The star of this delirious, chaotic, hilarious movie is Hit Girl (the utterly wonderful Chloe Grace Moretz), daughter of Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage, in a return to crazy-eyed form), and one of a new breed of superhero stalking the streets of New York. The trailers, and even the first 15 minutes of the movie might suggest that Kick-Ass himself (Aaron Johnson) is our hero, but he just provides the narration and the brief moments of self-reflection. The movie belongs to Hit Girl, from the slew of profanity that comes out of her eleven-year old mouth, to her proficiency with gun and knife, to her glorious impersonation of Chow Yun-Fat (Big Daddy raised her on John Woo movies). I could recount the plot, but that would be silly. Just go see it and have some fun.
Day: April 18, 2010
women’s films
just kidding. the embalmer, a 2002 italian movie by gomorrah‘s director matteo garrone, is a longing, brave, heartbreaking dirge to doomed desire. peppino, a dwarfish and very ungainly middle-aged neapolitan taxidermist played by a fabulous ernesto mahieux, falls in love with a spectacularly handsome young man who, too, has a passion for taxidermy. peppino convinces young valerio to come to work for him. but, then, who knows: maybe valerio doesn’t have a passion for taxidermy but simply a sense of the dead-endedness of what he’s currently doing. or maybe he’s just flattered that peppino should like him so much. this is only one of the multiple uncertainties on which this film so brilliantly pivots. Continue reading women’s films