In which I only say 'Goddamn that looks awesome!'

Goddamn that looks awesome!

7 Dollar Popcorn Presents the 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Spectacular: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day 24: Attack the Gas Station

Only an asshole would put up a sign that reads 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents the 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Spectacular: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem!

I've had Attack the Gas Station for a couple of years now and haven't gotten around to watching it. Until today!

4 guys attack a gas station, destroy it and rob it. Some time later, they do it again. Same gas station. It seems that only enough time has passed to get the station back up and running.

The movie goes ahead and answers the question on your mind right away. They're doing it because they have nothing better to do.

So, they come back, and when a comes by, one of the guys fills the tank and decides rather than destroying the gas station, he's going to pump gas. And keep the money. These guys really are bored. The guys actually seem kind of into the idea.

Essentially, the situation is that they hold the station hostage, while working it, and hilarity ensues. This is not a movie with an engaging plot, or much of a plot at all. It's 4 guys fighting and stealing. And it's really pretty funny.

7 cans of pepsi stolen bought from a vending machine with change stolen from the vending machine you broke into right next to it out of 10.

7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day 12: The Host

The land of moose, polar bears and Eskimos is also the current home of 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem! It's day 12 of 28 and we're moving on to the Korean monster movie, The Host.

The setting is the Han River. It's kind of where everyone goes in the summertime. They fish, maybe they swim, but at the very least, they hang out. Park Gang-Du is a bit of...well, he's a little slow. He works at a small shop that his dad owns. And, his dad lets him kind of do whatever. If Gang-Du sleeps at work, then he sleeps at work and his dad just works around him.

Gang-du is a father himself. He has a 13 year old daughter named Hyun-seo. He also has a sister named Nam-joo and she's an olympic archer or something. She is an archer. And she's in televised competitions. So, Gang-du and Hyun-seo sit down to watch Nam-joo on tv. But, before it starts Hie-bong, Gang-du and Nam-joo's father, comes in and sends Gan-du down to the river to apologize to someone for eating one of his squid legs.

While down at the river, everyone sees this thing hanging from the bridge. The it drops into the water, obviously it's alive. Gang-du throws a beer can into the water, and the creature promptly eats it, to the cheers of the onlookers. The cheering stops when the creature comes on shore and starts to attack. Gang-du and a US army guy (he speaks english) try to fight off the beast. The army guy ends up with his arm bitten off and Gang-du runs, with the beast giving chase. Hyun-seo goes outside and sees the commotion. Her dad grabs her by the hand and they both run, but they fall, and in getting up Gang-du grabs the wrong girls hand. Hyun-seo gets killed by the creature who swims off.

The creature decided to brown bag it today, rather than order out.

The police put up a barricade at the river and everyone else goes to a memorial for those that got killed. Gang-du's brother and sister both come to the memorial, once there a biohazard team takes everyone into custody, and Gang-du has to undergo special tests because the creature got blood on him. See, the thought is that the creature is the host for a new virus, more deadly than SARS. And the government and the US military want to find this virus.

In the hospital, Gang-du gets a call from his daughter, she's still alive! And since no one believes them, they have to make their escape. Once out, the family begins their quest to find Hyun-seo. Only, they don't know where to look. All they know is that she's in the sewer somewhere.

Don't fire until you see the bubbly gook of their eyes!

From here, they have to avoid the police, the doctors, the US military and the creature while trying to find Hyun-seo until the inevitable showdown with the beast. It's 3 members of the Park family against 1 beast at the end.

The Host is a pretty groovy monster movie. A lot of fun, and the action looks great. It's a cgi beast and it looks pretty amazing most of the time. Though, they did do one thing that I know at least one person hates, cgi fire. Though, under the circumstances, it's an understandable decision. The movie does take a few shots at the US, since the creature is our fault, as well as criticizing blindly listening to your government. Over all, this was an excellent movie and I really recommend it. It opens stateside on March 9th, and if it's playing near you, go check it out. Especially if you dig movies about giant monsters who terrorize cities. You'll dig this one.

8 bowls of instant noodles while you're taking a break from looking for a family member who's been captured by a monster out of 10.

7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day11: JSA

Kneel before Zod, it's Day 11 of 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem. This time it's Chan-wook Park's 2000 film about brotherhood and friendship amongst enemies, JSA Joint Security Area.

At a glance at the cover art and box you notice two things, 1) there are military guys on the front and b) the words look like funny scribbling. You're left with one conclusion, it's a movie about illiterate soldiers with guns and blowing lots of shit up.

You'd be dead wrong.

You see, Korea has this thing, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). It's what separates North Korea from South Korea. It's essentially nothing more than a line in the sand with soldiers on either side waiting for the other side to cross over it. They're still at war.

This is the backdrop of JSA. The story itself focuses on 4 men. Two from the south and two from the north. Bitter enemies. They may as well be israelis and palestinians. Or lions and gazelles. Or bears and salmon. Or otters and shellfish (but not as cute). You get the drift. And a couple North Koreans are dead now. Because of a South Korean. But why?

Well, that's the story. The deaths are being investigated by a neutral party. Specifically the NN something, which stands for Neutral Nations something. Sorry, I forgot the acronym and don't feel like going back and finding it out. Anyways, the investigators are from Switzerland and Sweden, neutrality reigns. ("With enemies, you know where they stand, but with neutrals—who knows. It sickens me." - Zapp Brannigan)

The story is told through a series of flashbacks, mostly in the past though occasionally snapping back to the present to remind you that it is an investigation. One night, while out on patrol, some South Koreans accidentally went over into North Korea. One got left behind because he was pissin. Well, as he zips up and turns to join his fellow soldiers, he steps on a landmine. What do you do now? Wait? Pray? Yeah. A couple of North Koreans, however, stumble upon him and set him free. This leads to some letter writing and then, finally, with the pissing dude venturing across the line in the sand into North Korea to visit his new soldier friends. And friends they are. They guard the border in outposts across the bridge from each other and start hanging out regularly.

The friends keep hanging out, but then things start to get tense, the North is building up troops along the border and our friends start to worry that they may have to try to kill each other some day.

The story mainly follows the friendship, told through flashback. Occasionally there are even flashbacks during flashbacks. Oddly, it's not confusing at all, its pretty easy to follow. It's a pretty standard little mystery. Kinda like Murder, She Wrote goes to Korea, and instead of Angela Lansbury, they hired a hot Korean chick. In fact, it's totally like that except for the fact that it really isn't.

How do you caption a picture like this? Do I go with "BFF!!" or something more along the lines of "HOGAN!!!!"
Take your pick.

Chan-wook Park does a good job of staying neutral himself. The movie never favors one side over the other. Instead he goes right down the middle with it and shows 4 friends who each love the country the come from, but still want to see the country reunited someday. They recognize that they are "brothers" separated by little more than a line but a world at the same time.

Now, I'll be the first to admit to being just a bit of a Chan-wook Park fanboy. It's a flaw I admit to, but he makes some damn interesting movies. JSA is easily in the same ballpark as Oldboy or Lady Vengeance.

JSA gets 8 and a half guards lookin through binoculars at guards lookin through binoculars out of 10.

Those shoes aren't red!

Sometimes, it's fun just to go to Best Buy and look at movies you've never heard of and try to find something good in that barren landscape of anonymity. Like finding a needle in a haystack. Sometimes you find something amazingly fun, like Kamikazee Girls the rest of the time, you pick up something like The Red Shoes.

The Red Shoes is a South Korean movie written and directed by Yong-gyun Kim. The only description that the back cover has is "Mysteriously abandoned on a subway platform lies a pair of red shoes... to die for" The front cover just has the title with the tag line "one size kills all" and a bloody shoe with a decomposing foot still in it. At this point, I'm thinking "wow, this looks pretty sweet."

So, I take it home, where I decide to watch it. The movie starts on a subway platform where a young lady see an abandoned pair of shoes. She goes to grab them and put them on, but another girl saw them too. And they fight for them. And the second girl wins and walks off, wearing the shoes. As she's walking away, the shoes eat her feet!

And at this point, I'm thinking "wow, this looks pretty sweet." I was so wrong. The movie didn't make any fucking sense. The mom finds the shoes next, and her husband is cheating on her, so she turns on the humidifier and goes to find a new apartment with her daughter. Then, apparently, she meets an interior designer/squatter who is designing an office. Then the mom and daughter are fighting over the shoes, and I mean FIGHTING. And then the mom falls in love with the designer or something. And then, her friend takes the shoes and has an "accident" and gets her feet cut off. And then...I don't know, man, this movie had holes Hannibal could lead his army though. The mom really did sum the whole thing up at one point...

Yeah, what are you talking about? What the hell is going on here? The most interesting thing about this is that it feels like there's a whole Lord of the Rings thing going on. The shoes are the One Ring. The mom is Frodo, the daughter is...well, not Sam, maybe Boromir? The designer could be Sam though. And the subway is Mount Doom. In that regard, it's kinda interesting. It's like this epic quest to destroy a pair of shoes. Except, no one is looking to destroy them.

The movie wasn't very good. And, the shoes weren't even red! They were pink. All in all, I'd say it's something like 3 lone sneakers on the side of the road out of 10.