All posts tagged red box

Review: The Night Buffalo 2007

Director Jorge Hernandez Aldana

Starring: Diego Luna and some other actors nobody cares about.

Synopsis Courtesy imdb.com: A schizophrenic man commits suicide after his girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend.

This film premiered at Sundance in 2007. It features a soundtrack by The Mars Volta, basically using snippets of songs from their ill-fated 2006 release, Amputechture.  I attended Sundance that year, but arrived the evening the premiere took place, and missed it. Since I had a press pass I could have attended another screening, but frankly, it didn’t look all that interesting, at the time, anyway.

Fast forward to the Red Box Revolution. I ran into the local grocery store to pick up some ice cream and noticed they had not one, but two, Red Box vending machines! I sauntered over to see what they had on offer and lo there it was: El Bufalo de la Noche. For just a buck I couldn’t do worse. Well, unless you like hyper-drama, childish displays of emotional arrest, and bad acting you could do worse, but you’d be hard pressed.
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Review: I Love You Man 2009

Director: John Hamberg

Starring: Paul Rudd, Jason Segal, Rashida Jones

Plot Summary Courtesy imdb.com: Friendless Peter Klaven goes on a series of man-dates to find a Best Man for his wedding. But when his insta-bond with his new B.F.F. puts a strain on his relationship with his fiancée, can the trio learn to live happily ever after?

My Synopsis: Dude, who is a G-friendo type o dude, ends up with awesome chick who realizes he needs some bros, or at the very least a bro, because bros are the key to good lovin’.

Isn’t Paul Rudd the most lovable man on the planet? Sure he’s slightly nerdy, somewhat dry and seemingly socially retarded, but by god, I’d put him in a satin-lined box only taking him out for dry-witted convos and sexytime relations. Then I’d put him back because too much Paul Rudd can be a bad thing especially when combined with that other dreamy comic dude, Jason Segal.
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Lowe's Food: No Black People Allowed - Just Kidding.

Red Box: Revolutionizing the Weekend Movie Night

Let me make something clear: I do not like McDonald’s. Not their food, not their corporation and certainly not their university. But I do like their Red Box. It’s convenient. It’s cheap, at a buck per night, per movie, it beats Netflix – if you return the movies in on time. You can reserve movies at your local box via their website so it seems like you won’t have to wait. Not so. Only problem is everyone else in my town likes the damn Red Box too! There are three locations in my rather smallish town that now have a Red Box. The Lowe’s Food, The Walgreens and, of course, Walmart. Target can’t be bothered with something so gauche as a Red Box with hopeful and bored potential renters hanging ’round the front, or side, of their mega store. Every Friday night I reserve a movie or sometimes, feeling wild and crazy, I just drop by the nearest box on my way home from wherever just to see if I will get the latest release or will it already be rented.

It’s a game I like to play, but it seems others have caught on.
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Review: New York, I Love You 2009

Truth be told, I only rented this film because I wanted to see Bradley Cooper naked, and to catch a glimpse of my beloved Queensboro Bridge. Yes, Bradley was gloriously naked, though only in a series of five second, poorly lit flashbacks of him screwing Drea De Matteo from behind, then from the side and then on top. Some of my favorites, but really, couldn’t they have lit the room better?

Also, no dice on the bridge.

Cooper aside, this movie, also featuring a series of vignettes directed by a slew of disparate directors (some good, some – not so much –  Natalie Portman directs one of the most pretentious and obvious vignettes), is the North American counter-part to the cutesy Paris, I Love You (also featuring Natalie Portman!). That movie had two beautiful vignettes but they weren’t worth the twelve bucks I spent at The Sunshine Cinema – a ‘art cinema’ theater on Houston Street. It’s American counter-part was maudlin from scene one and did not come close to representing the myriad wonders, atrocities, devastation (both the good and bad kind), joy, hysteria, warmth, comfort, horror and so much more that one can, and does, feel for New York City and it’s harried denizens.

Had it done so (and been a more Cooper-centric movie), I’d be screaming “New York, I Love You” as it stands…it was barely worth the gas I wasted driving to my nearest Red Box to pick it up. And it even made me feel fortunate to no longer be living in the city.

{Vag Hampton watches, then writes about movies.}