Summer 2010: The Few Highs and the Several Lows

Often the summer movie season gets a bad rap from showcasing films that lack what the majority of the cinema literate would call class or the human condition. These are usual big spectacle movies that are there to bring in the people for what could be a really great entertaining experience that isn't so in need to getting heavy critical attention. And really without those money making, often empty headed films... those art pictures or award pictures either wouldn't have the funding (because 90% of them never really make back their budgets) or in the case of foreign films, wouldn't be bought by our companies for distribution here. So perhaps some film snobs (or wannabe film snobs) ought to think before they're so quick to condemn the profit season.

All this said for the most part this past summer sucked. The few bits of relief that all hope in the creative world wasn't lost came near the end of the summer or from getting to watch spring released films that got to my location late (like 'Exit Through the Gift Shop', which is still the best film I've seen all year). In truth before hand there wasn't nearly as much to look forward to as it had been in previous years. In 2009 for example there was something almost every weekend that had potential to be a lot of fun and even with junk like "Terminator Salvation" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" I still think overall it was a pretty descent summer season. This time around not so much. Generally what seemed to be the biggest issue was either films played things too safe or just flat out didn't try at all. Coming up with a best and worst of the summer was rather tough, but this is what I've boiled it down to. Enjoy.

BEST

1."Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"
Edgar Wright didn't just make a movie, he made a love letter to the medium. He filled this movie with so much care and attention to the things he enjoys and by extension his fans tend to enjoy with geeky delight. He also effectively makes Michael Cera into an impressive fighter while making us constantly laugh. It's creative, fun, joyful and packed with hilarity. The biggest shame of all is that the film has yet to really find an audience. My wish is that come DVD that will all change and people will get to see Cera in a new light as well as experience just how gleefully cool the movie is.

2. "Inception"
Gotta love the success of a twisty sci-fi action, thriller about dreams. Along with S.P. I've been meaning to re-watch this in theaters, but from that first viewing and all the after thoughts I simply was engrossed from beginning to end. DiCaprio has done two of his best performances this year (the other being 'Shutter Island') and Christopher Nolan has added another impressive mark to his filmography.

3. "Valhalla Rising"
Brutal, transcendental and thought provoking. Nicolas Winding Refn's "Valhalla Rising" is simply a film that has got to be seen to be understood. It's as nasty as any hard R-action film, but with so much soul and haunting beauty filling the frames. A real work of art.

4. "Salt"
A type A-summer action movie with the big star, the violence and the attitude, but damn if it wasn't effective and fun. I've liked to various extents Jolie's action work, but not until this did I really, really dig her at it. As Salt, the pursued possible Russian assassin she takes part in a lot of CGI-less stunt sequences, geekily fun espionage scenes (like the 'Mission: Impossible' homage that's far more realistic, but also silly) and some surprisingly rough and bloody fights. Director Philip Noyce really just reminded me about all the fun summer movies CAN have in the right hands.

5. "Piranha 3D"
Cheerfully stupid and proud of it is the way Alexandre Aja's reboot aimed and accomplished with flying colors. The difference between this film and the many, many imitation B-movies we see is that this is the real macoy. Aja seems to have finally hit the right mark with his casting of C to D level stars that we know, giving them all their moments and then providing us with exactly what he said he would; gore, breasts and laughs in gimmicky 3D.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
-"Toy Story 3"
-"Splice"
-"The Last Exorcism"
-"The Other Guys"
-"Dinner for Schmucks"

WORST

1. "Grown Ups"
A bitter, bitter taste was left after seeing this movie. A taste that has stuck with myself and my friends. So bad is this taste that it has hurt our ability to sit back and endure shitty movies for the sake of enduring them. I don't hate Adam Sandler movies generally. And I'm not saying that because of "Punch Drunk Love" or "Funny People", I'm talking about traditional Sandler fair. I still enjoy 'The Waterboy', '50 First Dates', 'Happy Gilmore' and a couple of others, but this is like the lowest of the low for him. This is "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" bad. And worst yet all these comedians deliver their worst work here. However bad Chris Rock or David Spade or Kevin James has been... they top themselves.

2. "Sex and the City 2"
142 minutes of piss poor jokes and women behaving like self important, ignorant savages in foreign and domestic lands. It's a film that might make you hate women for a while. Or rather women who think THIS is how they should act.

3. "Macgruber"
Will Forte is not funny. I'd like to find him funny, but I don't. "Macgruber" ends up being a testament to just how painfully unfunny he actually is and how crappy of a character and satire the whole mess is. Barely any of the jokes work and often it's own irreverence works so strongly against it that you start to wonder were they trying to make the movie THIS unfunny. If so mission accomplished.

4. "Marmaduke"
Boring and crappy kids movie SUCK to endure. At least with some other films you might be able to see some nice locations or have a vice to fall back on, but traditionally in really bad kids films there is nothing. "Marmaduke" is no exception. All there is are rough CGI mouth movements, bad writing filled with puns and somewhat creepy animal romances.

5. "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Better than the first two, but still crap. The other day I actually re-watched a few scenes and realized just how goofy and funny some of finale really is. Pretty much all the mountain soap opera stuff was way funnier this time around and the set looked even more unrealistic. Furthermore 'Eclipse' actually serves to show even more than NOTHING happened in "New Moon". How these books got so popular out of re-treading the same plot with characters saying the same things the entire time is beyond me. All I know is that with two movies left based on the final book there is a chance (a slim one) that acclaimed director Bill Condon can do something to make them at least bearable.

And now we look forward to the fall season. From how it looks right now we could be in for A LOT of really impressive stuff. For me cinema is working at it's best when we're seeing a nice diversity of art and entertainment. It's great looking forward to new films by Fincher, Aronofsky, Boyle, Eastwood, Stone, Redford, the Coens, Rodriguez, Noe, Russell and possibly new stuff from Malik, Payne and Weir. What'll end up being the big talk of the season? The field is wide open right now and the possibilities are currently endless.

The Last Exorcism review

When was the last time a horror film really got to you? Maybe elements of last years movies like "Paranormal Activity" and Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell", but those work their magic once and then have to work in other ways to still be consistently entertaining. Which they do. In truth I really don't know. Domestically most horror for the last few years has been more torture porn than anything else and foreign wise you had some stuff that worked well with it's ideas, but didn't stick and others that muddled around so much with it's tone that by the end it was hard to really get any feelings out of it what so ever. "The Last Exorcism" isn't one of those movies to keep you up at night. However it is entertaining. Surprisingly fun and effective it in it's own ways.

"The Last Exorcism" is being promoted the only way a movie like this can be and get and audience. As much as I can't stand the rudimentary film the trailers display with quick cuts and money shots, I do understand why they did it. Let's face it guys... viewers are dumb nowadays. Money shots are ALL they want. Why has "The Expendables" done so well? Because it's all money shots and nothing else. This film really isn't all hell fire, speaking in tongues and shouting about Christ. 90% of the movie is basic suspense, humor and it's characters. Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell SELL the picture. If nothing else worked, they did. Fabian plays Cotton Marcus, a second generation preacher who takes a gig in Georgia to exorcise a demon from a sixteen year old girl (Bell). That's all I'm saying. There's a lot more to both characters and really that's the meat of the film and what makes it tick. Who these people are is what is intriguing and somewhat different from the norm in these sort of horror films.

The documentary style works well enough too by never looking too much like a movie (although the editing can be questioned) and uses a lot of natural lighting; which is most evident in the scenes inside the house in the day. The film is also cheap. Not complaining, but it feels cheap in the way that we're never looking at elaborate set design and the few pieces of staging are pretty low key and crude. Not surprising considering it was independently funded. "The Last Exorcism" is what I'd call a saturday night horror movie. Which is a term that I had as a kid when I was first getting into all this stuff. Basically my aunt would sit me down and show me various horror movies which were mostly in the B-range while growing up and then down the line I was meant to pick it up and run with it solo. This was when we watched stuff like "Audrey Rose", "Critters", "Tremors", "The Fog" etc. There was also A LOT of "Outer Limits" and "Tales of the Crypt". Where most families told stories around the campfire, we told them around the television or on the porch. On a lot of those nights my family would talk about things from the past, strange happenings from around town that they knew about and things of that nature and I found it all really, really interesting.

Now I guess things are different. The interest is still there, but the stories and the people in which to discuss it with are not. The joy of discovering new horror films is still there as well, but alas some of that joy has fleeted. Age and my surrounds has definitely had an effect on that. Silly as it sounds "The Last Exorcism" reminded me of those times as a kid. Not much of what they ever told me was scary, but damned if it didn't have my attention. It allowed my imagination to go into overdrive thinking about people in the woods, satanists, ghost and all that jazz. I'm not trying to find a loophole into liking the film, as it still stands I dug what happens and had a lot of fun viewing it. As it turns out Eli Roth could be part of the .1% of horror directors that moves to producing and actually releases something entertaining (something Wes Craven and Sam Raimi have never done). I dug the fact that it wasn't a straight horror film, that it was made on the cheap and wasn't afraid to use humor from time to time. And I very much enjoyed the qusi-goofiness of the finale moments of the picture. But why it resonates a little more with me is due to my upbringing. Maybe it's the tone or the setting or something else I can't put my finger on yet, but the movie brings back memories and that's worth a lot in my book.

Takers review

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and that's really what "Takers" feels like. Not so much a rip-off because many of the things done in 'Takers' have become somewhat staples in the heist movie genre. You know there's a twist somewhere abouts, you know things never quite go to plan and you generally know what happens to any pursuing the gang of thieves.

The issue that ultimately brings the whole movie down is that fact that it becomes a pretty well traveled film. At least within the first twenty to forty minutes you had enough to think that it was leading somewhere new, but after that it simply makes pulls from 'The Italian Job" (which is basically how they performed their heist) as well as Michael Mann films. I'm not knocking the fact that they wanna be like Mike as I am quite a fan, however they don't have nearly enough going on under the hood to make it come to together. Aesthetically however they kind of have it down shooting in his digital style and lighting the entire movie as handsomely as possible. So basically it's Michael Mann without the brains, brawn or grit.

The plot is simple as pie. The band of always nicely dressed thieves (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, Michael Ealy, Chris Brown and Hayden Christensen) pull off a daring bank heist to kick off the film and let us know that they mean business by slowly walking away from the helicopter they stole and blew up. I admit the preceding sequence although ridiculous was still somewhat impressive. Then a former member of the gang, Ghost (T.I.) gets out of jail and tells them he has a plan for hardcore armored car heist in five days. Now already these guys claim to be smart and claim that Ghost isn't yet they take the rushed job anyway and away we go with planning sequences and so on and so fourth. Now something that makes a strong heist movie (and actually a good movie in general) is when you're characters having something going on. 'Takers' almost gets this concept right except for the fact that some of the more interesting characters have nothing to do. Idris Elba gets a lengthy side plot involving his drug addicted sister which is pretty interesting although sometimes ill-timed to be placed into the story, but that's it. Michael Ealy seemed pretty damn intense in the beginning scenes and then gets nothing to do till the hotel shootout. Paul Walker just walks through the movie doing things and yet we know next to nothing about him or his personality. And the list goes on.

There is the side story with the cops on their tail too. Matt Dillion and Jay Hernandez play the partners that are getting close to figuring out how it all might tie together maybe. There lays the problem with their story, they're always like five steps behind so it never feel like... oh shit they're on their tail! It's more like they have enough personal issues that they'll probably forget about the case and go home to be with their troubled kids. And yet with all these plot and character flaws the film still finds a way to ALMOST work. It does so by A: shooting the entire movie like a GQ photo shoot B: casting mostly well (T.I. who also produced the film, not too great an actor) C: got creative with the action sequences. Strangely those three things really do work to smooth out some of the other issues a bit.

The hotel shoot out is done almost completely in slow mo and rather clean as it's PG-13. But their against the grain music choice, set design and edits make it work pretty well. It's not outstanding, but it looks nice and feels rough and fast. Chris Brown's parkour sequence; mostly shot well, somewhat funny when he body checks a woman into a wall, works out well enough. Some of the ending pieces are also skillfully shot and tend to impress, but upon it's airport finale which you knew was going to happen a long, long time ago you just sort of feel 'meh' about it all.

Piranha 3D review

Ok let me get all this out of the way in as best a way as I possibly can right now. When you see an ad, trailer or generally hear that there is a 3D movie about prehistoric piranhas swimming around and eating horny, half and fully naked pretty people... do you really go in looking for the horror experience of a lifetime? FUCK NO, are you a wee-brain?! Christ it's like walking into "The Expendables" looking for a deep and meaningful allegory for the duality in morals for men of war. So why in the hell would you walking into this expecting more is beyond me.

All this said while I can never speak for everyone, I can say that I did surprisingly enjoy with absurd, retarded delight all that was on the plate with "Piranha 3D". Now I know that classic Roger Corman production directed by Joe Dante (pre "Gremlins" and "The Howling" days) is some sort of high art classic now, but I assure you all the thematic material and anus clinching suspense is still there. Ok all my asshole-ness aside yes I enjoyed this way more than I ought to have. I'll tell you the biggest flaw is the short 82 minute running time that kind of stops the fun of the film way short. Whether this was a plan created to have a sequel pick up where this one left off or a case of not enough money for the big, spectacular money sequence to leave the film on I can't say. But generally these types of films come in riding a mild to high mild wave of curiosity and excitement due to the absurdity of the situation and of the take on the situation, but few hit the mark.

I mentioned earlier "The Expendables" from last week which was looking to be a great return to 80's, big gun action instead it was over CGI-ed junk with about as much fun was "War"; also known as the last time Statham and Li were in a crap action movie together. Sometimes these kind of go off and play ideas don't turn out to be as fun as they could've been. "Snakes on a Plane", "Army of Darkness", "Gamer" etc; all movies that had chances to work as a good ole' piece of over the top, silly as silver shit cinema, but didn't manage. "Piranha 3D" mostly does it for me. It promoted itself in a similar way that "My Bloody Valentine 3D" did it. It had sex and violence in fairly legitimate 3D and you'll wanna see it. And then once you get there who knows... maybe you'll have more fun with it than just a nice accuse to tits and blood on the big screen. Again "Piranha" does that. Instead of being just a gory, sex filled creature feature it works a bit harder to create entertaining set pieces for these things to happen. It may not sound like much of a bonus, but after really enduring a lot of the movies that toss out the ability to get a little crazier with it's creativity in the vice department you end up respecting those little things a lot more.

Make no mistake there is blood and sex and tons of it, but all done with that layer of cheese, sleaze and disconnection with the real world that makes it fun. French director Alexandre Aja has never made a film I fully enjoyed as far as his directed work is concerned. "High Tension", "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Mirrors" all suffer from the same issues with pacing, dis likable or lackluster characters doing some kind of alright things, but on the flip do offer up some nice visuals and editing style and Aja wisely does a lot of practical horror work mixed with the CG stuff. Honestly that's something I respect since today people barely even use make up effects for pick up shots after the action. Here is the first one of his movies I walked out off feeling like I fully had a good time watching it without a lot of 'buts'.

The movie is also filled with former greats now C-list actors like Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Adam Scott and Jerry O' Connell. Seriously most of these people I'm lucky to see in a major release once everything couple of years in a bit part, but now I've got em' all and while their characters aren't fleshed out much they still get to do some fun things and get the spotlight again if only for a moment. Aja also shoots and edits the film as a cheap, sholck and sex picture in a real fashion instead of someone trying much harder to get that sort of older feel. Everything from the casting to the music to the credit font smells like a lot of the horror stuff I used to watch on HBO and VHS growing up and reveling in it's stupidity. Here is one of those movies through and through.

I know close to no one will probably side with me on this and again I'll look like the blind idiot that just can't grasp the notion of what movies "should" be, but at this point I don't care. Having fun at the movies is just as important as seeing a film that speaks to you internally and ends up effecting you on different levels and blah, blah, blah. I guess at the end of the day there's not a lot of defense one can do for a film with a scene where a man's penis is eaten and coughed up in 3D by cartoon fish.

2-N-1 reviews (The Wolfman and Brooklyn's Finest)

"BROOKLYN'S FINEST"

TV has nearly killed the gritty joy of cop stories and it sucks. Seriously almost every channel this season has got at least three cop or cop-like shows starting up. Shockingly enough some will succeed even given the high market flooding of the genre. Interestingly enough though is that film wise it's all kind of slowed down. It almost seems like the people still making the occasional cop picture are the ones that have made a name for themselves for doing so. One such person is director Antonie Fuqua of 'Training Day' and 'Shooter' fame. His newest crime opus "Brooklyn's Finest" isn't as strong, but it is an engrossing and entertaining crime yarn all the same.

The film follows three cops, all different very people and working completely unrelated cases. There's Don Cheadle, a cop who's been undercover for what seems to be a year plus with rough gangsters and is tired of it. He wants out and he wants the promotion and desk job he was promised. The wish might be granted, but first he must sell out Casanova; an old friend played by Wesley Snipes. This might be easy, but the two have a history and Casanova saved his life once so there's all those... emotions. Then there's Ethan Hawke who works vice squad doing drug busts. His house is infested with dangerous mold that's slowly effecting his pregnant wife. Furthermore said house is tiny and with two more kids on the way plus the four others... well you can figure that out. So he hatching a plan to take drug money and buy a new house. Lastly there is Richard Gere who is retiring. He's a burn out and alcoholic with no impressive police history, but has done nothing wrong. However slowly he begins to see what he could do to redeem himself in a certain light.

All these actors perform magnificently and Fuqua directs with a much quieter and steadier eye than in many of his past works. The film is as gritty as his others, but is less about crime and all that and more about these people and their lives. Hawke delivers another hot blooded performance that's believable and convincing to his argument as to why he SHOULD take the drug money. His performance sticks out the most, but Cheadle and Gere's also work on a more subtle level. All these character could warrant their own solo pictures and perhaps someone should write a crime film that dwells more how cops view the upside down nature of the law, but together in one film it works too.

"THE WOLFMAN"

I missed Universal's big remake of their monster classic that came out in February and I kind of still wish I had left it missed. Directed by Joe Johnston ('Jumanji' and 'Jurassic Park III'), 'The Wolfman' is hands down one of the worst films of the year and a piss poor attempt at reviving the great genre of gothic horror. First off Benicio Del Toro shouldn't have played the lead Lawrence. Del Toro is a terrific actor, but this is his worst performance that ranges from being boring to being just plain ridiculous. Then we have Anthony Hopkins as his rather insane father who works hard to chew up the scenery like a lion. In fact the only cast members that did work for the film were Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, but it feels like they end up having little to nothing to really do in the film.

It's even more disappointing when Lawrence turns into the wolfman and we're treated to some ok-ish CGI transformations, some cheap looking kills and then a horrible looking wolfman suit that's either lit wrong or was just made poorly. I find both odd considering this was done by legendary makeup artist Rick Baker. I won't even go into the big finale of the movie which seems like something out of a Stephen Sommers film, but shot with less flair.

Johnston has also been like a pick me up director with little style. He can do things well enough and sometimes above average (like 'October Sky'), but then there's stuff like this and it makes you wonder how he gets work. I think here he was aiming for Sam Raimi style oddly enough, but lacks the creativity, humor and madness that Raimi has to pull it off.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World review

What does it say when Sly Stallone can't take an entire cast of established hard-asses and make them seem heroic, cool, badass or for the villains menacing? What does it say when Edgar Wright can take a bunch of twenty-somethings, most from comedies or teen dramas and shoot them in the way an old school kung-fu filmmaking pro would lovingly display the skill and talent of his performers while making them interesting and giving them something to do? I suppose it says that Stallone took what could've been cheesy, B-action fun and turned into a cheap, boring piece of junk and Edgar Wright has actually set down and crafted a joyful, fun, exciting, funny and creative piece of work. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" actually lives up and exceeds it's hype. No easy feet.

But amidst all the fight sequences it is at it's core a love story and for the film to work you must believe that Scott really cares about Ramona and that she's worth it. Often this is a highly contested point because not everyone sees romance and/or love in the same light. And in normal movie with characters similar to this it probably wouldn't work, but this is no normal romance nor is it a normal film. Everything is touched with a bit of the cartoonish and the stylized, much in tune with Edgar's style, but less British. So in this case I think the romance can work because it's world and people in it aren't serious. The reason "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" didn't work for me is because Cera and Dennings didn't seem to connect the way they ought to on screen. Their world was one that was based around music in that fairly pretentious way building up to seeing one fairly mediocre band at the end. Scott and Ramona's romance is centered around just how far he's willing/ how many punches does he wanna take for this girl, but one that he's obviously connecting with. In addition it's a celebration of music, video games, cinema and friends.

Michael Cera gets a lot of flack and I still wonder why. I suppose it was because he started pulling down a lot more roles and said things started coming along quicker with him playing the same type of character beat for beat. Some say he did the same here and I call bullshit on that. I've literally been watching this dude since "Arrested Development" as Jason Bateman's super socially awkward son George Michael; since then I do agree not much has changed in his characters. But with Scott Pilgrim it is something different. He's not that quiet little kid in the corner worried about every little thing and afraid to speak up; here he's talky, ready, somewhat awkward at times, but always on the move and always thinking fast. By the middle of the movie he's gone on to the no bullshit approach. I suppose by then he'd fought half the evil ex's so my guess is you too would have that particular mindset after all that. Mary Elizabeth Winstead ('Death Proof' and 'Live Free or Die Hard') is Ramona, the girl of Scott's dreams (literally and figuratively). Winstead is slowly picking and choosing roles that work for her and lack a lot of the 'look-at-me' presentation a lot of young stars aim for. I actually wouldn't mind her fully headlining a film to see how it works for her considering her body of work is quite good. As Ramona she's snarky, but not quite mean and she's caring in that qusi-hipster sense of caring. Again in this supped up world that dynamic works.

Then the film is filled with great supporting work by Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Chris Evans, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, Mark Webber, Brandon Routh and more. Each work effortlessly to be funny and interesting on screen. The fight scenes are done in that video game stylization that actually makes them more exciting because anything can happen as opposed to the regular fights in films. Stephen Chow's films like "Kung-fu Hustle" is good example of the type of fighting we have here. Furthermore it's actually good for a bunch of actors who have probably never fought on screen (Evans and Routh are the exceptions). They inject humor into the battles and a lot of creativity steaming for again video games, but also clever movie odes ('The Warriors' for example). Really with all of Edgar Wright's work you see his love of the arts. "Hot Fuzz" was his love letter to action films, "Shaun of the Dead" was his love letter to Romero zombie films and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is love letter to video games.

But this is all kind of bittersweet for me as I'm writing this after opening weekend where the film opened in fifth place. Granted I believe there was less prints released and people had faith in Sly and Julia to provide something they didn't. Plus the anti-Cera movement. Well I'll say here what I said on my twitter. If you went to see "Grown Ups" or "Macgruber" this summer and are not seeing "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", then you deserve a kick in the head. I actually feel like I could now elaborate this having seen the picture, but what's the point. If you all want to keep this blind hope alive that "The Expendables" was actually fun, instead a boring compilation of bad action mixed with bad writing and directing be my guest. However at least give this a shot in the dark. People complain about the lack of creativity and originality in movies today, well here you go! You finally have a great and original film out there and you STILL WON'T SEE IT. This is why there's so many remakes and reboots. Get a clue people.

The Expendables review

I'm going to do as Sly and the boys should've and cut to the chase; "The Expendables" is a big, bullet riddled let down. It's success is in making sure that it could pack almost every big name action star from the past thirty or so years into one movie and attempt to give them something interesting to do. Beyond that it's a rather mid level action film with a story that makes absolutely zero sense (not in the acceptable, fun way) and some of the worst, most disjointed one liners ANY of these guys have ever had in their movies.

I'd like to also discuss the rumor I had heard recently about the film being originally made for PG-13 and that Stallone and co. were going to edit it into an R. This seems extremely likely after viewing the finished product. Anyone who saw "Rambo" knows that he can pull off with in camera action. Bodies torn apart, necks ripped out and so on... not so much the case here. I mean sure there's stabbing and bodies blown apart... but with horrid CGI. I feel like I could make some concessions if the action worked, but once we get to the big finale at the compound, with all the soldiers and explosions and death it's kind of... well... it's very 'meh'. Honestly when I walked out after the movie I said that the film should've began with the ending sequence. The CGI building blowing up looks cheap, the river of fire looks good only when it was igniting and almost all the kills are cheap and fast CGI. I mean what the hell happened here? What happened to the big throwback movie to these guy's heyday?

Alright, allow me to try and dive into this 'plot'. Basically Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews and Couture are a team of mercenaries that get commissioned for a job by Bruce Willis. Said job involves a small island in the gulf, a pussy general and Eric Roberts as the lamest ass drug dealer in the history of these sort of movies. Other that your guess is as good as mine as to what they were supposed to be doing there. This then leads to a boring car chase, a couple of pretty good fights scenes (one with Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren is pretty well done) and a few other action set pieces that are very hit and miss. What sucks is that most of the pieces that work, were the ones that got pushed up in advertising so the thrill of the surprise was gone. What's pretty much left was the CGI kills and a couple of over the top scenes like Terry Crews throwing a tank shell in the air and Stallone shooting it. Could've been cooler, but it was alright. Still none of those things save "The Expendables" from just being downright lame and somewhat boring.

In addition to the crappy CG kills there is another tell-tell sign that indeed this was originally made for PG-13. Despite everything going on in this movie, there was but one 'fuck' uttered the entire time. In fact at one point Eric Roberts fully sounds out the word 'freaking' when threatening to kill one of the characters. C'mon... really? Roberts' role in 'The Dark Knight' really made me start thinking that he was on a sweet comeback trail and going to be doing some (hopefully) Dafoe level character acting again. Nope. For a while I was thinking maybe if they would've gotten someone else for the part, like James Woods, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Williem Dafoe or even Antonio Banderas that they could've made something more as the villain. But as it all continued it became clear that perhaps they lacked interest because the character and story was so bland. Consider "Rambo", the villain was absolutely nasty, ruthless and loathsome and the story was 'ripped from the headlines'. All this made the big final fight all the sweeter when Stallone guts him and his men. That's what we should've had here, but with more fun.

As for our heroes I can say I enjoyed Statham as Lee Christmas, a man just trying to get the girl. Jet Li, who had a running joke about him being smaller than everybody thus meaning he ought to get more money cause he can get hurt easier and he has to work harder. And Terry Crews as (get ready for it) Hail Caesar, who sports an auto-shotgun with explosive rounds. He also owns one of the better kill sequences in the movie. Beyond that Stallone seems bored and is thus boring, Lundgren is reduced to a few scenes where he looks like hammered shit and spouts off some terrible one liners that makes stuff said in "Commando" sound like Shakespeare; and UFC fighter Randy Couture who is pretty much given one line and one short fight scene with Steve Austin. Austin by the way appears to be built like a stone wall and has about three audible line the whole movie.

None of this makes me happy to say either. I went in hoping and believing that Stallone had crafted a big, fun action movie that would remind the world why he mattered. Packing in all these stars would easily get his exposure back up as well and let people have fun seeing their favorites go at it. Sly got a great cast, but should have opted not to write or direct the film beyond coming up with the basic story. His past two directed and starring works ('Rocky Balboa' and 'Rambo') showed that he did still have a knack for making action movies and making them well. "The Expendables" is like a big step backwards. It's not impressive and is only sometimes fun and it's way more mindless then it ought to be. I mean I'm not looking for some Nolan or Kurbrick shit here, after all I openly like Michael Bay movies. This makes Bay at his worst appear to be a decent storyteller. I'm talking "Transformers 2" lack of storytelling ability here. Such a shame.

The Other Guys review

Odd as it seems "The Other Guys" isn't an easy movie for me to write about. Probably because it's filled with loads of disjointed lunacy and allows it's strangely "smarter" (which is to say complicated) crime plot to play second or even third fiddle. Then again this is something that we've all come to expect from Will Ferrall and co-writer/director Adam McKay's pictures together. This is the pairs fourth film and surprisingly one I've enjoyed more than their last too.

I'll never forget seeing "Anchorman" in theaters (this was before it got huge and was over quoted and ran into the ground). I saw it on a whim to kill some time on the weekend and hadn't really been all that impressed with the trailers. Still word of mouth had been good and it was being pushed like crazy on television as well as every damn movie I had seen that summer had a trailer for it attached. So I watched it and absolutely went nuts for it. It was completely devoid of what most comedies have... you know... that narrow path of sense and senselessness. Well this was all senselessness, but creative. It would become the duo's style of storytelling and film making. Next they had "Talladegga Nights" which left me pretty damn disappointed. I know people LOVE the film to death, but it was too one sided for me. The first half is as great as comedy can be, while the second half is dull and fairly uninteresting. Regardless it blew up like a nuclear bomb and is I think their best success to date. Then they went R-rated with "Step Brothers". This one I had to sit on. I found many parts funny, but SO many parts completely and utterly stupid, almost to the point of it being too stupid. However I'll say the extended cut works a good deal better for me and while it's FAR from being a great comedy, it does work well enough.

Ok fucking history lesson over; now to "The Other Guys". I had a friend see it earlier yesterday and we discussed it before I went to watch it. For her it was much like my feelings on "Talladegga Nights". There were parts early on she really dug, but as it dragged on she seemed to lose interest. She's not wrong either, it is a bit lopsided. However why "The Other Guys" works for me is the little things. First off we all know that Will Ferrell is going to say something completely out of the blue, outlandish and fucking stupid that will make 8 out of 10 people in the audience laugh. That well sort of ran dry for me two movies ago. So instead of working quite like that, he dials it down a few notches. This allows for him to be funny in slightly more conventional ways, but also for different gags to play out. He does still make those comments and yes some are fucking stupid and unfunny, BUT there are a select few that really work.

Another reason is this cast. I love, love, love this cast far more than I thought I'd might. No one feels underused or overused. In general Mark Walhberg is a funny guy, here he gets to really show off. It's not all punchline humor, it's not all improv, or situational; it's like a bastard mix of them all. He plays the angry cop. The one who hates being partnered with Ferrell who never wants to leave his desk and hates being mocked for wanting to do the right thing. Michael Keaton plays their captain and effectively steals a few scenes from the other actors. There is a particular gag that runs throughout with him that I really enjoy. You'll see. Then you have Eva Mendas playing the perfect wife that gets neglected, Steve Coogan and Ray Stevenson as our 'villains', Ice-T narrating and of course a gloriously over the top series of action sequences with Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson as hero cops. The more I think about just their sequences the more I actually want to see it all again.

As an action film it's not unskilled either. DP Oliver Wood ("The Bourne Identity") knows clever ways of shooting action that doesn't make it amazing looking, but is cool and effective. I've noted several times that it seems harder for comedy directors to switch to action then it is the other way around. I guess I'm still waiting for that action comedy that looks like Michael Bay directed it, but sounds like Mel Brooks wrote it. Hey, I can dream. And yet with all this I can still see why "The Other Guys" just might not mesh with everybody.

It's not a film to convert non-Ferrell fans or people are aren't fans of their style. And yes the second half of the movie strays a little bit from the humor it had to slightly more physical humor and jokes at the expense of the action. That can make a movie feel really lopsided switching gears as quickly as they did. A good example is "The Condemned"... (you know the one with Steve Austin and the convicts on an island fighting to the death and it being broadcast on pay per view... ). The first half is a fun, hard knocking action picture that actually works well. Then the second half of the movie starts steering towards this anti-violence message drama to the media that culminates in a sequence that almost kills all the fun you had in the prior 80 minutes. "The Other Guys" switch isn't nearly that damning, but it can and probably will lose some people with it.

When it's all said and done I found it fun and funny and easily the most successful action, comedy to come out this year. I had a strange comparison last night to "The Other Guys" with Kevin Smith's pretty damn bad "Cop Out" from earlier this year. The films have a very similar tone and qusi-similar style and humor, but "The Other Guys" is basically what "Cop Out" would've been in any of their jokes worked. Although I hear being in the right... how shall I say it... 'mindset' while watching "Cop Out" makes it all work. I question that and think I'll stick with this one that already works on its own.

Winter's Bone review

"Winter's Bone" was a big hit at the Sundance film festival this year. So much of a hit that it took home the best picture prize. No easy feet. Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, "Winter's Bone" is a backwoods noir story about a teenage girl taking care of her two young siblings and her ill mother while her father has disappeared. Things where they're at already seemed rather... rough from the opening shots of their home and surrounding woods and neighbors; but making matters worse is that her father has a court date to meet and cannot be found. He was released on bond and put up the house as collateral. So if he's a no show then they lose everything.

Thus Ree played by Jennifer Lawrence begins a dark and dangerous quest to track down her father and bring him back. Not so simple in a place where nobody wants to talk and everybody has got something to hide. Ree will go to the edge of death and deal with people would think little to nothing about silting her throat and tossing her in the woods. Lawrence is almost as terrific in this role as Ellen Paige was in "Juno". It's a character that could easily get bogged down into the pratfalls of type of indie suspenseful drama like this, but she never happens. In fact the mystery is dialed down a few notches as well so that we are mainly caring about this family that seems devoid of hope. I'll count that sadly though as something against "Winter's Bone". This is a ploy that works best when you really care about the kids and the family. Did I? Meh... yes and no. Personally my feelings towards tough for the sake of tough woods people aren't all that strong. But I did care somewhat due to seeing all the work that Ree had put in attempting to raise the children properly and care for her mother who seems to have lost her mind after dealing so much with the evils of her husband.

John Hawkes also delivers the a key and phenomenal performance in the film as Teardrop, Ree's uncle. He's surly, crass and about as rough around the edges as possible, but he cares. Personally I think both Lawrence and Hawkes could have Oscar nods and they would be very deserving. The other people we meet and locations we see are about as real and gritty as they get. De-contracted shacks and trailers out in the middle of nowhere with these fairly horrible fucking people inhabiting them. But it feels 100% real and probably because it was.

The finale of the picture for me is what does elevate it to the next level from being a slightly above average suspense drama, to something more is it nearly hitting on some carnal horror moments. Not simply in the traditional way, but in it's narrative as well which becomes slightly more down beat. I won't let you know what it all boils down to, but it's not particularly pleasant. I don't think "Winter's Bone" is the best thriller I've seen all year (much like my feelings on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), but it's worthy of much of it's acclaim and could have a stronger following down the line. Probably due to it's terrific performances.

Dinner for Schmucks review

What makes Jay Roach's remake "Dinner for Schmucks" work is what could and has killed other comedies. The movie was unhinged almost from square one and that's something more so reserved for smaller comedies from the independent market. Now it's not full blown and all the way out there, but it's pretty damn near it. The result is a surprisingly very funny picture that mixes mainstream punchline humor, mild slap stick and situational humor in a way that works and doesn't quite tire you out.

Now all this said Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd have played these characters before. They're great at playing people like this, however it's all slightly tilted. Carrell's Barry could be compared with Brick from "Anchorman" mixed with Michael Scott from "The Office". By the way this isn't leading to a backhanded insult, that mixture is oddly fantastic and takes what could've been a pretty one note character that's hit or miss with laughs and actually makes him constantly quite funny. In Roger Ebert's review he made a great point in stating that it's funnier when someone generally doesn't know they are doing something ridiculous and is thus quite serious about it. He's 100% correct. Rudd's character Tim is much like his character in "I Love You, Man", which I'm alone in thinking was just ok apparently. Rudd is a great cynic and his Tim keeps that streak alive. He's much more of the straight man than usual though so expect more laughs at his expense then at his actions.

The strongest piece of the puzzle though is the supporting cast which is loaded with talent across the board. From the office workers and bosses like Bruce Greenwood, Ron Livingston and Kristen Schaal to the various other schmucks like Zack Galifianakis, Lucy Punch and Jemaine Clement; they all get more than enough space to dig in and have their moments of glory. In fact it feels rare to see a mainstream comedy like this really giving out it's space to just about everybody in the film. It reminds me kind of like the heyday of action-comedies where you had your two leads and then you got the full experience of meeting all the crazy people along their adventure. Hopefully "The Other Guys" will have a little of that in it.

Really the only thing that holds "Dinner for Schmucks" back is it's run time and it's tie-it-all up ending. The ending was an issue I kind of had with "Role Models" as well where I felt like things are ended up very unrealistically clean. However that was a small dent in what was otherwise extremely funny and entertaining. The run time is just a touch longer than it ought to be though. If the film had crossed the two hour mark then I think it might not have fared quite so well overall, much like a lot of Broken Lizard's films. As the film stands there's far more action taking place in a short period of time then I expected which gets a little exhausting at times, but once the dinner kicks off we get a nice mixture of different characters and different humors so we're not bombarded with the same things over and over again. I've gotta say while Jay Roach's last couple of directorial efforts left me cold ("Meet the Fockers" and "Austin Powers in Goldmember"), especially considering his work of the prior films in those series'; "Dinner for Schmucks" more than makes up for those missteps and is one of the few impressive and highly entertaining comedies I've seen this summer.