The Wedding Crashers (2005)

What is up with me and Christopher Walken movies lately? I can't seem to get away from the guy. How many more can there be? I should have pretty much run out of them by now. But, in all due fairness to Mr. Walken, He was only like the fourth most annoying person in this movie, right behind Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson and  Will Farrell. That kind of makes it worth, because each of these three guys I've seen in plenty of things that I like, though admittedly not together. There is one Walken movie that I like, but I can't remember what it's called, I think it has Eric Stoltz in it though and Walken is either an angel or the devil. Hmm. If I can find that on DVD or online, I'll watch that, because even if it turns out that it totally sucked (it probably did, but that's okay I like plenty of sucky movies), it still has to be better than this film.
I know what you're thinking, "Eric, how could you not know what you were getting yourself into?" Point well taken. I just wanted to watch something funny. It was sitting there looking at me. I was in the mood to watch something that I hadn't seen before, and voila! Crap happened.
It's not just this movie that throws me off, it's this whole genre of comedies - the ones where the guys are lovable assholes that are always fucking people over until one day, they accidentally fall in love with the girl they were just leading along. Awkward and stupid scenes follow until the girl admits that she really feels the same and wants to be with the asshole. Not only do I realize that this set-up is actually quite depressing now that I write it down, it's more that the guy is shameless in a particular way. He is shameless in how horrible he is to anyone that is not him. The other kind of shameless, the guy who will do anything for the laugh, I often find them quite funny and often respect their artistic decisions (think Ken Jeong here in every movie he has ever been in, or as Chang on Community). That's my lame epiphany for the day - assholes being mean to people is not comedy.
There were a couple of okay bits in the movie, like how Dwight Yoakam and Rebecca De Mornay make a great couple in the opening scene. Or, when the credits start to roll. I would have to say that those were my two favorite parts.

The Wedding Crashers on IMDb

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

I wanted to not like this movie. The last several movies recommended to me by the recommender of this film have totally sucked. And a couple of them, he admitted when I reported to him how much I disliked them, that he told me to watch them to confirm if they were as bad as he thought they were. What the fuck is up with that? It's one thing to recommend a movie to another and they end up disliking it. You might even offer a suggestion with a caveat of, "this might not be for you" or some such. You could even suggest a film with the warning of, "this movie sucked, but you might get a chuckle at a couple of the scenes." But to give a bad movie recommendation knowing it was bad and not give a warning...that's just wrong. I guess I'm spoiled by having one friend that is a good movie recommender.
I don't like Christopher Walken in most movies. The films where he has bit parts, they're okay as he's not on screen enough to bother me. I've mentioned before, but I'll say it again because I like the imagery - I think Walken would loose an "act off" against William Shatner. With that said, he was tolerable in this film. Not good. But tolerable.
Colin Farrel is one of those actors that I think is genuinely talented, but who I also think is a big enough wanker in real life that it sometimes bleeds through into his characters. *cough* *cough* Bullseye in the Daredevil film *cough* *cough* This is not one of those films. He plays a script writer who almost consciously fills the stereotype of writers and of the Irish, just so in the later half of the film he can have the break through of finally believing something and breaking the stereotype of the movie. I mean that he does, not that the movie breaks the stereotype.
Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell complete the cast of mains and are two of the seven psychopaths, well actually three, but I won't get into that. They both play quirky killers with aplumb. Harrelson plays the cold-hearted mob boss who will do anything for his dog, whom he loves dearly. Rockwell decides to become a killer to help his friend get ideas for a screen play. These are another two that toy with stereotypism so they can exploit later in the movie, though in ways that fit with how you think the movie will go, which is a bit of stereotype.
This film is very meta. It's about a man writing a screen play called Seven Psychopaths. The movie is the story of seven psychopaths, and some of the tales are made up while some are related to the writer as true while some are occurring both in his life and as stories related to him. They take the time to deconstruct several of the stories in depth. They talk about stereotypical roles in movies about killers and especially the stereotypes of women in these kinds of movies. There aren't a lot of women in the film and those that are there get very little air time, the one with the most on-screen time is the topless hooker. It's a bit of a slap in the face to spend so much time talking about how women are so much more than a victim or a bitch as they are portrayed in these movies, only to have all the female characters match the stereotypes that they say women are type-cast into.
The look of this film is a bit of a hodge-podge. It runs with one style for the first half an hour or so, and then changes, slowing way down for act II, and then picking back for an action-packed ending that is stylistically different from the beginning. We get started off with a Quentin Tarentino feel of fast cuts and graphics overlays, move into a Wes Anderson-like discussion of the higher morals of humans and end with a Sam Raimi goofy action flick, with all the predictable twists. Oh, and it's explosively violent, which means out of nowhere the film becomes graphically violent for a couple of moments and then goes back to it's mostly non-violent state.
This is a movie that you borrow, not buy. It has it's moments amd almost achieves some of it's own self-listed goals of stereotypes to break. Almost.

Seven Psychopaths on IMDb

Stand Up Guys (2012)

This movie was recommended to me. I was assured that it was a great film, even though I made it abundantly clear to the recommender that I am not a fan of Christopher Walken. He assured me that Walken was at his best in this film and that I would like it or something was wrong with me. Apparently, something is wrong with me.
Walken at his best is still Walken. I mostly just thought of how similar his speech patterns are to William Shatner's. I think somebody that could do a good impersonation of one could probably do the other with little extra effort. But you know what? Walken is far less annoying in this film than Al Pacino's character is. Was it wrong of me to hope that Walken would "whack" Pacino? That is the premise of the movie, a crime boss played by Alan Arkin promises not to kill Walken if Walken kills Pacino (of course I mean their characters - don't think I would wish any harm to the fine and august gentlemen). Walken figures out that he can't even if it means his own life because Pacino is his only friend in the whole world. Except he loves his granddaughter.
Blargh. Don't mind me. Even writing this up leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I guess they can't all be winners, 'cause this one definitely ain't.

Stand Up Guys on IMDb