Screen Grabs: Bronson

Screen Grabs: The Big Lebowski

Movie Review: First Half of Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

Then:

Now:

(Whatever happened to Sean Patrick Flannery's face is a perfect visual representation of what became of Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day)

Okay, let me start by saying I loved the first Boondock Saints when I was sixteen (just like you did) and upon revisiting again recently I found that I still enjoyed it and was willing to forgive its shortcomings, like a handicapable cousin who always says something spot-on hillarious but occasionally snatches people's glasses right off their face and snaps them, laughing uncontrollably. I was waiting for so many years for this sequel, until I saw the documentary Overnight which essentially makes Saints director Troy Duffy look like a bonehead, racist, homophobic, chain-smoking infant and if nothing else a bit of a bridge-burner. Though I don't know what I was expecting from a man named Troy Duffy, from South Boston, whose only movie totally tells it like it is.

So here's my review, although some of the details are murky, there are currently millions of white blood cells attacking the existence of this movie in my brain. I assumed from the trailer and the cast list that he was going for the old One-Up method of making a sequel, which is like eating something out of the microwave that you normally cook in the oven. Satisfying and warm but too soft and without that properly cooked center. As this film tumbled into my face I began to see that I was wrong and that Mr. Duffy went in another direction altogether. He opted for the One-Down technique. This screenplay represents a scene-by-scene prison rape of the original. At this point I have to acknowledge what I feel are the only possible excuses for this fucking script:

1. He wrote it while biblically hungover with a gun pointed at his head, a 25 minute time limit and wholly without the use of a backspace key.

2. He paid the first teenage boy that walked by his apartment building to write the script for him (provided the boy was under the same restrictions detailed in option #1)

I knew from watching Overnight that Troy had a tendency to be blinded by the pure sunshine that shoots from his sausage fingers, but I refuse to believe even he didn't know that this script would make my handicapable cousin cringe in disbelief. One theory I've been playing with is that at some point Troy overheard some respected movie reviewer say about his first film, "If that was tongue-in-cheek it was brilliant, if that guy really thought that was as baddass as the slow motion and music choices would imply, he's a punch-drunk gorilla that's never touched a girl's bare breast." With this information Duffy decided he would go cheesy-on-purpose style, though that is likely me giving him too much credit. I can just see him sitting in the editing lab slapping the back of some editor who has mastered the art of feigning excitement and going on long rants about how he makes Tarantino look like a "spic-faggot". That brings us to the section of the review dedicated to the dialogue in the film (no, not film, movie). See, I've always had this problem where I can't tell exactly what race someone is in a movie, and that drives me nuts! That's where our friend Troy comes in. His interpretation of Italian-American dialogue is an anthropological study in itself. Death from alcohol poisoning has led several renowned fraternities to cease all use of the Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day Drinking Game in which you take a shot every time someone says something racist, sexist, or homophobic. After the first few you would swear he would have noticed the little green light informing him he left the Epithet-Lock key on. The new Rocco-character is a guy you'd recognize from many other films (Capote, the Last Castle, the drug dealer from The Rules of Attraction) and in this movie he pisses on all that by playing a confused "Mexican" who seems to think he's a rootin-tootin-redneck. You'll notice I'm not going much into the storyline here, there's no point to that. Just watch the first one while coming down on mushrooms.

Now for the real reason I'm writhing all this. WHAT IN THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SEAN PATRICK FLANNERY"S FACE!?! We have a right to know! If he was just a touch more famous it would be all over Access Hollywood and I could sleep at night. Some of you might say something like: "It's been ten years since the first film, give the guy a break." I would love to do that, but I can not. Where dealing with either extremely ill advised surgery of a severe reaction to raspberries or something. If he is allergic to time itself than your theory might hold water. I spent the entire movie saying out loud, "He looks so fucking rough!" And even the internet has no real answers for me. He looks like he performed cunnilingus on a poisonous puffer fish. So in summation, rent this movie if you've done something detestable and you feel that you deserve a good waterboarding.

Screen Grabs: Once upon a time in the West

Two Girls

We’re sitting too close to the screen

The images are distorted, threatening to tip onto us

On the way out two girls approach us

One blonde with glasses and one brunette with long curly hair

The one with glasses is adorable, hard not to look at

She has that pull that makes me sweat

The other is asking me for a cigarette

Tommy gives her one

She’s proud of her interesting accent

The blonde just smiles away

The brunette is asking us about the movie

It was all right, we say

She says she’s from Tel Aviv

I can tell Tommy doesn’t know quite where it is either

She says she’s visiting

She asks if we smoke weed

She asks if we want to go back to a place they have

I’m picturing an apartment that has little in common with the real one

She says this to me while the little blonde smiles at Tommy

The two of them kicking phantom rocks

He looks at me and his face says the decision is mine

He has a girlfriend

I can’t make fast decisions

I’m still stoned

She’s looking at me, expecting a yes

No, we’ve got to get back to Brooklyn

And the joy drops from the air like a single sheet of rain, already drying

We’re all disappointed in me

Well, thanks for the cigarette

Tommy and I walk off

He says they were holding hands on the way in

And that he was surprised I turned them down

I say it just happened too fast

But really I just couldn’t stand to watch

As he grabbed another one right out of the air in front of me

Screen Grabs: Where the Buffalo Roam