Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Message
Boards
Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs:
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate ed v1James Bond Ultimate ed v2James Bond Ultimate ed v3
Julie & Julia
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
2012
A Perfect Getaway
The Blind Side
A Christmas Carol
An Education
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Invictus
Is Anybody There?
It's Complicated
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
The Lovely Bones
My Sister's Keeper
New in Town
Nine
Pirate Radio
Precious
The Proposal
Red Cliff
The Road
Shrink
St. Trinian's
The Strip
Surrogates
Taken
The Uninvited
Up in the Air
Young Victoria
DVDs on Sale:
Aliens Quadrilogy (set)
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
Coraline
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Defiance
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Last Days of Fillmore West
Fast & Furious movies set
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
The Hangover
Alfred Hitchcock set
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man SE
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Marx Bros set
Ultimate
Matrix set
Milk
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Moon
Public Enemies
Sin City
South
Park Movie
Star
Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men
Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine
DisneyPixar & family DVDs Looney
Toons
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
& Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
& Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
|
Starring
John Cusack and Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd and Joan Cusack Screenplay by Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack Directed by George Armitage |
Grosse Pointe Blank should put an end to the incredible feelings of insecurity that come up around the time of a high school reunion; the time when you think that you haven't accomplished anything with your life and have to lie to the friends you haven't seen in ten years. No, it isn't necessary to be impressive. Just tell the truth, be yourself, remember to carry lots of extra ammunition and most important, don't leave your gun in the hotel room.
Grosse Pointe Blank is the kind of movie that, if you haven't reached your first reunion or if you are perhaps 40 years beyond those rah rah rah years, you're just not going to understand. What it is is chaotic. What it is is cartoonishly violent. What it is is outrageously funny.
Martin Q. Blank (John Cusack), well liked in high school, vanished on the night of his high school prom. Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver), the girl left sitting by the door in her $700 dress haunts his every sleeping moment. This episode, needing closure, is topic one on his list of things to discuss with his shrink Dr. Oatman (Alan Arkin). Oatman, for his own part, wants off the case because Martin has shared his occupation professional killer and the good doc fears for his own safety. Add to our merry band Martin's oh so efficient secretary Marcella (Joan Cusack) who can purchase ammunition on one phone line while she discusses recipes with a girlfriend on the other. Finally, there is Grocer (Dan Aykroyd), a competing hit man who wants to organize the industry and, failing to recruit Martin, sics the Feds on him.
Doesn't sound funny, does it? Let your eyes fool you folks. If you fall in the properly aforementioned demographics, the odds are much better than even that you will roll with laughter, even as the bullets fly and the plastique explosive blows the roof off the sucker. It isn't that the characters you are seeing are unique. Indeed, the casting choices are perfect Alan Arkin as the shrink who is none too steady himself; Dan Aykroyd and Joan Cusack, both alumni of Saturday Night Live performing roles very much in keeping with characters created in their halcyon television days. Topping it off is the other Cusack, who has all these heavy emotional issues to deal with -- ten years flies by way too fast for some people -- and to whom killing is a job that he, a man with moral flexibility, is more than suited to. He keeps a strait face as each situation he faces becomes more and more absurd, which is what makes each situation funnier than the last.
The whole thing sits on a bed of wall to wall tunes from the 80s, quite neatly documenting Cranky's last career in the radio business actually, and additional music by The Clash's Joe Strummer. The selections are so in tune with the "return to 1986" theme of the reunion, that three quarters of the audience I sat with stayed in their seats to check out the credits.
Grosse Pointe Blank is difficult in that it almost fits into a lot of genres. It's almost an out and out comedy, but it isn't. It's almost a simple love story, but it isn't. It's almost a shoot 'em up in the Tarantino style, but it isn't. What it is is highly recommended.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Grosse Pointe Blank, he would have paid...
$7.00
I'm laying out the extra buck as a bounty on the head of the film's music editor, who decimated Bowie/Queen's "Under Pressure" and at least half a dozen other great tunes. Cranky says: "if you're going to do go chop chop on an old 45, at least try not to mess with major hits, OK?" 'Nuff said.
One other thing. Skip the 10th reunion. The dorks are still dorks. Everything looks so much nicer at 20 years on.
 |
Click to buy films starring John Cusack |
| Click to buy films starring Dan Aykroyd | |
| Click to buy films starring Joan Cusack | |
| Click to buy films starring Minnie Driver | |
| Click to buy films starring Alan Arkin |