Director: John Lee Hancock

Starring: Sandra Bullock

Plot:People fucking caring about other people.

Year: 2009

Handroll Ranking:
(4 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

Like Earth, sea and sky
all that I believed ’bout Sandra Bullock
was wrong

Director: Spike Jonze

Starring: That guy who played that murderous, self-loathing prick, Tony Soprano

Plot: A confused and lonely young boy dressed in a bunny suit sails to a strange island where fun-loving, though wildly insecure, carnivorous monsters make him their king, which he sucks at, so they try to eat him.

Year: 2009

Handroll Ranking:
(4 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

Carnivorous monsters
don’t eat boy
probably should have.

This is a little bit that Troy Johnson and I unveiled for our radio show That Ain’t Right on 103.7 Free Fm. They’re basically movie reviews in Haiku form. It was Troy’s idea.

While there are several types of haiku, I’ve chosen to go with the English version of Japanese haiku. Here’s a little haiku brush-up:

1. Haiku is usually three lines of poetry. The first being five syllables long, then seven, then five again.

2. No rhyming.

3. There must be a “season” type word in the poem. Avoid using the season itself, rather, a word that is associated with it such as how toboggans are associated with winter. Nature words are also acceptable.

4. Avoid metaphors. Only the best of the best haiku poets know how to subtly use a metaphor in haiku. For the mediocre Haikuist (read: me), best to avoid them altogether.

5. The poems must be in the present tense since they are intended, primarily, to make us live in the now — a dying art to be certain.

6. It is permissible on occasion to use more or less than 3 lines and different syllable counts than 5-7-5 but there must always be less than 17 syllables in all.

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: That dude from 21 Jump Street

Summary: Really? You don’t know this story?

Handroll Ranking:

(3 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

“Off with her he-eaaad!”
Bellows the bloodthirsty queen
(Clearly the best part).

Director: If you have to ask…

Starring: That chick from Alien

Summary: (See Pocahontas)

Handroll Ranking:
(2 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

Dialogue was for shit

Plot, infantile

But it looked reaaal purty.

Director: Larry Charles

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen

Summary: Flamboyant Austrian fashionista Brüno takes his show to America

Handroll Ranking:
(4 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

Depraved anal scene

forever etched on my brain

I beg thee, be gone!

Director: Todd Philips

Starring: Ed Helms

Plot: A Las Vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy during their drunken misadventures, then must retrace their steps in order to find him.

Year: 2009

Handroll Ranking:
(4 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

During the movie
I fucking laughed my ass off
Am still laughing now

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Shia LaBeouf

Plot: Decepticon forces return to Earth on a mission to take Sam Witwicky prisoner, after the young hero learns the truth about the ancient origins of the Transformers. Joining the mission to protect humankind is Optimus Prime, who forms an alliance with international armies for a second epic battle.

Year: 2009

Handroll Ranking:
(3.5 out of 5 handrolls)

Haiku Review

Smoking hot, bot-babe

Abuses Sam with metal tongue.

The rest is rad too

Starring: James Gandolfini, Edie Falco

Plot: Modern day morality tale about New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, as he deals with personal and professional issues in his home and business life.

Haiku Review
How I longed
for bloodspill finish,
bullets raining inside the diner

Written and Directed by: Ed Burns

Starring: Ed Burns, Jay Mohr, John Leguizamo

Plot: A groom and his four attendants wrestle with issues related to friendship and maturity a week before the big day.

Haiku Review

‘nother fab Burns flick
of real people being real
so real, like blue trees

Movie: Flags of Our Fathers

Starring: Ryan Phillippe

Plot: The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII.

Haiku Review

Army fucks Ira Hayes
Wind blows flag this way and that
So, what else is new ?

Writer/Director: Sofia Coppola

Starring: Kirsten Dunst

Plot: The retelling of France’s iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and to the end of her reign as queen and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

Year: 2006

Haiku review
Dunst played perfectly
Austrian girl warmth
Inside cold French monarchy (more…)

Movie: Premonition
Starring: Sandra Bullock
Plot: Depressed housewife learns her husband was killed in a car accident the day previously, awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home, and then awakens the next day after to a world in which he is still dead.
Year: 2007

Haiku Review
Just when you think, “Oh
It can not get any worse,”
In walks Ms. Bullock.

[Author's note: it was pointed out to me that the above haiku movie review did not have a season-type word. Below is the rewrite].

Haiku Review
Days of blossom, few
Waste not, not now or ever
on such crap as this.