best Foghorn Leghorn impression); the lounge singer (Jennifer Hudson in the role she’s been waiting for); the Catholic priest (Jeff Bridges); and the rude hippy (Dakota Johnson).

If I were to tell you much more, I’d ruin it all for you.  Suffice to say, in each room, there’s a mystery underway.  Every guest has a troubled past and each mystery will come together in a big way.

There are times when it takes awhile for the story to build up, but the promises of big plot paydays are made and paid with interest if you hang on.

The Oscars have been under fire the past few years as being a stodgy institution that just pays attention to obscure art house flicks that no one watches.  This film would be the Academy’s chance to buck that trend.

While each character has their moment to shine, Bridges and J-Hud shine particularly bright.  Jeff Bridges turns in his best performance in over 20 years since the Big Lebowski.  What range.  Two decades ago he played a mellow dude who never let anything bother him and today he’s playing an aging holy man whose violent past has caught up with him.

Meanwhile, I’ve always admired J-Hud.  While most singers rely on skimpy outfits, gimmicks and scandals, Hudson has always let her pipes speak for themselves.  She turns in her performances in public and then her private life is her own and she doesn’t try to blend the two.  She’s had a number of parts in films over the years but this the most memorable since her turn as Effie in Dreamgirls launched her career.

I know it’s still early and most Oscar films don’t come out until the end of the year, but I hope the Academy will consider this film.  It is not a traditional Oscar flick by any means but the story grips you, the performances are great and Bridges and Hudson deserve gold statues.

Is J-Hud seeing anybody?  Feel free to move into BQB HQ anytime Miss Hudson.

STATUS:  Totes shelf-worthy.

EDIT: Hey, I don’t feel like rewriting this review but it was just brought to my attention by Twitter that J-Hud wasn’t even in this movie.  Cynthia Erivo plays the singer in this movie but hell, give her an Oscar because she’s also great. There are a lot of actors/actresses that look alike.  I know fairly recently there was an actress I kept mistaking for Jennifer Lawrence, for example.  Maybe I’m losing my mind or I’m not keeping up with pop culture.  Oh well.

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Oct 08 2018
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Movie Review – Venom (2018)

There’s a monster in all of us, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of “Venom.”

Ahh, Venom.  That misunderstood anti-hero/villain who Hollywood will never understand.  He made an appearance in “Spiderman 3” and was a dud then.  Here, the effort is better but…well…it’s not quite as awesome as you might hope.

Tom Hardy plays way, way, way against type as down on his luck loser journalist Eddie Brock.  Blah, blah, blah, hijinx ensue and he ends up sharing his body with the alien entity known as Venom.  Basically, it’s a modern day Jeykll and Hyde tale.

Venom takes control and Brock is along for the ride, frightened and humorously terrified as the alien makes him murder bad guys indiscriminately and even, yes, eat them.  You’d think this kind of “OMG what’s going on I’m just a nerd!” role would go to a more comedic actor rather than Hardy, who is known for being a stoic who broods who barely speaks.

Still, I can’t knock a guy for trying something different, just as I can’t knock Michelle Williams for starring as Brock’s girlfriend.  The role seems beneath Williams though I understand why she took it – i.e. appearing in a super hero movie is like the gold standard now.

Is it fun? Yes.  Is it worth your time? Yes.  Is it being all it could be? No.  Alas, I don’t think fans will ever get that long awaited Venom vs. Spidey movie we’ve all been waiting for.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Sep 23 2018
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Movie Review – The Predator (2018)

I can’t tell if I hated it or just found it mildly passable.  I didn’t love it, that’s for sure.  At any rate, I’ll be collecting my thoughts about this movie for a while but in the meantime, here’s my review of “The Predator.”

The original “Predator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger was sublime.  As action/horror movies go, perfection.  In 1987, Arnie had spent the past decade flattening baddies with his pinky finger, such that he needed a real challenge, and an intergalactic big game hunter who traveled to earth to hunt humans was it.

The sequel with Danny Glover was…OK.  It’s watchable.  It’s acceptable.

Other than that, there have been sequels that have been lame, forgettable and don’t even get me started on the Alien vs. Predator movies.

I wanted to hate this sequel a lot.  It’s lame.  It focuses more on humor and gives a lot of screen time to the humans and not so much to the Predator.  Sequels have never been able to capture the magic of the original (plus that film starred two future governors.)

I will give this sequel this:  since Predator 2, it’s the least shitty of a series of shitty sequels.  (To clarify, P2 is better than this.)

The humor is 1980s style camp that you don’t see much of anymore.  It made me nostalgic to watch, though at the same time, it’s not something I needed to see in a Predator movie either.

The plot is that a special ops sniper (Boyd Holbrook) happens upon a Predator landing, steals his equipment and his own government decides to throw him in prison to shut him up.

While being transported with a gaggle of other Army burn outs dubbed “the loonies,” he convinces them to break out to fight the Predator.  Loonies include Trevante Rhodes, Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Key of Key and Peele who mostly provides comic relief and to my surprise, ex-Punisher Thomas Jane.  Olivia Munn rounds out the cast as a sexy vet (the animal doctor kind) recruited to analyze a captive predator.

Sterling K. Brown stars as a government agent hunting the loonies and as a nice touch, Holbrook’s son has Aspberger’s syndrome which makes him bullied at school yet his “special” brain makes him the only one who can figure out how to use predator tech.

The movie is filled with plot holes, stupidity and it kinda makes you want to puke until people my age realize that many 1980s action flicks were like this but people took them seriously because they didn’t know better…so I suppose as an homage to the films that made Arnie a star, I can let the foolishness slide.

STATUS:  I think it is possible to make a sequel that isn’t stupid.  But I suppose they can do all the cash grabs they want without affecting Arnie’s original.  Not worth a movie ticket or a rental.  Feel free to stream it on cable.  It is very stupid and silly and only becomes redeemable when you realize it’s on purpose as a 1980s action flick parody…which would be fine except I think that under-utilizes the predator.

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Sep 16 2018
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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Deliverance (1972)

Grab your banjo and hide your butts, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of Burt Reynolds’ most critically acclaimed drama (as opposed to his many car chase movies), Deliverance.

It’s every straight man’s worst nightmare – getting forcibly butt blasted against his well by a pair of drunken redneck perverts.

Yes indeed, Hollywood has created a number of monsters over the years.  However, if you’re a straight, red blooded American male who dreams of titties and vag 24/7, the scariest, most unimaginable nightmare you can possibly think of is to be forced to “squeal like a pig” as what happened to Ned Beatty in a scene that is, frankly, hard to watch.  Honestly, you might want to fast forward through it.  I watched this movie years ago and would watch it again but for that scene that I never want to see again.

Four friends and city slickers (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voigt, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty) go on a canoe trip to explore the great outdoors.  When they reach town, they have a banjo duel with a creepy local boy, setting the eerie tone of what is about to transpire.

At first, it’s fun.  Beer, canoeing and fishing.  Burt’s character, Lewis, is actually an experienced outdoorsman who carries the rest of the crew on his back and his scenes where he shoots bad dudes with his bow and arrow are iconic.

Long story short, one canoe gets lost.  Ned and Jon are accosted by dirty mountain man perverts who attack Ned’s tucas while Jon is forced to watch.  Lewis saves the day by shooting one of the rapists in the heart with an arrow.

Alas, the other perv escapes and stocksthe rest of the canoers as they try to make it down the river to civilization.  Ergo, the city slickers must band together to protect their lives and more importantly, their butts.  Yes.  These are manly men who will fight to the death to protect their butts from illicit invasions.

I doubt Hollywood would make this movie today.  First, it implies the South is an awful place….eh, that’s probably a debate for another post, though Hollywood has never been shy about dumping on the South.  But the main reason they wouldn’t make it again is because they’d be afraid people would assume that all homosexuals are looking to rape straight men’s butts which really is far from the truth.  Just because these particular homosexuals were butt attackers doesn’t mean all are and surely audiences can be trusted to direct their disdain at these two outliers who deviated from the field containing the vast majority of homosexuals who only engage in consensual butt related activities.

Anyway, it’s a loaded subject matter.  No, straight dudes shouldn’t fear gay dudes.  But yes, straight dudes are going to fight like hell to protect their butts when in the presence of the very occasional, not representative of the norm, gay rapist because to a straight man, getting your butt invaded by another dude is a fate worse than death.

Hollywood, if they were to remake it today, would probably have Ned Beatty’s character be scared of butt activity only for him to decide he quite enjoys it and then he celebrates the butt invasion and then he moves to the country and opens up a bed and breakfast with his attackers.

Not gonna lie.  Even by 1970s standards, the film’s a little freaky.  They probably could have just made the rednecks a couple of crazed, homicidal murderers who like to kill people and the audience would have been given the requisite sense of dread without adding the butt attack scene which really, you’ll feel like you have to bleach your brain just to forget that terrible, terrible scene.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but I’ll never watch it again.  Cool as Burt is with his bow and arrow, I just can’t watch Ned get butt attacked again.  Frankly, Ned should have gotten an Academy Award just for having the courage to play, as far as I know, the first male on male rape victim caught on film.  That’s some shit that even Daniel Day Lewis won’t do.

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