SEPTEMBER 2009
Harder Beat Magazine Online
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard - Starring Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, James Brolin, David Koechner and Kathryn Hahn
Don "The Goods" Ready (Piven) has hair on his balls and he sells cars. The end. He's a mercenary, a hired gun that comes in and moves metal off of languishing car lots. And he's good at it. As The Goods gets moving, his heart starts wrapping around his boss' daughter Ivy and, as the big 4th of July sale comes closer, he turns into an emotional wreck. Why? Because of 'Querque. That's right, that doesn't even make sense! Until you see the movie. "The Goods" drops "queer" like it's a letter in the alphabet. It's racist. It's crude. It's lewd. It's everything great about movies like Airplane. And the first 30 minutes of The Goods alone are worth the ticket price. A- (Joe Allison)

District 9 - Starring a bunch of unknowns. Directed by an unknown.
WHAT THE CRAP??? There's not much I can tell you about District 9 that you haven’t already heard about. When the aliens hit the atmosphere in '90 over Johannesburg, South Africa, we waited. And waited. Then the troops had to cut their way in to find a bunch of those sick Prawns huddled on top of one another.
At the time, I thought "Wow! This is going to be great! Not only were we right about the aliens, but we'll have a chance to learn from them and get all kinds of crazy technology!" Well, who knew then that they were going to turn into a bunch of miserable squatters, picking through trash and being a general nuisance? I was so glad they're being moved out of District 9 and away from everybody. I've heard that there's an exposé about some guy who works for Multi-National United. Haven’t we seen this before? A+ (Joe Allison)
Movies (472)
Sunshine Cleaning (now available on video) - Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, and Steve Zahn. Very well written by Megan Holley.
Rose Lorkowski (Adams) used to be the cheerleading captain. Now she cleans houses. On the advice of her lover, she starts an independent crime scene cleanup business with her sister Norah (Blunt). To be clear, they have no idea what they're doing. Or how to do it right. They're the first ones in after the cops at suicide scenes. The guy selling them cleaning supplies has one arm. Life generally happens to them. This is another one of those "life happens"/Little Miss Sunshine movies. (No surprise, then, that Alan Arkin is also in this one.) But it hits HARD and spot on. There is a lot that’s funny, but it's more dark than comedic. If you've ever been touched by suicide, it's going to be an extremely difficult movie for you to watch. A+ (Joe Allison)

It Might Get Loud - Featuring Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge. Directed by Davis Guggenheim (who directed Academy Award winner, An Inconvenient Truth).
It you’re an electric guitar lover, a music fan - especially of Jimmy Page (Led Zepplin), Jack White (White Stripes) or The Edge (U2) - you’re gonna love this movie. If you’re a guitarist, you might bring a towel. (!)
This documentary traces each player’s history - how and when they started, why they fell in love with the instrument, their influences, how they write. It touches on everything. White was originally a furniture upholster from Detroit; Page a London studio musician and painter and The Edge, a 17-year old Dublin schoolboy when U2 began. The musicians talk about themselves, their bands and developing their unique styles of playing. They trade tricks and riffs with the others. The final scene, they get together for a “rock ‘n roll summit.”
Page steals the show, so to speak, his solid-white hair offset by eyes a-sparkling. And, of course, the music is awesome. It Might Get Loud is a must see. A (Linda Hollar)



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