Movie Review: A History of Wasting My Fucking Time!

Avoiding all candor and etiquette let me start this post off by saying that I fucking hate, HATE all forms of incompetence, laziness and stupidity when it is revered and praised by others. Its kinda like how I said in the now infamous AYSO post, where I commented "Its like Congress. A buncha self-righteous idiots congratulating one another for coming together for session, early, so they can fund relief for the hurricane." Thats how I am starting to feel about movie critics, you know, the erudite limp wrists that say movies like Terminator 2 were worthy of a half star when every male reading this right now is trying to convince their Health Insurance company to pay for their bones to be encased in fuckin titanium. Yup, this is where I'm at right now.. damn worthy of Angry Time.

Somehow, this terd of a film managed to float itself to the top of the bowl and be fished out by some burglar with enough money that he/she/they saw it fit to urinate on it and set it aflame and after careful, drug-induced consideration, no doubt, they decided shelling out capital to fund A History of Violence would be a service to not just the realm of theater but also society. Turns out they weren't only wrong but they have made it crystal clear that they idiots too. To be brief and polite, this movie goes over as an After School Special meeting painfully with some sort of boring mobster plot that might have been entertaining back in the early 80s. To be lengthy and brutal, continue reading.

Having the opportunity to have seen Serenity, which many of my SciFi friends are saying was worth a glance and hearing that Flight Plan was pretty good you can imagine my dismay choosing this steaming pile over both. I enter the theater with a few of my friends and from the get we are noticing that this film has seemed to attract a large number of geriatrics from the area. This is usually the sign of a bad film when you are going to see a film that has a long sought after word in the title, Violence, that to someone as sophisticated as myself has become synonymous with Entertainment. Chances are these old folks aren't coming to see the blood fly but we stand fast anyway in hopes that maybe some previews will get us going.

My mistake, you fucking movie writers, producers and directors out there are incapable of good movies lately. Batman Begins, Sin City, The Wedding Crashers and on a different level Kung-Fu Hustle and Ong Bak are probably the only movies that I thought were worth a shit this year. The best part is that I enjoyed seeing the ONLY trailer for Beyond the World for the 90th time as well. I can't wait for this fucking movie to come out so.. not cuz I am hyped for it by any means, instead so I don't have to see the trailer ever again. At this point, I'm primed up for some blood letting and pain this movie needs to offer due to complete disappointment in the upcoming movies which feeds my anger further.

Where to begin? Ok how about this. If you feel that the first 30-40 minutes of a movie are important, then you aren't on the same page as this film, its filmmakers or anyone that might have stepped on that set incidentally or not. Its a complete waste of time that could have been summarized with a few lines:

Tom Stall is an Average Joe. He works a coffee shop in a small town. He has a pretty basic family: wife, son and daughter. Mrs. Stall is a house wife. Jack Stall (son) is somewhat of a loser that very likely enjoys playing a tune on the meat flute every now and again. Sarah Stall is another filler daughter character that plays no relevance except that on some off chance one of you idiots watching the film might have a heart string or two plucked by this peach. The Stalls make ends meet and life is steady as she goes. That's it.

Nothing happens in the first 30-40 minutes other than this most disturbing sex initiation scene that involves the most awkward attempt at a 69 that I think the camera man, disregarding what the director may have wanted, thought it best to fade to black before it looked even crazier. I know there is a certain percentage of the population that found it "hot" and I also imagine that if you're one of those idiots chances are you spend a few hours on the weekend talking with your friends about the numerous average pieces of ass on TV that you would fuck. So, needless to say, the pace of the film at this point is so mind numbingly slow that my friends and I are already starting to make up and share our own lines to one another. This is the start of an ongoing trend throughout the flick.

Before I go on, there are four words and two scenes that stands out as good in this movie. The only words you need to remember if you do really decide to seriously burn your cash and support a pathetic attempt at a movie are: Coffee Pot and Throat Stomp. Period. Nothing more than that.

Senseless and drawn out scenes striving for a sign of passion or emotion fall short time and time again. Ed Harris' character is good and so is Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) but good characters cannot save a terrible storyline. The three of us were so bored that at one point in the movie my friend and I are predicting what would happen next.

An example of this is:

Edie Stall finds out her husband is an ex-mobster. She hugs and kisses him in tears, frightened of the events to come. Northe whispers, "What did the five fingers say to the face? SLAP!" Sure enough, the shove then the slap. Good job writers. I don't get paid to come up with thoughtful ideas let alone scripts to a movie and someone with zero experience in the "industry" has come up with the predictable climax to that scene. You're all pathetic and shouldn't have jobs, you sorry ass writers.

Then, at some point during their smoke-filled, board room discussions, the script writers pooled their creative juices and decided to turn this token predictability into a surging, out of no where, sex scene. From complete hatred to a staircase sex scene? Are you guys serious? Are the masses of people on this planet this miserable that they find the scene not only credible but also groundbreaking? Nothing makes sense and why should it, its the silverscreen after all. Idiots.

I can't even capture how scene after scene induced my fingers to drum constantly on my armrest in total frustration. Summing things up, the whole Stall family is torn apart by mobster harassment, their son being a bitch and the husband and wife's inability to cope with some off the cuff murders that take place on their front lawn. I mean come on, deal with it and go back to the diner and serve some coffee.

My favorite line during the whole movie came out of my friend's mouth when he turned to me and said, "Is this a joke?"

It certainly seemed like it. Let's give you an example of what the writer's probably thought was a "twist" in the film.. the husband's name not being what he goes by! Dun dun duuuun! Believe me I was shocked that these idiots came up with Tom Stall's name as being Joey Kusack. I would have figured the stupid fucks to have chosen a more mobster-stereotypical name like Joey Pasta.

Toward the end, Tom goes back to his roots in Philly where his early mob days took place. His brother wants to kill him, instead Tom kills everyone else. I think the most irritating part of this whole segment of the movie is how his brother calls Tom "brohim".. damn it, I get angry just thinking about it cuz I know the writers thought it would be so bad ass if we did that! So, Tom's brother lives in some sick ass mobster-mansion where apparently excessive gunshots on the property are all part of the midnight ambiance for the high scale neighborhood the house is located in and causes no alarm, whatsoever. We know this bcuz Tom stays the night at the house! At the fucking murder house! Overnight! Then, making things even more absurd, in the morning Tom is still blood-soaked like it happened 5 minutes ago. Instead of using the jacuzzi tub in the master suite, Tom decides to go out to the freezing lake on his hands and knees to wash off. Great imagery, wrong film, you stupid fucks.

Now for finale, Tom comes back home to his family eating dinner. No one says a word, Tom comes in and sits down, no one says a word. Either they are choking down whatever filth his wife has made the family for dinner or they are all pissed off or scared as to where Tom has been all night. To break the mood, the human cupcake of a daughter decides to grab his place setting and set it in front of him.. awwww my tender heart. Tom's son sets the meatloaf platter down beside his dad.. wow this is riveting! The wife gives off an amicable look as if everything is going to be all right. You know the one, the tight-lipped smile and tilted head that only works as being adorable if you're over 80.

At this point, I shit you not, the theater starts to buzz. Loudly. The screen fades to black. Everyone in unison is wondering aloud, "Thats it?" About 7-10 seconds of a black screen take place. The credits start to roll. Echoing my sentiments exactly, two hundred people groan simultaneously and the worst film I have seen in a good 2 to 3 years is finally over.

You want to challenge me on my evaluation of this flick? Step up to the fuckin plate. It fucking sucked on every level. Two scenes, four words.. prove otherwise. I have never seen such a great idea for a film turn out to be such a piece of crap. Yes, on paper, I can see how these actors/actresses said lets do this. Yet at the same time, I know in my heart of hearts that once production started they wanted to slit their wrists. There is no way they could be pleased with the outcome of this.

What kills me are these apologist, good ol' boy critics that have the nerve to praise this film. Impressionable magazines like Maxim tried to appeal to its readers by saying that there is a good sex scene and good action in the flick! This is an outright lie. The only thing that could possibly make sense is that whoever it was that made this film has a lot of friends and they wanted to see them do well. Thats it. It must be. Let's rally behind our boy and write good reviews.

Lets recap who might like this film:

People that hate entertainment.
People that hate spending their time productively.
People searching for the worst movies of all time.
People looking for an excuse to go to the local theater.
People who wouldn't be caught dead with Penn tennis balls on their walkers.
People that think spending $9-15 on a marginal movie is minor in comparison to supporting Hollywood's latest shit pile.

If you are one of these people, by all means go. If not, stay home, stack your chips and wait for something else. Seeing films like this make me want to kill people or do their job with competence. Both of which are likely in my future.