DVD: Black Dynamite

If that trailer doesn't sell you on Black Dynamite then I'm not sure what I can say to persuade you to watch this hilariously awesome kung fu blaxploitation satire.  Its really just a fun movie to watch with plenty of laugh out loud moments. Some of my favorite moments are the on purpose accident scattered throughout, but the absurdity of the plot is the films greatest ally and worst enemy. The whole story moves pretty fast and builds in size to the point where in the final scene I was tired of the shtick, but I still enjoyed the experience overall. Michael Jai White says in the extras that they made the original trailer and had random quotes written for it, so that when the movie got picked up they had to write the story around all these quotes that had no context. Knowing that, it makes sense that the story is so convoluted. If you're willing to be taken on a crazy ride with some good kung fu and better laughs Black Dynamite makes for a good night of movie watching. It would probably be an excellent movie for a drinking game, I'm thinking take a sip of beer every time a character uses 70's lingo and a shot whenever an on purpose mistake occurs.

In theaters: SHUTTER ISLAND

Shutter Island left me perturbed as I exited the theater earlier this week. It was a great movie and yet something didn't quite feel right. I went through a list of why I thought it was a good movie; Martin Scorsese's direction was excellent, the cinematography was beautiful, and nearly every actor was superb (I especially enjoyed Jackie Earle Haley's brief performance).  Shutter Island is a good movie and I'd easily recommend it, I'd probably even buy a copy (if it was on sale, but only because I'm cheap). Ultimately it was the story that bothered me, its well written but I'm just not sure how much I like it. Without spoiling the movie all I can say is its good, go see it and you decide how good it is.

**SPOILERS BELOW**
So here's the thing, I never knew what to expect from this movie story wise. Sure you know its going to be good, Scorsese and Dicaprio are a proven team thanks to Departed, but I kept hearing this movie described as a horror film or a psych thriller. It tries to be a scary movie for the first 2/3rd of the film, what with its overly dramatic score that builds suspense every 5 minutes like that's its sole purpose, but nothing scary ever really happens.At that point, with a 1/3 of the movie left, the plot twist occurs transforming the film into a psych thriller. For whatever reason that felt cheap to me, I liked the story we were being lead on for those first 2/3rds and wanted that to continue and while the story takes an interesting twist I don't know that it was for the better. The twist reminded me of Identity except there it occurred at the very end and provided answers to an otherwise puzzling experience, here it just creates more questions and for me that's why it doesn't work. After the twist I wasn't sure about what I had just spend 2/3rds of the movie watching, I guess that's also why it works; now given what I know I want to see Shutter Island again.