a blog about music, art, and fast times in LA from a midwestern new yorican.

Friday, February 1, 2008

American Apparel vs Rambo


Ads like this make it hard to hate American Apparel. They also make it hard to drive safely around LA. Now I love AA, but I think it might be getting time to put it away.
Last weekend I saw two movies: Juno and Rambo. Pretty sweet combo. Juno was a good movie, but I have to say I was not a fan of the grotesque display of AA as well as the incessant soundtrack that would rival the frequency of Gossip Girl or Smallville. It was no doubt written extremely well (kudos to Diablo Cody all the way), but I think the direction does a terrible disservice to the film by instantly dating it. Totally exploiting the AA fashionistas and the Garden-State-Indie-Soundtrack method, the film loses it's effect by shoving way too much of it all in your face. All that being said, go, watch the movie, try to block some tube socks and folk songs once in awhile, and then just love the characters and appreciate what growing up in Minneapolis can be like.
Rambo, however, was a perfect film. Now I realize when I say this I can very well lose all credit as a valid movie critic. Just hear me out. The movie is probably getting like a 3 stars out of 5 rating at best. Now, you have to understand, this movie should not be judged on all 5 stars, so 3 stars is actually a perfect rating for it. When you go and see a movie like rambo, are you looking for a great character arch in the story? NO! Are you looking for a deeply complicated dilemma that poses a great question to humanity? NO! You want Rambo to kick ass, dodge bullets, and ENTERTAIN YOU. You want Rambo to come in, kill bad dudes, and then you want the movie to be over. The movie is 93 minutes, folks. And as soon as the action ends, the movie ends! Ah, what a novel idea.
Now obviously this movie is not for everyone. My GF would have nothing to do with me the entire night just because I wanted to go see Rambo. I looked around the theatre and marveled at how many dudes were able to sucker girls to come with them. But for those who love old 80's style Death Wish action movies, it's gotta be up there with some of the best. Also, check this site out if you like that kind of shizzle. I'm guessing out of the two movies the one I'll revisit first will be... RAMBO!

1 comment:

Sam said...

this post is freakin' awesome