vince_cadena

If you haven't seen this short, do yourself a favor and go watch it online. I just went on Joblo.com and I noticed they had posted this short and being that it's from the people that brought us Hobo with a Shotgun, I had to check it out. It's about 16 minutes long and it works in two ways being a parody of slasher movies from the 70s and 80s and actually being a gory comedy/horror film, it totally accomplishes both. I really don't want to give away too much because there are a few moments that will shock the hell out of you and make you laugh at the same time. Basically it's about Christmas trees that take their revenge on humans on Christmas day. The set up works extremely well for the gory payoff in the third act. Being a fan of The Canadian show Trailer Park Boys I was extremely happy to see Sarah Dunsworth and Johnathan Torrens(aka J-roc) in this. This is a really entertaining short, it's very funny and I loved the Fulci-esquire gore. My favorite line "It's Christmas and I wanna f*ck!". I really hope to see more from these filmmakers, excellent work.

I saw this movie basically because I think that Willa Holland is an incredibly lovely young model/actress. I won't give away too much of the plot except to say this is a rip off of P.T. Anderson, Brett Easton Ellis, Mulholland Dr and throw in The OC just because the filmmakers have little imagination an originality of their own. I mean there's not much to give away there aren't any big plot twists. It just occurred to me that if Mystery Science Theater 3000 were still around this would be the perfect movie for them to goof on. This film is about a group of people living in Los Angeles, some of them prostitute themselves, others sell real estate an marijuana, some are musicians and some do nothing. I mean this movie is hilariously bad at times, one of the characters is suppose to be an amazing badass rocker and he makes the Jonas brothers look cool. So like I said in my summary kind of a typical bad straight to video movie, weak acting, direction, cinematography etc. What really gave this movie character is the bad script, it's just so laughable it almost and I repeat almost makes this entertaining in a bad way. It's funny to think that the lead actress worked with Stanley Kubrick and Vinessa Shaw is a good actress, when given the right material. Willa Holland is cute but I can see her doing many more movies like this. Probably the best thing about this confusing movie was the genuinely funny agent, sure the guy is just ripping off Dane Cook and Jeremy Piven but it's not like those two are Deniro or Jim Carrey for that matter. See this movie if you're with some friends and you want to make your own Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Steven Soderbergh's known for pushing the envelope, in my opinion his best films are his clear his head films. His first film Sex,Lies and a Videotape is excellent, after that film he started to lack in greatness because he got caught up in the machine aka the beast otherwise known as Hollywood. Then he went back the Louisiana to clear his head and made the brilliant Schizopolis, after that wonderful and hilarious film he made his comeback with Out of Site and immediately after he made the even better The Limey. So on a roll he continued with the conventional but good Erin Brochovich and the Friedkin inspired Traffic. Traffic is really good but not as good as the totally underrated Full Frontal. Sadly he had to make some studio films and made the 3 conventional, sometimes bad Oceans films. In between the Oceans films he did some of his best work Solaris, K Street, Bubble and the decent Good German(see Zentropa for an example on why he didn't completely succeed with this film). Che could be his best film but of course it's going to be good, when you have an amazing story, cast and crew working on it. The Girlfriend Experience works even better the Che because it's more in line with his roots as a filmmaker, a kind of homage to Godard an a number of the great new wave filmmakers from the 70's American and French, think Pakula, Scorsese, Altman.

The Girlfriend Experience is about a high class escort living in New York an dealing with a boyfriend, clients, her business and politics. Throughout the film numerous references are made to the 2008 election and the economy. What's incredible about this film is it was made on a shoestring budget in two weeks and like Bubble the cast is made up of non-actors. Sasha Grey is somewhat of an exception in the sense that she did work on a couple of movies before this but this is her fist real film. Grey is so good in this film you wouldn't believe that this is her first film and she's so beautiful you definitely wouldn't believe that she's worked on hundreds of pornos ranging hardcore to slightly soft core. Upon hearing about her being cast I had to look her up and was shocked to find out that not only did she make hardcore porn or that she is so young but she's actually an intelligent film buff. This film works for me on a number of levels, being that it's a brilliant character study in the tradition of Scorsese and Cassavetes. At the same time being an Altman-esquire comedic drama and an homage to Klute minus the film noir. This film is never boring, always interesting and entertaining. If you love A Woman Under the Influence or Taxi Driver or Godard, you will probably like this. It's beautifully shot in scope and thank the film gods that most of the film isn't done in hand-held, it has a very classic look to it and apparently done without using any studio lighting(i.e. it's shot using natural and source lighting). The editing is crisp like his previous films and like his previous films he jumps back and forth, lots of voice over and plays with time. The script is one of the best of the year and it's from the writer of Rounders, Brian Koppelman and David Levien, this is definitely their best work. I really hope to see Sasha Grey in more films, she gave one of the best performances of this year and this is likely to be her breakthrough film. Lets all thank Cuban and Wagner for having the balls to put up the money to make this masterpiece that will be studied in 20 years. Soderbergh proves his genius once again with this film. This film will definitely be on my top five of the year, rent it, buy it, see this film. Highly recommended.