HANNA (2011)

[Update 03/09/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Raised in the deep, deep woods by her father, 16-year-old Hanna is a highly-trained assassin that can do all kinds of crazy hand-to-hand combat shit and is an expert in small arms combat. The reason for all of these years worth of hardcore training is a mystery to the viewer. All we know is the father is pissed as shit at a CIA agent named Marissa Wiegler (played by Cate Blanchett) and he has a tracking device that once activated will alert Marissa of their location.

At the appointed time the switch is flipped, Hanna is taken into custody and when she comes face-to-face with who she thinks is Marissa Wiegler she snaps her fucking neck like a goddamn twig, kills some guards and escapes. This is where the real story begins and it's entertaining, but not as brutal or original as I had hope and it's nowhere near as stylish as it thinks it is.

Neck snapping, face punching, distracting techo soundtrack, skinheads, gun shooting, reindeer murdering, snow, headbutting, leg stabbing, hardcore teeth brushing, vacant amusement park, hippies. Good for a rent, but that's about it because the story is too goddamn mysterious and in the end I had more questions than I did answers. If they end up making this a series, then that's cool, but if this is a one off film then that's just lazy writing. Saoirse Ronan was really good though. If they do make a sequel I hope she's involved and they have a different director. Luc Besson would be interesting with this story.

HESHER (2010)

[Update 03/23/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Like an Americanized version of Pasolini's TEOREMA (or maybe Miike's VISITOR Q), HESHER is the story of a mysterious stranger who briefly enters the lives of a family and leaves just as quickly, but not before changing their lives forever.

Young T.J. is having a shitty life. His mother recently died in a car wreck and the grief has sent his father so deep into his shell that he rarely even gets off the sofa. Then, at school this dork-looking bully beats the crap out of him all the time. Added to that, every time he gets on his bike he seems to wreck. After one gnarly wreck he gets mad at a nearby half-constructed house and breaks out the main window, unknowing that the house is the squat pad for the long-haired, greasy looking rocker named Hesher. After this encounter, Hesher begins following T.J. and eventually starts squatting in his garage. But Hesher isn't a guardian angel sent from Heaven, if anything he make T.J.'s family's life even shittier. But yet, somehow Hesher teaches them how to man up and push through their misery...or something. I don't know, I was too busy setting my house on fire to pay attention.

I liked this movie. It's nothing original or groundbreaking, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great, so is Natalie Portman, Piper Laurie, Rainn Wilson, Devin Brochu and honestly everybody in the movie. The story is entertaining, but the acting is what really pushes the film to a higher level. Also, the filmmakers had the good taste to use mostly Cliff Burton-era Metallica songs instead of that satan-awful butt rock they've been shoving down our ears for the last few decades. Definitely worth a rent.

TWISTER (1996)

Punch the core, backbuilding, finger of god, cone of silence, jumper, the suck zone.  These are all terms that tornado chasers use every...single...day. It's almost as important as being able to hold on to a metal pipe tight enough to keep yourself from being pulled up into the suck zone of a finger of god tornado that just threw a two-story house at you.

Bill Paxton is an ex-storm chaser, who with his new fiancee Jami Gertz, goes into the field to find his soon to be ex-wife Helen Hunt and have her sign the divorce papers. While there, the biggest string of tornadoes in 12 years pops up and quiet life be damned! Bill Paxton is gonna chase some of these suckers down and punch their hole with his fancy measuring device. The rest of the movie is just that: overly excited nerds driving all over the joint wrecking shit, overacting and screaming non-stop. You definitely don't have time to get bored, but you do have time to yell "Bullshit!" over and over as repeatedly the main characters defy logic, high winds and flying debris (like an exploding tanker truck, multiple tractors and a cow...twice) without even getting a scratch. But that's the whole point of the movie: forget reality and just have fun. If you're unable to do that, then skip this movie. It's pure junk food for the brain.  It's awesome.

Compared to other mid-90's disaster movies, TWISTER is pretty good. There's tons of action and Bill Paxton is great. I just wish the filmmakers would have let him be a little looser with the character...imagine how awesome it would have been if a little bit of Pvt. Hudson came out during the final tornado! "We're in some real pretty shit now!"

If you like disaster movies, then TWISTER is very much worth watching. And surprisingly the special effects still hold up alright even after all these years.  I watch it once or twice a year easily. Also, watch out for the reference to THE ABYSS, plus THE SHINING and A STAR IS BORN (1954) featured.