Confidence
Overview: Jake, Gordo, Miles and Big Al are friends that run schemes
to get peoples money. Their last scheme went too far,
as they accidently took money belonging to the King (a mob type guy).
Big Al is killed and Jake agrees to run a scam for
the King to get him his money back.
My Rating: Great movie. A lot of twists and keeps you guessing just
what the heck is going on. Talented cast,
Edward Burns (Jake), Rachel Weisz (lily), Andy Garcia (Butan), and
Dustin Hoffman (King)
More Detail: The movie starts with Jake being dead. Then you see Jake
talking to the man that is about to kill him. Jake
recalls the events that brought him to this place.
Lionel Dolby works for the king except Jake does not know this. In a
dispute over money, Jake has just shot Gordo.
Dolby freaks out and tries to run out of the bar. Jake talks him into
coming back in so they can clean up the mess. Miles,
The Bartender gets into it with Jake and they draw guns on each
other. Dolby leaves when he hears the police sirens,
leaving the money behind. Gordo gets up of the floor and when the
detectives arrive, they are on the take. The guys all
walk out with their share of the money.
The trouble begins when the find Al dead the next morning. They find
out that Dolby was a runner for the King. Dolby was
also found dead. Jake decides to meet with the King and work things
out. He is not going to give him the money back,
after all one of his men is dead. Jake tells the king he will run a
job for him and pay him back the money plus interest.
The King agrees but the target has to be Morgan Price (also a mob
guy). The King also wants one of his men, Lupis on
the team.
Jake also recruits a young woman named Lily that stole his wallet the
night before. He figures she has a knack for the
work. Their plan is to approach Mr. Price for a business loan. The
money will be transferred to an off shore account
where Jake will withdraw it to a check and cash the check at another
bank. He will then bring the money back and
be able to get through customs because they'll have an inside man.
Everything is ready to go when lily "accidently" jinxes
them. She changed her hair color to Red. Jake hates red hair. Lizzie
Bordon, red hair, Judas, red hair, and his own mother who left him,
red hair. To make matters worse, Special Agent
Butan is now on Jake's trail and knows about his cop buddies and
wants to use them to capture Jake.
Jake and his crew find their mark, Leon. He is the VP of business
Loans and Price's bank. They promise him a cut
if he pushes the loan through for them. Leon agrees but there is a
problem. The two cops working for Jake tell him
about Butan. They tell him they can keep Butan off his back as long
as they get a cut in the deal he has going on with
King. Jake tells his crew they will have to abandon the plan, it is
too risky with Butan.
Lily gets upset about them quitting the job and leaves. Jake decides
to go on with it after she leaves because of what the
King may do to him.
Now it gets interesting.
Gordo picks up the money.
Butan and the cops are waiting for Gordo to pinch him. Lupis turns on
Jake and tells the King where to get the money
before the cops do. The Cops decide to pinch Butan and Jake. Gordo
gets through customs and goes into the rest
room. One of King's men, Harlin, follows him in and takes the bag.
The cops pinch him and King outside. The cops
are then pinched by agents. Inside the bag is Heroin.
Back to the Alley, Jake is on his knees with one of Price's men
looking for the money. He is about to shot Jake when
Lily, who told Price about the whole scam, shows up and shoots Jake.
Price's guy leaves and so does Lily.
Butan pulls up in a car and asks Jake if he needs a ride. Butan and
lily where in it the whole time. Butan's agent switched
the bag. butan has the money. He took his cut and gave the bag to
Jake, who now rides off with Gordo, Miles and Lily.
Home Room
Overview: A school shooting brings together the unlikliest of
friends. Alicia Browning is a goth chick with no real friends.
She manages to escape the shooting unharmed. Deanna Cartwright wasn't
so lucky. She is in the hospital with a head
wound. The bullet grazed her but she is staying in the hospital
because she is having a hard time recovering mentally
from the ordeal.
My Rating: Good movie. Pretty intense at the end. Great performances by Busy Phillips and Erika Christensen
More Detail: After the shooting, Alicia is questioned by the police.
They believe she knew the shooter and may have
known what he was planning. she admits to knowing him but nothing
about the shooting.
Alicia tries to get into the school to study but it is closed because
of the shooting. The Principal, seeing that Alicia has
nothing to do, asks her to visit Deanna in the Hospital. She tries to
get out of it but is forced to when the Principal
threatens to fail her.
Deanna and Alicia bond after a while. The police are still looking
into Alicia as a suspect. Deanna tries to find out if
Alicia knew about the shooting before hand and they get into an
argument. Deanna's parents are rich but for all the money
they have Deanna still feels alone as she has no friends. After the
fight Alicia goes back to the hospital and finds Deanna
outside with a syringe, she wants to kill herself. The dreams will
not stop about that day in school. Alicia talks her out of
it showing her the wounds on her wrist when she tried to kill herself.
Deanna finally convinces her parents to let her out of the hospital.
Back home the police are ready to arrest Alicia
because of a phone call the killer made to her the night before. The
lead detective will arrest her but feels they
have no case and do they really want to pin 9 murders on a teenager.
His chief agrees and the close the case.
The detective asks some of the kids that survived the shooting to go
back to Home Room, were it all happened, to go
over what happened. One of the mysteries in the movie was what
happened to Alicia. She was a clean cut student
but then missed a year of school and came back miss goth.
Deanna realizes that Alicia helped save some of the students that
day. The shooting lasted only 30 seconds but police did not
arrive for 5 minutes. She talked to the kid and kept him in the room,
where police arrived and shot him. Deanna also
remembers some of the things Alicia said at the hospital about the
food being bad and the chapel being the quietest place
there. She had been there. She had a baby. Alicia snaps and gets all
angry, yes she had a baby, but it died. The babies
name was Amanda.
Alicia admits that the shooter called her the night before and told
her not to go to school. She did not believe him and was
sorry.
Alicia and Deanna see each other again at graduation. Alicia gets her
diploma and runs away. Deanna follows. When Alica
opens her diploma you see her full name, Alicia Amanda Browning.
Not a happy movie, but a good one none the less.
The Toxic Avenger 4 : Citizen Toxie
Overview: An explosion causes the first super hero from New Jersey,
the Toxic Avenger, into a parallel universe. In this
Universe, he is known by the people as an evil person. Back in
Tromaville, Noxie, The evil Toxie, has arrived and is
killing everyone in sight. Can toxie get back to his universe and
save the day?
My Rating: I'm usually a fan of the Troma films but this one was even
a little bit over the edge for me. Plenty of Blood
and gore, almost done to the extreme. Some of the movie was funny but
the scenes of blood were a little overdone
for my taste.
More Detail: The movie starts out with the Diaper Mafia gang taking
special ed students hostage at the Tromaville
School. Toxie comes to the rescue disguised as a Bikini reporter.
Toxie along with his side kick, Lard Ass, take care
of the gang but not before they kill several students. The leader has
a bomb device strapped to him. If his heart stops a
bomb will go off in 5 seconds. Toxie kills the leader by taking out
his intestines and heart. In one of the films funnier
moments, the bomb countdown begins at 5 seconds. During the 5 seconds
Toxie is able to beat more bad guys, find
a student shooting up and talk to him about the dangers of drugs.
Find his favorite weapon, a mop, run home and
impregnate his wife and finally get back to the school.
Lard ass puts peanut butter on the bomb and eats it. Toxie runs out
with the two remaining kids as Lard ass starts
passing some serious gas. One other student, who was apparently being
lapped danced to death by one of the Diaper
Mafia women members, lights up a smoke causing the explosion.
When Toxie exits the school with the two kids, the cops chase after
him. Toxie jumps into a car being driven by
Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD. Except it is not Sgt Kabukiman, it is his alter
ego, Evil Kabukiman.
Back in Tromaville, Noxie has killed most of the police force and the
mayor, played by Ron Jeremy, to take over the
town, with the help of an evil cop. Noxie has also gotten Toxie's
wife pregnant, and now the two fetus's are fighting.
In the end, with the help of the alternate universes Lard ass. Toxie
is able to get back to the right dimension. How you ask?
After several scientific books are read, he puts on a pair of red
slippers and clicks his heals, There's No Place like
Tromaville.
Noxie and Toxie battle it out. First Toxie destroys all the bad cops
that are now dressed like nazis. Toxie's Fetus was
also victorious and was born a health 62 pound baby boy. Toxie's wife
also had a second baby that looks a lot
like Sgt. Kabukiman. Kabukiman was a drunk in this movie and after
taking a leak saw Toxie's wife tied up on the bed. He
went to untie her but passed out, he forgot to zip up.