The Movie Slut is Officially Moving!

I know, I know... It's been months since I've posted.

My life got a LOT busier there for a while. Then I moved to Vegas. Then I've been busy looking for a job. And now that I've finally got some free time, I'm moving again.

But this time I'm relocating electronically! I was approached by a Las Vegan (yeah, that's really what they're called) that was looking for a movie reviewer. I linked him to my stuff, sure that my irreverent foul mouth would exclude me from any such team environment. Turns out, it wasn't the case at all. He's pretty fucking irreverent too.

The site is an easy one to remember/find. It's called GameTechWorld.com and the owner has some big plans for it. Big plans. Maybe something really cool will come from it, maybe not. Either way, I'll still be reviewing the same weird movies. Now I'm just contributing to something bigger. The only drawback is that I'll have to hold my tongue a smidge. Ass stays ass, but fucking turns to f***ing. You get the idea.

I was feeling the itch to get back to reviewing again. Now I've found a home for my thoughts. My readers get the added benefit of some game and technology reviews along with their film reviews. And I get the added benefit of educating some tasteless gamers about what makes a good film. ;-)

See ya there kids!

P.S. My reviews show up as "Written by Jarvis". My real name, who'd have thought...

Lament for Contact Lenses... Update!

The God-of-Old-School-Cartoon-to-Shiny-New-Movie-Conversions does exist! And he heard me!


Happiest Movie Slut EVER!

Lament for Contact Lenses...

Why god, why . . . did they take away the third hottest trait of hottest cartoon character ever?

Oh God-of-Old-School-Cartoon-to-Shiny-New-Movie-Conversions...

You didn't fail me with Transformers. Movie Optimus Prime had the exact same voice as cartoon Optimus did. I humbly ask but one more favor of you.

Please allow movie Baroness's hair to remain as black as her soul and her accent to stay as dead fucking sexy as it was when I was a wee impressionable Cartoon Slut. Do that and she will be the hottest movie character EVER. Your fanboy flock will thank you. I promise.

Oscar Picks for the 80th Academy Awards!

I know what you're thinking. "The nominees have been out for a while, Mr. Movie Slut. Why haven't you told us who should win?" Well, the answer is simple. I wanted to get all the Best Picture nominees under my belt before I started talking about the Oscars.

Here are my comments and picks for the upcoming Oscars, but I'll avoid rambling about award categories that I know nothing about or simply have no interest in.

Best Actor - George Clooney was only average and Tommy Lee Jones has rarely been spectacular. I love me some Johnny Depp, but I think both Viggo Mortenson and Daniel Day-Lewis showed him up this year.

Best Guess - Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Supporting Actor - Affleck was underwhelming in an underwhelming movie, Hoffman is just creepy, Wilkinson was pretty good, but Bardem was phenominal!

Best Guess - Javier Bardem for No Country For Old Men

Best Actress - Weird. The only eligible performance I saw was Ellen Page in Juno. I don't have much to say here but I can say that Page was pretty good, though much much better in Hard Candy.

Best Guess - Julie Christie will probably get it, but I'll still root for Page

Best Supporting Actress - Blanchett would probably win for Best Actress before she won Supporting, Ronan was cute but not incredible, Ryan was nothing special and neither was Swinton. Dee is the only black acting nominee this year and was pretty damn good in a mediocre movie.

Best Guess - Ruby Dee for American Gangster

Best Art Direction - There were a lot of pretty movies this year, but only one can win. Personally, I'm incredibly upset that Across The Universe didn't make this category.

Best Guess - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

Best Cinematography - People are raving about Atonement's cinematography, but I wasn't too impressed. There Will Be Blood and Golden Compass were pretty and I'm surprised American Gangster got a mention here. However, No Country did things with shot and frame that I had never seen before.

Best Guess - No Country For Old Men

Best Costume Design - I can't believe this is the only award Across The Universe was nominated for! It'll never win, but I'll root for it out of protest.

Best Directing - I missed Diving Bell and the others were good, but this one's probably going to the Cohen brothers.

Best Guess - No Country For Old Men

Best Foreign Language Film - I can't remember the last time Foreign Language nominees were announced and I hadn't seen a single one. Shame on me! I should correct this.

Best Original Song - I heard good things about Once and I'm appalled that Enchanted got nominated 3 fucking times. That's stupid. How good can Disney songs really be?

Best Guess - "Falling Slowly" from Once

Best Visual Effects - They were all good, but how can you beat giant robots... in disguise?

Best Guess - Transformers

Best Adapted Screenplay - I have a feeling this one will be really close between No Country and Blood.

Best Guess - No Country For Old Men

Best Original Screenplay - Lars has an interesting premise, but Juno will probably secure this one.

Best Guess - Juno

Best Picture - Here it is, the big one. Atonement was pretty good, but we've seen the story a million times. Speaking of old stories, Clayton was every courtroom drama combined. Juno was cute, but cute just isn't enough. Blood was creepy, spooky, and awesome but probably not accessible enough for the majority audience. No Country was beyond good.

Best Guess - No Country For Old Men

Why I love the Oscars

I enjoy the Oscars, sort of a Movie Slut's Superbowl, but there are a lot of award categories I could really care less about. Best Picture on the other hand, is not only the one that matters to me, but the one that matters to the Academy too. It's not just actors, directors, editing, etc. It's all of that plus story and stories are what I'm all about.

I think movies are better viewed as whole, rather than the sum of their parts. I think that's what the Best Picture award does, or tries to do at least. Browsing DVDs, seeing that little "Academy Award for Best Picture" tag lets me know that even if the movie's not in one of my preferred genres, it'll probably still be pretty fucking good.

Every year, I make a point to see all the movies nominated for Best Picture since those are the five films of the whole year that the crotchety old Academy considers the best. Normally, I don't take a critic's opinion of a film too heavily, but the guys in the Academy have been making movies for a long fucking time.

Theme Month - February 2008!

A very good friend over at NY Diva reminded me that February is Black History Month and preceeded to offer an excellent idea.

"Why not do a blaxploitation theme for February and watch all the classics?"

I responded with a healthy "Fuck yeah!" and preceeded to scour Netflix for all the best blaxploitation classics from the '70s. I'm sure I'll throw in the usual number of new releases as well, but all my Netflicking for Feb. will be nothin' but soul. You're in for a treat kids.

After much deliberation, here's the final list of 10 films I picked for Blaxploitation Month.

Blackula, Shaft, Shaft's Big Score!, Coffy, Foxy Brown, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Dolemite, Superfly, Cooley High, and The Mack.

Check back soon!

-Movie Slut

Mini-Slut Reviews!

Once in a great while, a movie comes along that I simply have no desire to see. Even a Movie Slut has to draw the line somewhere!

When that happens, I'll extend the offer to someone else. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that are more than happy to 'enjoy' a film that I couldn't justify taking the time for.

Those people... are the Mini-Sluts!

I'm sure you'll benefit from what they have to say, just keep in mind that their opinions are not my own.

Almost Finished...

Last Thursday was moving day, I gained a new apartment and a new roommate. Between the pre-move shit and the post-move stuff I'm finally nearing the end of the insanity. It's been a loooong time since I've been able to watch a movie and I can't wait to curl up and relax for the first time in 2 weeks.

I'll back soon people!

Exceptionally Good News...

I'm normally a very happy, easily excited person. But every once in a while... something incredibly fucking awesome happens.

I walked into work today and was immediately handed a free pass to see an advanced screening of Shoot 'Em Up!

It's the most anticapated movie since the last movie that I highly anticapated and now I get to see it 3 WHOLE days early! Tuesday's going to be a good day.

Fucking Marketing Stupid Hollywood Fucking DVD Bastards...

I just heard the horrible news. The DVD release for the recent Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration, Grindhouse, was just announced... in two parts.

Starting in September, each movie will release separately as its own 2-disc Special Edition. The whole point of the movie was to produce the 2-movies-for-the-price-of-1 grindhouse experience, now with the DVD the entire concept has been thrown out the window!

But Mr. Movie Slut, what if I didn't like one of the movies and I'm glad I can buy them separately?

Well, you have bigger problems because BOTH movies were brilliant and you'd be an idiot to dislike either of them! *Joking, of course. Well, mostly anyway.* If you really want to buy them separately, then I suppose it's your lucky day. Each movie comes with an extended/unrated version of the film and a bunch of special features. Yippie for you!

Oh wait, there is one little problem though. NEITHER film comes with any of the faux trailers that made Grindhouse such a badass theater experience. That's right fans... NO FAKE TRAILERS!

Is that shitty? Of course it is! The trailers were awesome, the commercials were awesome, and you don't get any of it because the fucking marketers are making the REAL movie fans wait till November for the super-fucking-mega-special-wallet-raping-box-set that will include BOTH movies and ALL the awesomely fake trailers you loved at the theater.

In other words kids... you'll have to wait another two months to get the same experience you had at the theaters. It'll probably cost more than both of these versions combined as well. Cocks.

Bastards. The fucking idiots still wonder why so many people resort to Internet piracy to 'steal' from Hollywood. More like 'claiming what they're owed' I think.

When I first heard about Grindhouse, I thought, "Oh. What a cool thing to do! Rodriguez and Tarantino are coupling two movies for the price of one. A throwback to the old days and they aren't even trying to split the films and make us pay twice. What awesome guys!" Way to drop the ball when it came to the DVD guys...

Extra super special props go to 300 now. The DVD came out last week and some of you may have noticed that the 2-Disc Special Edition came out on the same day as the not-very-special edition. Customers actually got to make an informed decision regarding their purchase, "Do I want to pay the extra or not?," and they could buy either one on the same day!

Take note Rodriguez and Tarantino: I'll save my money till November, I'll buy your super-mega-version and I'll love the holy shit out of all that fake trailer goodness, but that's strike one bitches! Watch your step...

I didn't die...

Going a week without posting means a week without seeing movies. Yes, it really has been that long. Those of you that know me will know that 8 days without seeing a movie is sort of a record for me.

I could make excuses all day long. I was covering for a girl at work which meant I worked 7 days last week instead of my usual 3. I was doing a LOT of gaming which is always so hard to set up that I let it supersede my movie habit for a while.

It may happen occasionally, but I assure you that it won't happen often. I finally watched another movie last night, after all.

Now I should get back to writing about it!

And for something a little different...

I've had an unusually busy week and my weekend is shaping up in a similar fashion, so it doesn't look like I'm going to have my normal free time to fill with flicks.

Instead of leaving you with abandonment issues, however, I'll treat you to a few old reviews I wrote during my time with FilmSchoolRejects. I actually got to cover some really good movies so I suggest you pay attention, but you might also notice the long-winded babbling that I was forced into in order to fit in on a real review site.

Blah. That time's over and I haven't looked back. I didn't like being forced to spend this many words on that aspect of a film and this many on those. Different films warrant different approaches. The acting in a movie like Hostel isn't as important as the gore and the scares. There should almost be a different scale for each genre, but that would leave out genre-crossing films like Event Horizon.

I'll stop babbling, there'll be plenty of gab for you to read shortly...

1st Week!

Well, this marks the first whole week of operation for The Movie Slut.

I've posted reviews for 14 films already. Yes, I watched them all last week. No, I won't always have the time to watch that many movies. I did want to kick the site off with a bang though. I feel I've succeeded.

Thanks to you guys, The Movie Slut has had over 50 unique visitors in it's first week of operation and I'm pretty happy with that number. You've come from Europe, Africa, India, Australia, and the right here in the U.S. to check out my site and I thank each and every one of you. I encourage all of you to keep coming back since I watch a ton of foreign films (El Espinazo Del Diablo, Tsotsi, Samrat Ashoka, and Priscilla to name a few favorites you may recognize) and it's only a matter of time before I watch another one from your country! I apologize that I can only post in English, but we stupid Americans don't usually bother to learn a second language.

*I actually do know quite a bit of Sign Language, but that probably wouldn't help any of you too much...*

You've come looking for movies, trailers, and sluts (should've expected that one) and I welcome you all. As a matter of fact, why don't you leave a comment if you wish. Tell us who you are, where you're from, and what you're interested in. Hell, give me a movie recommendation and I'll be sure to check it out!

New Feature - Director Spotlight!

Hot off my own little Argento Fest, I thought it would be the perfect time to add a new feature to The Movie Slut.

Director Spotlight!

Every time I find myself contemplating a certain director, I'll do my best to record my thoughts about them as coherently as possible. You'll be able to search for specific directors like you would any other post, or you can click the 'Director Spotlight' label in the Genres section.

The Format

1. The title of each post will be, you guessed it, the title of the movie! This won't change a bit, although I may end up writing a stray post or 12 about movies in general, a recent theater experience, etc. Also, I'll occasionally include an alternate title in parenthesis if the film is known by a different name in it's parent country.

2. "Why I Watched It" An attempt to explain, and occasionally defend, my reason for watching the movie. You'll understand it's function once I get going. Sometimes even I have difficulty explaining my own choices!

3. "What I Thought" The meat of the entry, the 'review'. I don't like being too formulaic with my writing so it'll probably be closer to stream of consciousness. Sometimes I might focus on the plot, sometimes the acting, sometimes the actors, and sometimes the effects. I'll just ramble about whatever seems rambleworthy at the time.

4. "Highlights" This section will be dedicated to anything that stood out particulary well from the rest of the film. It could be someone's acting, the set design, the score, or whatever I think will be particularly memorable about the movie.

5. "Who Should See It" A small section dedicated to the people I think would enjoy the movie in question. Perhaps it can be enjoyed by action lovers, horror buffs, or fans of that director, etc.

6. "How Soon" Some movies are better than others. Some movies should be seen sometime before you die and some should've been watched yesterday. This is where I'll tell you whether you should wait for DVD or see it ASAP.

7. "Genres" A list of genres, pulled from the illustrious IMDB, that will make identification easy and related movies easy to find. I've added a few of my favorite subgenres to the list from IMDB, you'd be surprised how many movies I watch about Drugs or Revenge.

8. "Comments" After the entry will be the comment button. This is your chance to tell me and the other 2 readers what you thought of the movie or what you thought of my 'review'. I encourage you all to share your ideas, but this will be the last time that I politely ask you to stay on topic. Don't use the comment section to communicate with me or other posters, just use it to talk about movies.

Introduction!

For my first official post, I figured it was only fitting to introduce myself properly and explain a little about my intentions for this blog.

Hi. I'm The Movie Slut. I picked the name because I watch a shit ton (that's a lot) of movies from all sorts of genres, styles, and countries. I like movies because I like stories, and movies are the easiest and most efficient way I've found for enjoying new stories. About the only thing I like more than watching movies is talking about them with my friends. I like to share my opinions with others, whether they want to hear them or not, and hear their own opinions as well. I like to use colorful language to describe things since I feel that there's a huge difference between a "really good" movie and a "fucking fantastic" one.

I'm starting a blog at the request of several friends. This site is mostly just a place for me to comment on the many, many movies that I watch. It won't be a review site in the traditional sense of the word. I have no desire to watch most of the art house schlock and I get really bored when critics go on and on about film scores, lighting, hard to believe plots, etc. I believe that movies are primarily intended to entertain (despite Hollywood's attempts to convince me that they just want my money) and I try to keep this belief in mind when I form an opinion about a flick. I usually focus on the story as the sum of it's parts and most of all whether or not I was engaged and entertained.

There you have it! That's my intention as I get started, I'm sure the site will eventually evolve into something entirely different. Now to the movies...