calminski's MOVING PICTURE CIRCUS

so many movies, TOO MANY MOVIES

2010-12-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, so its that time of year. Good ole' awards season is in fully swing so I've basically spent the past couple of weeks trying to track down some of the hot listed films I either missed or have been waiting to come to my area. And as with every awards season I know I'm going to miss stuff. So sadly I won't be seeing Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" before the year is out and a few others I was interested in. But still I've seen quite a few things and have a couple more to go. So I'm going to do fairly cut and dry reviews for this lot. Then sometime next week I'll finish up with a review for the Coen brothers "True Grit". Directly after that I'll have my Top 20 films of the year list posted. So here we go.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"
Overall probably the most enjoyable of the series to watch, but nothing to write home about. It's the first one to not attempt to be like "The Lord of the Rings" or "Harry Potter" and manages some good fight scenes and one highly impressive monster battle at the end. Still there are a good number of dull dips around the middle of the film and also some pretty damn corny ass segments that don't clear up fast enough to not be an issue. All this said I'm not completely knocking it, but I'm far from loving it.

"Best Worst Movie"
If you've never seen "Troll 2" then go rent that and this documentary and make it a double feature. "Best Worst Movie" takes a look at the hardcore fan basis that's amassed for the terrible, but great early 90's horror flick "Troll 2". In it you see almost all of the original cast and crew(which is great at times, but also quite sad given the lives of some of them). Mainly though you follow charismatic and charming George Hardy who played the father in the movie. Hardy is a nice guy through and through, but having him as your tour guide through the wide world of "Troll 2" can be as exhausting as watching the movie a ton of times within a few days. Still it's a fun and funny documentary that it's very entertaining and adds to the lore of the "Troll 2" universe.

"Monsters"
I don't expect ALOT of people to like "Monsters", but I really dug it. Made for a total of $15,000 dollars, it's a qusi-indie drama romance that takes place in an infected section of Mexico. Said infected zone is inhabited by giant alien octopi that are none too friendly. What makes me fall for the movie is really just the way in which creator Gareth Edwards goes the extra mile dramatically to tell a big story despite his budget. Sure some of the effects aren't perfect, but they also aren't that bad. In fact some are pretty fucking great. But really it's about these two people who are trying to get back to the lives they live and question if they want.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"
An entertaining and interesting end to the trilogy. After being bored and letdown with "The Girl Who Played With Fire", I was pleased to find the finale pretty damn fun to watch. It's far less of a thriller than either of the prior films and is instead closer to a courtroom procedural.

"Black Swan"
Among the tip top best films of the year is Darren Aronofsky's beautiful, twisty and sad "Black Swan". Natalie Portman delivers probably her best and most fearless performance as Nina, the dancer looking for perfection. And like most quests in Aronofsky films... they don't go too well. But the road there is paved with little nuances from the horror genre and then some generally creative integrations of the physical and the mental tension. Simply a GREAT picture and one not to miss.

"The Fighter"
Another great film of the year and also connected with Aronofsky (this time as executive producer). "The Fighter" is simply put a goddamn great movie to watch. It has all the entertaining elements that make dramas good, sporting films good and just general stories good. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo deliver great performances that focus on the showy (which is great). But I do feel like Wahlberg's Micky Ward is a great performance on the opposite end of the spectrum as a strong, but subtle piece of acting. Another key note is director David O. Russell ('Three Kings' and 'I [HEART] Huckabees') reminding us just how good a filmmaker he is. Russell doesn't really change up styles, he just implements some new ones like filming the boxing matching in HBO format. What makes those even more impressive is just how strong the boxing scenes are. While there aren't a ton, they are highly realistic and well done. This is easily his best film since "Three Kings".

"Tron Legacy"
On the one hand I feel like they got the "spirit" of the original with this sequel. Never did I feel that the 1982 "Tron" had a strong storyline or for that matter one that made a lot of sense. But it's designs and some of it's undertones made me love the film. "Tron Legacy" is a well made, fun and very solid sci-fi adventure picture. It's not filled with needless action turning into a meathead movie, but it does lack the subtle "depth" I was hoping for. So yeah I'm a bit disappointed. I DID however like almost all the characters (sadly Michael Sheen is one I didn't care for as he was pretty useless) and I liked seeing the updated design work that really did pay homage to the original instead of trying to just make suped up versions of it. Had "Tron Legacy" (or rather it's writers) aimed at making a headier sci-fi movie I'd be giving this all types of love, but it works for what it is. Daft Punk's score DOES make the film is many ways too. I'm not sure anyone else could have scored this with the same intensity and intelligence. Overall quite fun.

The Warrior's Way review

2010-12-05T00:51:00.000-08:00

Walking into movie without much to go upon except a couple of trailers and posters is probably what I love doing the most. Let's face it movies today get spoiled months in advance due to the online world, but once in a while there's a film falls through the cracks in certain respects. One that not enough people have any interest in to comment on the happenings surrounding it. Sometimes it's a movie like "Skyline" in which no one had much to run on outside of the brothers Strause comments about the studio system. Then opening weekend we discovered the movie was absolute shit. And then there is "The Warrior's Way". The trailers almost scream movie made for the meme generation. Slack-jawed, morons without a shred of intelligence or good taste that love to make poor jokes about zombies, ninjas or whatever else is "popular" at the given second. Well it still might kind of be that movie... but it's an absurd amount of fun.

Viewing "The Warrior's Way" can only be compared to the first time I watched something like "Dead Alive" or "Darkman". For the first ten to twenty minutes I questioned what the hell this was and then something happens that makes me fall for it. With "Dead Alive" it zombie killing, kung-fu fighting priest. In "Darkman" it was the lab assault that creates him. In this it's Danny goddamn Huston. Huston plays Colonel, a scar-faced bastard who loves raw steak, fucking with the townsfolk and rape. He loves himself some rape. It's a character role for an impressive actor where seriousness and good taste get to fly out the window and he's let go to do whatever he wants. But he's not alone. As soon as Kate Bosworth opens her mouth and starts rattling off in an over the top, but likely southern jaw it's great. You start to love her goofiness in all fashions. And Geoffrey Rush as a drunken rifleman is as exciting and humorous to say the least. Really the moment in which our hero played by Dong-gun Jang reaches the deconstructed western town is when the film really seems to come alive.

The plot is something of a mixture of generalized eastern and western stories. On one end is the wayward swordsmen who grew a heart and turned his back on his master. On the other is quirky western towns people that gets roughed up by a band of marauders as they just try and skate by in life. Apparently mixing these two elements and having them exist in a cheapened "300" like universe works. And I use the "300" thing lightly. Despite the green screen environment several of the gorgeous horizons don't appear to be CGI, but simply real skies super imposed onto the screen. Also the cheap effects work wonders for the feel of the movie. It starts to feel like something made with the same love and sense of experimentation as old school Jackson or Raimi. Okay that's a big thing to say, but see it and then compare it with some of their older films and see if you can't find the same heart.

I mention the off feeling I had at the beginning of the movie, but by the end it all makes sense. The opening seems like it's aiming to be something less than it could be. It feels like a video game and the violence is too fast and shows very little for an R-rated film. By the end I understood why. It's not a gore-hound film, but it is violent. I realized that had they shown since the opening the style in which they really fight it would have grown stale and dull by the big climax. They employ an interesting type of slow motion fighting that doesn't feel like the Snyder-slo mo we've been seeing as of late. It's faster and more fluid. The action set pieces are also quite fun to watch and cleverly put together. Again they are cheap, but that cheapness WORKS. You don't need sixty million dollars to make a fun and original genre movie and "The Warrior's Way" proves that.

Faster review

2010-11-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

Before I jump into what "Faster" does have let me tell what it doesn't. Often times scenes shown on the trailers aren't in the final product. Sometimes it's simply because the scene was a nice trailer shot and nothing more or because in the grand scheme it doesn't work. 98% of these scenes are random shots or diologue. However "Faster" is probably the second film (the first being Michael Mann's "Miami Vice") that actually cuts a key piece of action. The scene is nearing the end of the trailer in which you see Driver (Dwayne Johnson) and Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) play chicken in the desert and collide; sending Driver's car through the air and landing top down. Spoiler as this is that scene has been cut and basically the finale is a big "The End" on screen. Let's just say that spoiled a GREAT deal of cheesy, lead-headed fun. But thanks to the internet I have an idea of why that is the ending.

Now for what we DO get from "Faster". This is the return of Dwayne Johnson: action star. After exiting the WWF he did a number of action pictures some lame ('The Mummy Returns', 'The Scorpion King', 'Walking Tall', 'Doom') and some pretty good (like 'The Rundown' and... well he had 'The Rundown'). Anyways despite some of the movies sucking he was quite impressive. Easily he looked like someone who could and was interested in taking the reigns as a classic action heroes and maybe starting a collection of explosive work himself. Then he went all Brendan Fraser and Jackie Chan on all are asses and found out he could make boat loads of cash doing half-assed kids films. I find it absurd that people would pay more to see Chan in something like "The Spy Next Door" as opposed to "Thunderbolt". "Faster" reminds us that Johnson still can be the badass and look like a badass the same way the old boys did it. Sadly the movie doesn't match his skills.

Not that it doesn't try. Billy Bob Thornton plays Cop, in all his nasty, scruffy glory. His entrance brought a smile to my face as he shoots up heroin in an ally while Kenny Rogers and the First Edition flairs up in the background. Carla Gugino as a lady cop is more that always excepted. And "Notorious" director George Tillman Jr. displays that he could very well have a future in the action genre. Which is nice considering how many of late have tried it and failed (lookin' at you Haggis). The violence is... workable, the lighting and angles are moody and interesting; and mixed with Clint Mansell's music, quite cool. BUT within this very direct story of revenge there lay three back stories. One is of course of Driver. The second and most interesting is that of the Cop. And finally the one that is completely and utterly boring and pointless... The Killer. He is eye candy for the female viewers which is fine, except that he's dull. He's a computer genius that wants the ultimate rush so he got into contract killing. He has a beautiful girlfriend (Maggie Grace) and some slight mental issues. But neither him nor his backstory are interesting. In fact his character has pretty much NO POINT AT ALL. I think he was placed within this story simply to give Driver something else to deal with between hits instead of just having him deal with people along the way. You know like "Vanishing Point", a film they referenced during the making.

Okay... I'm sounding harsher than I want. "Faster" isn't utter shit. It's dumb, but never boring. It is at heart a throwback film that given the right set of circumstances COULD work as a true, blue grindhouse picture. Not in the tongue-in-cheek way like "Machete", but in the real way. The way where ridiculous shit happens and everyone is pretty dead pan serious about it. That's not a bad thing either. Most genre pictures do this, but aren't willing to embrace it as much as this did. But removing extra character pieces and the original ending do tend to fuck up the mojo. And now back to my original point. Why it ends the way it does.

At first I thought that CBS Films wanted to pick up where FOX left off and start snipping the gibbets off of otherwise decent pictures. Anyone who knows anything about revenge movies... more so road revenge movies knows how it must play out. Anyone watching "Faster" who is privy to this knows as well. It is what makes it work in the end. It's why "Vanishing Point" isn't just a fun movie, but goddamn great picture. No matter how the hero wants to change... in the end he must face the music too. According to sources Tillman and Johnson would like to make this a series. CBS Films announced a sequel due out in spring 2012. Despite my feelings about this film however... I can't deny that a sequel couldn't hurt. Even with the 'they all die' ending to the film wouldn't have been perfect. It's flawed, but it's fun. It keeps you fairly entertained and even more so in the events leading up to the ending. It's predictable, but then again it was never that complex so why shouldn't be? If they are actually serious about a franchise or what have you then do it. These aren't 100 million dollar movies and if you work out these characters and a fully formed story then you might have something totally fun to watch. It's rare that I think that a sequel to a film I disliked is a good idea, but for "Faster"... well... maybe it can work.

Fair Game review

2010-11-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

You know I had almost written off director Doug Liman a while ago. After the lackluster "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and the God awful "Jumper" I had pretty much figured that he'd peaked and now enjoyed simply getting nice pay checks for crap work. I was a bit surprised given his prior works "Swingers", "Go" and of course "The Bourne Identity", but between those films and some poorly produced tv shows that was my thoughts on him. Happily I was wrong and Liman has returned with not just a good film, but his best film and one of the most intelligent and entertaining CIA dramas in years.

"Fair Game" is about Valerie Plame, who in the early 2000's following the invasion of Iraq had her named leaked in the newspaper as an active CIA field agent. As you can imagine this isn't something light. Only her husband Joe Wilson (played by Sean Penn) and her parents knew about her CIA life which would then make normal life a lot less normal. Add to that her name and her husband's name being dragged through the mud on every news show around just so that Washington and the White House could destroy their public creditability. But the question is why. Why was her name dropped and why did they want so badly to make sure we the people wouldn't listen or wouldn't care about her story? The answer is... complex, but not hard to follow.

Simply put it boils down to the news that people want to hear. Behind the scenes motives and theories are never delved into much, but you can tell that it's a lingering thought within the screenplay. Adapted from two books written by Plame and Wilson, "Fair Game" and its impressive screenplay by the Butterworth brothers plays up the best parts of CIA stories, political films and just flat out good drama. Doug Liman seems to be playing with a style vastly different from his latter work and a bit more in tune with "Swingers", but stronger. His independent edge is evident however he has a fairly nice budget here so he can get great wide shots showing bits of destruction during the bombing raids and also shoot the film globally. However 98% of the film is very much focused on Valerie and Joe. As a couple and a working family they have to suffer through something extremely difficult in which they have conflicting opinions on. Joe wants to fight Washington while Valerie is simply worried about their future, the state of a few active operations she had going and just dealing with the overbearing negative press directed at her.

Watts and Penn simply go great together. They both pull off the sort of performances I love to see in which the actors effortlessly kill in dramatic moments while making us like and believe them in more somber settings. Hell there are times in "Fair Game" where it feels like the rage filled work of early Oliver Stone. Something that doesn't want you to simply be content with what the suits in Washington tell you is right, but wants you to ask questions. In many ways this is one of the more patriotic movies I've watched in a long time and equally brings pride and disgust. Many people have different opinions on why we went to war. At this point I'm not totally sure the answer matters as much as it did in 04', 05' or 06', but the amount of uncertainty should raise some red flags to Americans that maybe the simple 'we want to liberate Iraq' answer isn't totally correct. I actually remember her story quite well from the Vanity Fair article after she finally broke her silence. For me hearing her story should have been a big eye opener for those who believe the system is safe and right and truthful. But of course that wasn't what happened.

"Fair Game" doesn't take political sides for the most part, but it doesn't play it safe either. You see a lot of the rage and spit fire from Joe Wilson as he goes on television to defend his wife's name and her work. Wisely Liman uses the actually new footage about the story when say Watts or Penn is watching the tv. That way we can see that the things said about them weren't movie fabrication or exaggeration, but truly mean spirited cheap shots from the talking heads of the media. But the underlined point of it all is to never stop fighting... and they certainly didn't.

Overall this was a well crafted, fantastically acted and real spy drama that totally works. I'm highly impressed with Doug Liman's directing and willingness to not play to just one side. "Fair Game" is one of the very best films I've seen this year and well worth seeking out.

The Next Three Days review

2010-11-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Paul Haggis' "The Next Three Days" is a competent thriller that ought to be more. It comes down to a story that can go in a lot of interesting and different directions; takes some neat ones, but overall feels less surprising then it could be and feels just a bit too stale. Not that there aren't aspects that work, but they could be much better. Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis ("Crash") is actually the main issue here. Not so much his writing as much as his very regular directing. Throughout the vast majority of the film I caught myself thinking what if Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Paul Greengrass or a number of other, more visually arresting filmmakers had put their eye behind the camera for this. What a thriller this would have been.

Before we jump on that though here's the skinny. Russell Crowe plays a college professor whose wife (Elizabeth Banks) gets arrested for the murder of her boss. We speed up three years as she's attempting more appeals and trying to stay connected with their son while in prison. In their visits the child doesn't respond to her in almost any fashion. Her husband though can't stand any of it. It isn't so much as he feels she's innocent of the crime, but he loves her so much that he cannot take seeing her jailed for possibly the rest of her life. And after the legal system seems to be swinging out of his favor he decides to take on a daring prison break in, rescue and escape. The vast majority of the film is the prep work he does. It's extensive and with some brief words from a master escapist (Liam Neeson in a nice cameo) sets his plan in motion. Though slow this probably one of the more interesting parts of the film. He's sloppy and learning his tricks of breaking into cars or creating bump keys via the internet and doesn't really have the stomach for violence or for making the hard decisions.

Another aspect that works well is Crowe and Banks' chemistry. From the darkly humorous opening it all works well with their back and fourths. They both seem human and quite down to Earth characters. The real problem is simply Haggis' dull directing and lack of style. The idea of "The Next Three Days" can go in so many directions and include so many close calls and tense sequences of suspense or out and out action. Haggis aims more for the suspense, but it rarely hits the mark and is never memorable. I thought back to Michael Mann's "Collateral". It's character rich and includes some decent action and suspense sequences on just a story level. What Mann did was paint us not just full pictures of the characters, but of L.A. from the top down. The world surrounding this one taxi in the city. It made the night and the locations characters and that helps create a real mood. "The Next Three Days" has no mood.

Furthermore Haggis works best in the slower bits of the film in general. Conversation pieces work fine, lead ups to slightly important moments work ok as well, but the bigger sequences or intense stuff is flat. It put me in a similar mind frame of "Derailed" and "Taken" except I liked both of those enough to recommend them, however slight it might be. Haggis is a strong and impressive writer and perhaps his directing will get better or he'll pick a story that might require more of a straight dramatic approach. Either way the film left me disappointed in all it could have done.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 review

2010-11-15T22:23:00.000-08:00

I'll spare you the 'interesting' tale of how I gained entry to the CW sponsored screening tonight, but I did and as a general event it was fantastic. Since I go to the movies a ridiculous amount at different venues and for different types of films I'm always looking for experiences that transcend just watching a movie. With some films I look for a lively crowd of spectators to provide some sort of running commentary on the film. Not necessarily actual diologue, but emotions and reactions to what they're experiencing. As far as that's concerned HP 7 and it's giddy bunch of fans there tonight were very entertaining and fairly close to the type of group I excepted. Well... perhaps a bit more tame. Oh and the film? Highly impressive.

For those who don't know my feelings on the long running Harry Potter franchise it goes like this. I think the first two films are GREAT for kids, but don't hold up well to anyone else. If you have kids and want an easy way to introduce them into this universe through cinema or into the fantasy adventure genre all together, they are great points of entry. Then came the third and fourth films which stand as two of my favorites. Three because of the best use of CGI in the entire series of films (this one included) and because they began to really flesh out the characters and universe more. Really most of what we say in three we are still seeing now design wise. However part 4 is my favorite of them all. For me it encompasses all the light, dark, adventure, humor and real world troubles this sort of story could contain and it does it very, very well. This brings us to the fifth and sixth films where David Yates took over directorial duties. For both of those films he was my biggest beef. Both films were photographed nicely and performed well, but his directing was rarely exciting and never packed any real emotion.

The best example was in the last film where the beloved Dumbledore dies. There was ways of shooting and editing that sequence to make it more dramatic and actually deliver something more from it, yet it was just another scene. Nothing special. So heading into the Deathly Hallows I figured it would be more of the same. Happily I was wrong. The film isn't perfect and it doesn't dethrone part 4 as my favorite, but it is now a close second. It seems Yates got the picture for the most part and impressively delivers stronger character moments and fairly decent action sequences. But really the best stuff in the film is the slow pieces. The long stretches without a ton of shoddy CGI and simply Radcliffe, Watson and Grint acting in fascinating, real world locations. If there was ever a time to be impressed with their acting abilities, this would be it.

The supporting cast of well-knowns return and don't have a ton of screen time, but in his few scenes Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort gets to play a bit more than in the last two films and almost reminds me of his grand debut in part 4. Back when he was the character we heard about for three films and then finally get to see in all his horrific glory. Here we see a bit more of his true malice in some great quiet scenes. It really makes me long to see the final confrontation between him and Harry. Not so much the fight, but the lead up to the fight. Harry and the gang are really 90% of the picture. Granted they are always the mainstay of things, but this time there are less character additions or action fills. Harry doesn't have all the answers as usual, but this time I kind of... feel it. It doesn't feel like there's the magical safety net that there used to be and getting out and away from Hogwarts makes it far more atmospheric. The foggy woods mixed with Desplat's quiet score and the general tone Yates sets brings it all together.

So what holds it back from greatness? Honestly it's simple things... well mostly. For some reason they still don't spend either the right time or the right amount of money on their CGI. The Dobby stuff near the end looks pretty good, but quite a bit of the beginning CG appears very dated. Also for a time they pull the old 'let's talk about what we don't show' game. This works when you're trying to avoid hard violence or something along those lines, but they decide to tell us about two rather important characters demise instead of showing us the lead up and/or what happened. It's not as if these scene were horribly violent or prolonged, but visually something ought to be delivered. It's as if Sirius died and someone walks in, tells the group and they have a moment of silence. And finally Yates hasn't quite got the hang of action sequences. His love of wanting to stay on the actors faces is well and good, but a nice wide shot or a longer wide shot to really show off the scope and magnitude of the event would be great. All of those issues however, happen within the first twenty to forty minutes of the two and half hour picture. So there was a lot of making up for me to still be really impressed.

I'm happy to eat crow on this. I'm happy that this turned out to be a fun fantasy adventure that hits the right notes. I don't really feel like this had a climax, but it certainly ends at the right moments. I'm not talking like "Empire Strikes Back" right moments; where everything feels horrible and all hope could be lost one way or another. I'm not even talking about "The Dark Knight" finale where it's a 'happy' ending, but with a less than favorable outcome for the hero. It's more of a just the right moment kind of thing. Power and momentum have swung the other direction for the moment, but the battle is far from over. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is a hit already no matter what. But at least with this installment I feel that it's earned it and it actually has me looking forward to it's conclusion next July.

Skyline review

2010-11-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

In no way, shape or form is "Skyline" a good, decent, passable or even mediocre film. "Skyline" is utter piss from opening to closing. Word to the wise for anyone wanting make a film to 'stick it' to the studio system, try not to make a film far, far worst then they could. This was the plan set up by the Brother Strause; heads of the effects company Hy-dra-lux. They've worked on "Avatar" and the "Iron Man" movies, however we forget so did about a dozen other effects houses and more than likely better ones than theirs. The brothers Strause were also the duo behind "Aliens vs. Predators: Requiem" which managed to suck far more than Paul W.S. Anderson's PG-13 predecessor. At least with Anderson's you see the aliens and predators.

Plain and simple these guys have NO CLUE how to make a movie on any level expect put a bunch of highly unimpressive CGI effects into a city, add some sports cars and hots chicks and BAM instant hit. Again... this is why I can never hate Michael Bay. He can do a similar set up, but with better effects, hotter chicks and sports cars that get to perform on camera. Oh and his films tend to also be shot beautifully. "Skyline" effectively makes the real L.A. skyline look gloomy and dull. It's just a bunch of bright lights and buildings. There was nothing added to make us feel anything for what was about to happen to this city and this planet. No care or emotion or lead up. Nope, we just get 94 minutes of a bunch of self-important doucebags who wake up from a party to discover bright lights have landed all around the city and are sucking people up. Eric Balfour ('Texas Chainsaw Massacre'), Donald Faison ('Scrubs'), Brittany Daniels ('Joe Dirt') and Scottie Thompson ('NCIS') play the 'lovable' and 'interesting' group we follow throughout this event.

The one upside to them is they're not hate-able, just boring. About 85% of the film is them sitting in posh high rise apartments peaking through automatic blinds to see what's going on in the streets. After they get tired of that they talk or rather mash around their mouths and things that kind of sound like words come out. Oh and they smoosh up their faces sometimes too. I think they were trying to discover what emotion is. I could be wrong on that one though. Someone on set might have farted. What fills up the rest of "Skyline" is just shotty effects and technical work. Having just seen "Unstoppable" the day before, one thing that stood out was it's sound design. Trains are huge behemoths and they deliver sounds and metal crunching noises that make us believe that fully. We get a feeling of how dangerous these machines really are. In "Skyline" I couldn't tell you want the aliens or their ships sound like. They have a noise... but it's not distant and I get nothing from it.

The overall designs for the alien shit is just as bad. Basically they took elements from "Independence Day" and Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and smashed them together in as crude a way as possible. Their ship is a giant cluster of steel concealing a blue orb. The aliens themselves are a mix of the previous two films designs with a touch of "Dreamcatcher"; which is to say the aliens eat people using their giant teeth filled vagina mouths. Oh and they regenerate. Because that was really needed.

However the saddest moment of "Skyline" is within it's finale. At one point there is a perfectly fine moment to end this enormous piece of crap. It wouldn't have saved the movie, but it would've been more respectable and logical. NOPE! The brother Strause go for one last hooray within the alien ship. I won't tell you what happens except to say that they rip-off "District 9" in the dumbest goddamn way possible. And by doing that effectively lowered the film to the level of 'a sci-fi channel original movie'. "Skyline" is about two steps away from being on the same level as "Giant Boa vs. Giant Python 2". Congrats boys, in just two films you've nearly hit a directorial low that only likes of Uwe Boll and Ed Wood have achieved so quickly.

Unstoppable review

2010-11-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

A long time ago I started realizing that certain studios were best at certain things. Others might be able to do those same things well, but there would always be the studios that did it best as a whole. Universal is a great house for science fiction and horror. Paramount used to be known for it's dramas and comedies... that has changed now I suppose. Now it's more big budget whatevers. Warner Brothers could pull off crime pictures like clockwork. Fox though was a tough one. Really their strongest suit in the old days was putting on nicely produced pieces of whatever was selling at the time. They could do a little of it all. After a while I did notice a few little things that stood out to me more and more. They could make common folk look awesome. For some reason there are a TON of films in which they make slightly more everyday people much more heroic. Cops, civilians, simple villagers, grunt workers etc. Sure it might be a bit of an odd thing to notice, but they did. Tony Scott's "Unstoppable" actually helps revive that skill over at Fox.

First off I admit to a bias in enjoyed the vast majority of Tony Scott's films. I maintain that he is still one of the most impressive and enjoyable action directors working today and can more than hold his own in the over CGI-ed genre. But heading into "Unstoppable" I was actually expecting NOT to like it. I wasn't impressed by the trailer which depicted the movie as this massive series of overly emotional and big events, when really it's just one event. As I told a co-worker last weekend I don't think the whole kids on a train thing is a big part of the movie. I was right. It's really about three minutes of the movie... at the beginning. Instead it's one major issue and a fluid series of problems. There's an unmanned train gaining speed, carrying explosive chemicals that will at some point derail and potentially kill several thousand people. Whats to stop it? Two normal working joes.

Right there is where "Unstoppable" fully wins me. There's a lot about it I like and enjoy the shit out of, but the basic fact that we're dealing with realistic guys that at their most heroic are still grounded firmly in the real world, that's something I love to see in film. Sure we get a little bit of emotional and family schmaltz near the beginning when learning about Coulson (Chris Pine), but it's all needed for the bigger picture. This is taking a true story and sensationalizing it into a perilous, escapist thriller. And what would it be without heart? Or for that matter main characters risking their lives with nothing on the line.

Scott again teams up with Denzel Washington who plays Barnes, a train driver and veteran of this kind of work. He's smart and knows his stuff. Basically the kind of role Denzel can play like a fiddle. Pine's Coulson is the newbie, but not unskilled and very daring. Together it's a match made in qusi-realistic, badass heaven. Somewhere Charles Bronson and Walter Matthau are smiling. Rosario Dawson is also in there as Connie, the yard manager from which the train escapes from. Interestingly enough the way it happens in the movie IS the way it happened in real life as well. It's great seeing Dawson in any capacity, but seeing her hold down a role that would normally go to any number of male character actors and do it better than they would makes me a happy viewer.

Most of the film is spent looking at hulking, steel trains running at high speeds through small towns and country side. What Tony Scott and writer Mark Bomback do is explain more than enough of the world of trains to get us to understand why this is such a bad thing. Much like a semi truck trains don't stop on a dime... and neither do the cars it's carrying behind it. Something slightly more important however is the speed limits for certain sets of tracks. Which is to say if an elevated curve says limit 15mph then a train going 75mph just...might...have a problem. Scott makes this situation exciting and fun to watch unfold. His photography is great, Harry Gregson-Williams score is booming as loud as the trains, yet strangely works nicely together. And of course the stunt team pulls off some absolutely intense and fantastic work.

One reason I think I love Tony Scott's work so much is his lack of interest in doing things with CGI. He knows what it can do and why you can use it, but opts to actually derail and explode a train instead. Opts to use real stunt men and his actors running across moving trains rather than green screen it. That attention to detail and the moment makes him invaluable to the film industry.

Beyond that there isn't much left to say really. "Unstoppable" was promoted fucking horribly if you ask me, but it's a surprisingly fun ride. It's sort of a throwback in a way to the days of movies about common people being heroic in the face of peril. I know there's some other runaway train movies, however I can't think of a single one. Or the the last time one was made. It's not a hard movie and it's damn sure not a complex one which is probably why it's so fun. Today I watched and reviewing "Morning Glory" as well and my biggest gripe is that they wanted as much conflict as they could instead of just letting it come naturally from the characters in their current situation. "Unstoppable" wisely doesn't second or third guess itself like that. It's fluid and deals with it's main issue as a whole with no real added fillers.

Also HERE is a link to the real story for which the film is based on.

Morning Glory review

2010-11-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

To say "Morning Glory" is lighthearted might be too soft. It's downright fluffy. It's also lopsided and very much a happy comfort food of a movie. But even with all that I did fairly enjoy it. Mainly because of Rachel McAdams. To say she saves the film is a bit of an understatement. She pulls off the goofy, workaholic, sweet thing perfectly. They want us to like her and we do. A lot of the supporting characters are good too; Harrison Ford as a former new anchor great, Diane Keaton as the anchorwoman stuck in a rut and Patrick Wilson as the nice guy Rachel gets with, but without her and her performance the film would fall completely flat.

McAdams plays Becky, an unemployed morning news producer from New Jersey that gets a bit of luck when an exec (Jeff Goldblum) offers her a job on their morning show. Becky is giddy and somewhat naive, but knows her job like the back of her hand. What stands in her way on the road to success however is the terrible work atmosphere on Day Break. Colleen Peck (Keaton) is a constant pessimist and most of the other crew have no reason to think any differently than she does. So in an effort to raise morale and ratings Becky pulls a wild card and convinces Mike Pomeroy (Ford), a Tom Brokaw like anchor to join their show. If Keaton's Colleen Peck was horrible, Pomeroy is easily twenty times harder to deal with. On the upside though Becky is slowly getting to know Adam (Wilson), another producer and things are looking good... if she can shut off her blackberry.

This would place us around the middle area of the film and really this was it at it's tip top. It was light, nice, funny and sweet. Pretty much what it aimed for. However then we get the same old song and dance that if ratings don't improve Day Break and your job are down the drain. Had "Morning Glory" decided against adding in more outside conflict and just allowed the film to play in the sandbox of the rough situation it would've been better. What somewhat saves this piece of the film (besides McAdams again) is the laughs during it. Simple things added that really, really work. Adam and Becky's relationship isn't the best in here either. Their flirtation is cute and somewhat humorous, but when they inject more conflicts into it... well... it just goes down the same old road we've seen in a million movies before it.

In a certain sense it's disappointing. "Morning Glory" has the potential to be a very smart and sweet and funny movie, but settles too easily and relays way too much on classic Hollywood set ups. Things were complicated enough in the movie and the addition of more problems just for the easily foreseeable and happy resolution kills the buzz from the first half. BUT... I can't say I didn't like it. Perhaps it because I don't see nearly as many of these films anymore or because I really like Rachel McAdams, but it doesn't suck. I wish it were better. I wish I could say it's a lighter version of "Network" or "Broadcast News"... but it's not that strong. "Morning Glory" simply works while Rachel McAdams works a lot harder.

Megamind review

2010-11-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

Well the good news is that Dreamworks' "Megamind" isn't nearly as headache inducing as their "How to Train Your Dragon" and it's not as boring and dunderhead-ed as Universal's "Despicable Me". But it still doesn't quite hit the right notes. What it does accomplish is making a decent animated superhero adventure movie that's animated and designed quite nicely and flows along smoothly enough. It's failure is that NOTHING in it is funny. No one and nothing. It's not insanely unfunny either. It's basically a movie you can sit through with a straight face and not feel it one way or the other.

Will Ferrell voices the big, blue headed super villain Megamind; who is of course not such a bad guy in his heart of hearts. And in an extended cameo Brad Pitt voices the city's hero Metro Man, who is basically Superman. They have battles, monologues and so fourth, but after one battle it appears as if Megamind has won. So what will he do with the city? No clue. The point was the same of any super-people bout. Who wins isn't important, but the game is. Without a hero Megamind is bored. So was I kinda now that I think about it.

They fill out the cast with impressive talents including Tina Fey and Jonah Hill, but again none of these people do much in the way of laughs. No one has even one stand out line that makes things work above the basic levels of a film. BUT it's crafted nicely. At the end of the day that counts for something right? Dreamworks Animation has really taken a creative dive. For me they have at best four or five good or better movies and the rest are all disposable junk. Will they be forever #2 to Pixar? For the time being, yes. However Pixar is another company that I'm not too pleased with. I stand by almost everything I said about "Toy Story 3" in June, however after re-watching it I don't feel it's strengths are as high as they were on that first viewing. It seems after "Wall-E" (which I think is their best film) they went after the idea of tugging the shit out of people hearts to get what they wanted. Okay, that's all fine and good.

My issue is that with "Up" and "Toy Story 3" they try too hard and they're not as good at it was "Wall-E". For the time being it seems like Pixar has found the secret to award and audience success without being the best. Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and the animated film "The Secret of Kells" were both leagues better than "Up" and yet walked away penniless and without accolades. Apparently being different in that genre doesn't work so well anymore. Both Dreamworks and Pixar have the same problem, yet I know it's not soon to change completely. As it stands the animated film I enjoyed watching the most this year was Zack Snyder's "The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole". Granted I passed on reviewing it (mainly because I waited over a month to see it), but it reminded me of the Don Bluth cartoon days. When it was okay to be a bit dark in these films and a bit more adventurous. At no point in 'LotG' do they attempt to make a bigger, more emotional film. It's pure, rich adventure. And it's something we DON'T see anymore.

I got WAY off track here, but honestly there isn't much to talk about involving "Megamind". It's trailers tell you the story top to bottom, left to right and with no surprises. The genre doesn't need more "Megamind". It doesn't need more overly emotional goo either. It needs something different and original. Something to stir things up. Boy I like dreaming.

Due Date review

2010-11-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Todd Phillips' "Due Date" isn't as good as "The Hangover". I wanted to get that out of the way since that's probably the biggest thought people might have. At the same time I don't think it aimed to be and I don't think it quite had the potential. The issue is that it's funny, but it doesn't always gel together right. That's what "The Hangover" really had going for it I think; it was cohesive and connected comedy throughout. "Due Date" is basically a simple road movie comedy where Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) and Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) travel across the country to L.A. so Peter can see his child be born and Ethan can meet an agent and begins his tv acting career. Plus Ethan is an idiot and Peter hates him for all the massive trouble he's giving him.

Basically it's "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", but rated R. Nothing wrong with that either. Movies have similar plots all the time, but as long was it's enjoyable then it's and mostly fresh then it's not ripping anything off. Peter is the straight man and despite that does manage to be just as stupid as Ethan some times. Mainly through his attitude towards people and it getting him into worse trouble then he already was in. And Ethan is simply a buffoon that falls into things, smokes too much pot and generally isn't fit to be in public without a leash. Ethan only gets worse as the trip continues which leads to hijackings, car crashes, broken bones and people getting shot. Some of the best stuff though comes from their later banter. Whether it's Peter laying into Ethan outside a hospital or them discussing Peter's wife and his friend Darryl's (Jamie Foxx) friendship; it's all quite funny.

Seeing the film with a big audience is also pretty fun because... well... it's a big and often lively audience. They can make funny stuff funnier and they can make not so funny stuff funnier. Entire sequences might have been drowned out due to laughter. And honestly that always a great time at the movies... unless the movie is shit... like "Grown Ups". Luckily it isn't. I mean despite them giving away a good number of funny jokes on the trailers, there is still a great deal to laugh at here. But it doesn't always come together right. Some gags just kind of fizzle about and aren't that impressive. There's also some pretty damn big logical lapses. Not a MAJOR issue, but to a point it feels like something more should've happened after the boarder patrol scene (one of the best parts in my opinion) and a few others. And then there seem to just be pieces to add insult to injury for the sake of a joke.

What's weird though is that despite that... a lot of those things are still at least kind of funny. Enough to be chuckle worthy. Usually when that point arises I'm exhausted from the humor and kind want out. Yet this comes to the edge and pulls back enough for me not to get too tired of it. I feel like with "The Hangover" Todd Phillips turned over a new leaf as a director. His style that he used in "Old School", "Starskey & Hutch" and the boring as hell "School for Scoundrels" was gone. He had tweaked it in just the right ways to make it flesh, a little darker photographically and storytelling wise making simple plot concepts and working around in them sandbox style. "Due Date" keeps that style alive and I'm sure next summers "The Hangover 2" will offer up some more of that. Despite it's flaws "Due Date" is really fun to watch and a good crowd-pleaser. If you need a simple comic pick me up or escape from your life for 90 minutes, this is certainly not a bad way to do it.

Hereafter review

2010-11-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

Every Clint Eastwood film is a treat to me in some form or another. Even if the film isn't up to par with his better work, even if the film isn't even good... it still will have some quality to it that's impressive and different from the norm in that genre. "Hereafter" is very good, but isn't quite up there with great Eastwood; mainly because it the double edge sword of a story it has.

What I love about it's plot is that is follows three separate stories: a woman who has a near death experience (Cecile De' France), a psychic who left that world behind him to attempt a normal life (Matt Damon) and little boy whose twin brother was killed and has some serious questions about the afterlife. Each of these stories are made important and have strong emotional keys. It's rare for a film like this to keep those plates spinning consistently, but Eastwood and writer Peter Morgan get it done. France's character was a French news reporter who has seen the afterlife and is beginning to see visions from it. She can't shake these images and it's beginning to effect her work and even day to day life. Matt Damon's normality seeking psychic has to contend with his brother who wants him to go back to reading and start making the big bucks again. He hates his ability and wants nothing more then to put it behind him and meet someone. And the great lengths the young boy goes to for answers is astonishing and offers up a healthy bit of skepticism in religion and the afterlife.

The main flaw that arises however is that after a while... when those stories start coming together it gets a bit if-y. There was a story about producer Steven Spielberg saying the ending needed fixing because the film begins big (with a tsunami) and then ends small. He's right and while I don't think it kills the film by any measure and it's a pleasant conclusion, I do think it's an odd note to go out on. "Hereafter" is really a supernatural film for the skeptical. It offers both sides of the story and Morgan's beliefs on the whole thing. Although I am a bit fuzzy on if he believe all psychics are fake or that most are, but there are those rare people with an extra sense that we cannot explain. Then again that's not so much the big picture point.

"Hereafter" impresses the most though for one simple fact: it's a film not about death, but about life. The real point is how do you deal with loss and pain and keep moving forward. Most movies like this would run up the ghostly stuff as much as possible and really make that it's main focus, but again that power and intelligence of Eastwood helps move it into a more human and equally interesting area. This isn't a drama for everyone... there's a lot going on, a lot of strings and it doesn't move in a regular fashion; however that's why I liking it so much. "Hereafter" is a beautifully crafted piece of work that definitely deserves a viewing.

Fake Halloween Film Festival III

2010-10-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ok so basically what this is, is me creating a fantasy film festival that would run during October. Think fantasy football without the football. This is (probably) the third year I've created such a list and its basically done so that people might consider seeing either films they've never heard of or missed that could work well with general Halloween-ish times. Not all are conventional horror movies, but then again I don't feel like they need to be. If something conveys immense tension or creates an unsettling atmosphere then isn't that note worthy for the holiday? Eh, maybe it's just me. Anyways here's my twenty picks. Most of them you can track down via the video store or Netflix; there's at least one new theatrical release and then there's a couple that might take some digging.

1. "Hausu" (1977) pictured above
I always try to sell this as like "The Evil Dead" before there was "The Evil Dead". Basically you have a fun loving group of Japanese school girls that go visit one of the girl's elderly grandmother. However after a while they slowly start disappearing and one of them thinks the grandmother is involved. "Hausu" is fantastic because of it's mix of the beautiful, the horrific, the funny and the bizarre. Nobuhiko Obayashi was a veteran commercial director known for his surreal and very different visual style. "Hausu" is like a psychedelic, experimental ghost story that ought to be seen by anyone with even the smallest interest in film; be it horror or other.

2. "Eyes Without a Face" (1960)
A wealthy French man hires a doctor to restore his daughters beautiful face using an untested and radical type of plastic surgery. A perfect example of slow burn, suspense based horror.

3. "Manhunter" (1986)
Before Jonathan Demme and Anthony Hopkins took Hannibal Lecter and turned him into the infamous film villain we met in "The Silence of the Lambs", Michael Mann did it with Brian Cox in the first adaption of "Red Dragon". Brett Ratner's remake is pretty close to Mann's version which I why I think they both work on their own and need no comparison mostly. However I feel "Manhunter" does display a certain level of eeriness that "Red Dragon" lacked. Mainly steaming for the way Mann shoots during key scenes and from Tom Noonan's depiction of Francis Dollarhyde.

4. "Road Games" (1981)
Directed by Richard Franklin, a student of Alfred Hitchcock; "Road Games" is a paranoid, Australian road thriller for the motormouth generation. Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis have great chemistry which is evident throughout the film. Franklin directs the film in ways that would make his teacher proud, however concludes the film as typical B-aussie thriller form might dictate. Not a bad thing either.

5. "Lost Highway" (1997)
I always want at least one David Lynch film on these lists so this year it'll be his surrealistic noir film. Bill Pullman is a jazz musician with a dark history, Patrica Arquette is wife who's frightened by these video tapes she's being sent that show someone taping their house and then someone taping them while in the house. Robert Blake (the guy who probably murdered his wife) plays the mystery man that's behind it... probably. "Lost Highway" is pure, unfiltered Lynch. It's scary, bizarre, erotic and complex.

6. "Let Me In" (2010)
I reviewed Matt Reeves remake of "Let the Right One In" earlier this month and said that I felt his version as a whole worked a lot better and made the story much more engrossing and atmospheric than the original work. I stand by all of that. The performances and the relationship between this boy and girl are what drive the entire film. Reeves directs the film with effortless style and beauty. Sadly at this point I'm pretty certain we can call it a box office flop. However if it's still in your area I'd highly recommend seeing it.

7. "Shallow Grave" (1994)
Danny Boyle's film debut. Also his first example of how to make generally dis-likable people likable. The only time I feel he failed with that is "Sunshine", but here it's done perfectly. Three shitty roommates interview various people for a room they're renting out. They finally pick a guy that suits them and after a few days he dies. However when they search his room they discover a suitcase full of money. Thus begins the long and dark conflict among the three friends.

8. "The Magician" (1958)
First off you can't go wrong with Bergman. Second here is a beautifully shot and unraveling battle of wits between a potion selling magician and a royal doctor that seeks to break down his abilities. A great piece of dramatic creepiness.

9. "Next of Kin" (1982)
This is one of those hard as shit to find ones, BUT if you can it's pretty great. You can a daughter that reads her mother's diary and soon after the bizarre events within it start happening to her. It's got a lot in common with "The Shining" and is made with A LOT of impressive, occasionally surrealistic style.

10. "Shutter Island" (2010)
It's hard not to love Scorsese films sometimes. I saw this theatrically a few times and each time I found something else I loved about it. Robert Richardson's photography, DiCaprio's hard ass, gum shoe attitude, the musical choices, Michelle Williams performance... fuck just the overall tone of the film. And yeah I stand by that I think it does hold up with the given ending, but I also feel it's all in how you choose to see it. When really listening to what a lot of characters have to say often times you can spin it either way. Personally I hate going into mysteries and thinking 'well let's figure this out'. Honestly there's no point to seeing it if that's your mind set because it closes you off to pretty much anything else is has to offer. All your brain is doing is collecting evidence.

11. "Nosferatu: the Vampyre" (1979)
I decided to use this one over Herzog's "The Enigma of Kasper Houser", although both are great and haunting little films. Personally I love Herzog's remake above the original because of how he decides to spin things nearing the final act. There's an entire piece where the city is slowly becoming engulfed in rats and the black plague. People begin losing their minds. Klaus Kinski's performance is (as it usually is) stellar and Bruno Ganz is an impressive Harker.

12. "The Cove" (2009)
Ok, ok... it's not EXACTLY the perfect fit for this list. However anyone who has seen "The Cove" can attest to it's power, tension and occasionally graphic violence. The idea of having this is to place something more real on the list. "The Cove" isn't simply about a community that kills dolphins. It's about a community that lies to the world about what they're really doing. It's about how they're killing their own people and not telling them. And more importantly it's about people who want to stop it from continuing. So yeah it's not the poster child for Halloween horror film or thriller watching, but it's just as intense, traumatic and unsettling as anything else you're likely to see in the genre.

13. "Hellraiser" (1987)
Honestly I don't think Clive Barker's the shit. BUT "Hellraiser" definitely is. I'm sure many of you have seen it and it's various sequels and know all about Pinhead. But for those who don't... oh boy... quite a flick. I always schedule it in a couple times a year because I love so much of the effects and the vibe of the film. This was Barker's first and in my opinion BEST film.

14. "Dead Ringers" (1988)
CRONENBERG TIME! No one quite does psycho-sexual horror like Cronenberg and "Dead Ringer" might be his finest. Jeremy Irons plays twin brothers who are polar opposites personality wise, but share almost everything else in life. This includes women. The whole film leads to some wild, lurid and creepy as shit places. I will grant you that this goes under the hard to find list, but if you can GRAB IT.

15. "Phone Booth" (2002)
When Joel Schmucher has the right set of circumstances he can really make an impressive film. "Phone Booth" is that. It works within the conversions of a thriller that seeks to break down one shitty person and see if he does still has some morality. Colin Farrell delivers one of his best performances (second only to "In Bruges") as a generally shitty New York agent with a lot of skeletons in his closest. Kiefer Sutherland plays the voice of the caller who's threatening to shoot Farrell (using a high powered rifle) if he doesn't follow his exact directions. I also think this is Schmacher's best film. Yeah that's right, I'm not a fan of "The Lost Boys".

16. "Repulsion" (1965)
Among Roman Polanski's best films and another great psycho-sexually thriller. What we have here is Catherine Deneuve as Carole; a sexually repressed woman who starts fantasizing and/or losing her mind thinking about sex and rape. Polanski's a great mentalist and first the film time in his short career started toying around with a stronger visual style a well. Quite a gorgeously shot and put together film.

17. "Trick R' Treat" (2007)
Warner Brothers really fucked up when they didn't release this in theaters. Written and directed by Michael Dougherty and produced by Bryan Singer this is one of the best episodic horror films since "Creepshow". All of the stories are fun and interesting horror shorts that easily double as good old fashion campfire stories. The effects are well done and the execution is great. I really hope to see Dougherty get another stab at directing soon.

18. John Carpenter's "They Live" (1988)
Quite an interesting sci-fi action, horror, thriller where we get to see aliens that resemble inside out humans, hidden subliminal messages throughout the world and Roddy Piper & Keith David in a classic, brutal back alley fight scene. It's not great Carpenter, but it is one of his last enjoyable and often gleefully goofy films. It was pretty much downhill after this.

19. "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" (1987)
My favorite Elm Street sequel for numerous reasons. A great young cast, creative Freddy kills, fantastic set design and some hilarious one liners.

20. (CLASSIC CHOICE) "Alien" (1979)
Seriously if you've never seen Ridley Scott's "Alien" then... well... shit. You should see Ridley Scott's "Alien". Maybe the perfect example of sci-fi suspense horror. Outstanding designs, effects, performances and overall scope.

Never Let Me Go review

2010-10-21T14:47:00.001-07:00

Here's one of those times when I wish a film got wide, mass distribution. In a given year there are several movies that try their damnedest to invoke an emotion or general care out of the audience. Movies like "Remember Me" or "Life As We Know It" tact on as much fake emotion and tear jerking moves as they can so that when you walk out of the theater you just wanna go hug someone and tell them you love them. Then let them know that you never want them to end up in the World Trade Center on 9/11 or for them to die in a horrible car accident and leave you their 2-year old kid. Granted with that last one much piss poor hilarity might ensue... still... you'll be missed. No, "Never Let Me Go" is the real deal. This is a film that almost from moment one you begin to feel the subtle tinge in your gut that something is wrong. A few minutes after that it gets worse. And soon after that you witness a group of young child informed that they were created simply for harvesting and will never really live.

To place the film tone wise it's as if Mark Romanek decided to make a science fiction drama where the entire running time felt like the ending of "Blade Runner". For those of you who aren't aware the moment of me watching the ending of that film and understanding why Roy Batty saved Deckard and why he was telling him these stories of things he has seen, made a strong and emotional attachment to me. There's something about the will to live and it being out of your hands too soon just destroys me. Thus here's a film TOTALLY dealing with that subject AND the characters it directly effects from kids to adults. Simply put the entire film is utterly heartbreaking.

The donors we primarily deal with are Kathy (Carry Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightly). However it is through Kathy's voice do we get to hear the tale. They all grow up in what appears to be a large orphanage in England; tucked away in the country. They all have regimented diets and are scanned before leaving to play outside. They don't go beyond the crumbling fence however as they were told horrific stories about the child that did. This is something a young Ruth and Kathy informed one of the new teachers Mrs. Lucy. Ruth and Kathy appear friendly enough, but it somewhat seems like one of those uneasy friendships where it's more out of convenience than out of general connectivity. Tommy is a bit of an outcast who is artistic and kind, but has terrible tantrums. Most of the kids including Ruth tease Tommy, but Kathy sees something in him that's nice and takes a liking to him. Unfortunately Ruth seemed to as well and that relationship takes off. The complex world of love. It's a confusing thing isn't it?

As they become teenagers they move out and into a series of cottages in which they get to briefly experience touches of the real world before making their first donation. Generally speaking it seems like most donors make out two before completion (death), however some went on until there was nothing more to take. While living there Kathy has to deal with the two romantic relationships around her which includes sex. A topic she knew about and feelings she had to suppress as best she could. To help with that she begins training to become a caregiver; someone who comes to the aid of hospitalized donors and makes them feel comfortable as best they can. This gets her out of the house a lot and makes her ability to be a donor, but only for a while.

There's much in this little picture and far be it for me to spoil the ride with extra details and what not. Shit, I kind of feel like I may have said too much already. Then again there's a lot in "Never Let Me Go". There's a lot of feeling and care and love and pain. Carry Mulligan delivers another perfect performance which will no doubt get her a second Oscar nod (and hopefully win as I've seen NOBODY this good so far). Andrew Garfield's Tommy is terrific as well, but is easily overshadowed by his amazing work in "The Social Network" which is a stronger performance. Not for any specific reason, but simply he's given a bit more range in that. Keira Knightly is very much a supporting member of the cast, but she does a great job. She's given quite a bit of extended range with Ruth and every bit of it works.

After leaving "Never Let Me Go" I couldn't shake so much as a second of it from my mind. Within it short running time to places you through a gauntlet of emotions and brings you into the short lives of beautiful people who aren't allowed to live. Director Mark Romanek ("One Hour Photo") hasn't just made his second movie; he's crafted a classic. I don't say that often because a lot of times I see movies I absolutely love, but know that they'll fall by the wayside at some point and I'll have to see it pointed out to remember it again. But this is something I know I'll remember. If "Never Let Me Go" is near I urge you to see it. It won't leave you feeling like sunshine and daisies by any stretch, but it's a soulful and beautiful piece of work that needs to be experienced.

Red review

2010-10-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

There are two things that "Red" get 100% right. One is that they casted the film to perfection from top to bottom. This is a great bunch of performers that could have put on many, many things and instead decided to go for a fun genre piece instead. Nothing wrong with that, in fact it's a little bit admirable since a lot of them mainly do award made films. The second thing is that this is the closest I've come to liking a film by Robert Schwentke; he also directed "Flight Plan" (which I still hate) and last years "The Time Travelers Wife" (*snooze*). However "Red" still doesn't quite work.

The set up is quirky and fun enough. Willis is Frank Moses, a retired CIA agent who destroys his severance checks so he can talk to the rep in Kansas. Her name is Sarah (Mary Louise Parker) and they both seem to really enjoy each others distant company. All of a sudden however a hit squad comes after Moses in the middle of the night causing him to on the run across America. First to collect Sarah who he thinks is in danger and then to meet old allies to figure out what's going on. Morgan Freeman, Brian Cox, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren play his old buddies and off they go on one last adventure. Now seriously with people like this... what fun couldn't be had here, right? Well in the right hands boat loads. It's old people shooting up the town six ways from Sunday and even some clever humor, but it never goes all the way.

As a comedy "Red" works for a while and then allows that aspect to take a backseat to it's pretty by the numbers plot and action sequences. As an action picture it does have moments of delight. Despite it's PG-13 rating I did like the way they blew up bodies and showed it using fire to mask the gore. At the same time there are several other set pieces that aren't particularly exciting or intense; just stuff happening with no real style or even full blown clarification for why it's going on. The big ending sequence in which the team has it (mostly) figured out who is behind all this and why starts off clever enough, but really just boils down to a basic stand off and with an ending we saw coming. Well... ok... we saw most everything in this movie coming, but still there are ways of making that road there very fun.

The real strength of the movie is the fact that it's got so many talented and interesting people in it. In addition to the others there is Karl Urban ('Star Trek'), Rebbecca Pigeon ('The Spanish Prisoner' or most David Mamet films), Ernest Borgnine ('Escape from New York'), James Remar ('The Warriors', 'The Fast and the Furious'), Jullian McMahon ('Nip/Tuck') and Richard Dreyfuss ('Jaws', 'W.'). All of which are given there little moments. But nothing is enough. When certain main characters die we don't really care except for the fact that the actor is no longer in the movie. We don't know or feel for most of these people and it's a bit of a shame. This is a similar problem I've had with the last couple of Harry Potter films. I've wanted to feel something during the big, emotional or even epic moments of the film, but I don't. I see great images and performances and decent effects (seriously they haven't been outstanding for a while), but no real feeling. Direction has A LOT to do with this.

With "Red" Robert Schwentke did go into a new genre for himself. In the beginning you could see his eye and his skill as he took a few plays from Fincher's old book. But as the movie progresses his creativity wares away. I'm thinking he's getting better so maybe by his next picture he'll have gotten the hang of things, but so far I'm not too impressed. I can't and won't call "Red" a bad film, but I'll call it weak all day long. It's a fun idea that isn't made as fun as it could be. In the right hands it could've been a funny and exciting dark action, comedy as the source material seems to imply. Oh well... better luck nice time I guess.

Jackass 3D review

2010-10-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Anyone who is even the slightest bit aware of what "Jackass" is ought to know well and good what a 3D made version of it would entail. Poop in 3D, penis' going random sometimes horrible things in 3D, absurd and painful stunts... in 3D. That's what it is like it or lump it. And how is it? The same as it ever was. If you enjoy their brand of low brow, but occasionally somewhat higher comedy then you'll love it just as much as their other pieces. If not, then you won't. Also if you don't enjoy their stuff seeing it really wouldn't make a lot of sense; especially in 3D with the added ticket price.

The added enjoyment of "Jackass 3D" really is the 3D. It's not always in your face, but when it is it can add to the laugh. If for anything then for the fact that you're about to witness something like a dildo fired from a cannon go right into your face. What can I say, sometimes we need that raw, gallows humor. Sometimes seeing a bunch of guys laugh as their friend willing gets his tooth pulled out by a speeding Lamborghini. Maybe the key to it all is the enjoyment and good sportsmanship we see from all of these guys. Perhaps it's similar to the concept of "Fight Club", in which for men to feel masculine they get into brutal fist fights, but never with emotion or disdain towards the other man. Simply to get that missing rush in life. There's always that friendship and respect despite everything. I suppose it would be different if after every time someone hit someone in the groin they would scream and yell and go into a full bizerker mode.

Most of all the stunt pieces and set up achieve their desired effect. They aim for a heavy degree of shock value, but also have some very clever public skits and pranks on one another that consistently work. There's no much more to be said then that really. I've seen it now in both 2D and 3D and found them both a lot of fun. If you've got the extra cash then by all means seeing it in 3D is a great way to go. If you don't then 2D is simply a really polished looking version of the same film. Either way "Jackass 3D" is fast, dirty and hilarious. If this is the final installment then the boys have gone out on quite a high note.

My Soul to Take review

2010-10-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

Every once in a great while a film comes along that changes you in such a profound way that it could warrant a case study. A film that is as important as a great masterwork, but is in fact an enormous pile of shit that you want to remember forever to A: never watch again and if you're like me B: never make ANYTHING nearly this terrible. "My Soul to Take" by writer, director and "master of horror" Wes Craven should be further proof that he has completely lost his touch. Hey it happens. George A. Romero lost it, John Carpenter lost it, Dario Argento and Clive Barker lost it. Why should he be any different?At least those guys pretty much never get to make movies anymore and none of them have made something quite this terrible.

The wonder that is Craven's mind has crafted a story that might have worked as an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"back in the early 90's. Which is to say that it's a concept that might be interesting purely for thirty minutes or less. Basically you have a serial killer with multiple personalities or as we later learn souls; that dies. However his seven souls go into the seven children that were born the night of his death. Fast forward sixteen years and the murders begin again and one of the seven kids is the culprit. The ONE thing the film seems to get right is the casting, but only to a point. They put together people that LOOK the age they're portraying, unfortunately most of them, including lead Max Thieriot who plays Bug cannot act. Oh and why is his nickname Bug you ask? I dunno. It's never told to us. Also why does the "ripper" have a knife with the word 'vengeance' carved on the side? I dunno; that too is never explained. Why does the killer make a phone call to one of his next victims, yet otherwise doesn't speak or make his presence known until his moment to strike? Dunno. Why does he strangely sound like a bad Robert Englund impersonator at one point and like Duke Nukem at another? I... don't... know.

In addition let us discuss the fact that the film is both rated-R and in 3D and yet both seem completely unnecessary. This is mainly a language R and the only violence is less than something you might catch on "CSI". As for the 3D... well... it's none existent. It's pure conversion 3D that was added to pad a ticket price. That's it. How about we dig a little deeper into these character too while we're at it?! Bug is apparently crazy and snaps in and out of different personalities, but only sometimes and only sort of. Basically he'll start talking like a girl and shake his head a lot if a female character died for example. In their high school there is also a hierarchy which involves a girl they call "Fang" (I shit you not on this) who controls the school system like a mob boss. The film spends an ungodly amount of time dealing with this uninteresting and idiotic storyline to the point where walking out of the theater and into traffic seems like a sweet dream by comparison. Bug's two friends who also share the same birthday as him are just as shallow and uninteresting as he is. There's the token out going and know it all friend that nobody in the school likes. And of course there's the black kid who doubles as the school's one disabled person because he also happens to be blind. But don't feel too bad for him. Being blind doesn't stop him from running through the woods after dark or climbing into a second story window. He's like a teenage Daredevil!

You know I didn't really believe I'd be more unhappy with any other film this year after seeing "Resident Evil: Afterlife". Then again I thought the same thing after seeing "Grown Ups". And before that when I saw "Sex and the City 2". However this time I might have found the one. I've found a film that might not only be the worst film of the year, but one of the worst films I've ever seen. By the way this isn't the first Wes Craven movie to land in that circle. I would also place "Vampire in Brooklyn", "Cursed", "Shocker" and both versions of "The Hills Have Eyes 2" along side this. Less we forget all his produced films which in the couple of decades he's branched out to that has yet to deliver one even mildly impressive product. So why is he still held up with such high esteem? Like most of the other things in this film I don't know.

Recently I discussed the whole Shyamalan slamming thing with a few people. My biggest question was exactly why has only he has been singled out for making bad films? Even Uwe Boll doesn't have quite the hatred that M. Night has gotten. Craven has made SEVERAL films ranging from bad to terrible and no one says shit about it. I've defended both directors before and think both have made great pieces of work. At the same time I'm more than willing to admit that both have had big missteps. Most people I talk to about this claim it's because the public have more of a nostalgia factor with Craven and remember the days of "The Last House on the Left", "The Hills Have Eyes", "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream". Sure that's all great; it's also over a fucking decade ago! I'm not telling people to re-fall in love with M. Night. In fact I think it's good that people were outspoken to him about their distaste for "The Last Airbender"; but I want Craven to receive similar treatment for his cinematic crimes. And with "My Soul to Take" I would like to HOPE that people out there might finally raise a stink about all of his terrible work so that he can finally STOP being called a master of horror.

Case 39 review

2010-10-05T19:52:00.001-07:00

It's interesting coming off a weekend with terrific pieces of work like "The Social Network" and "Let Me In" and heading straight back into shitsville with "Case 39". Lets just say after the first twenty or so minutes you can tell why the film was held back from release for so long. Its almost a complete mess. Actually something I hate more about it is the fact that it's fully comprehend-able, just really fucking stupid and extremely dated.

Basically Renee Zellweger plays Emily, a social worker that believes a young girl is being abused and wants her boss to try and get her pulled from the home. Of course the higher ups are almost completely no help so Emily gives the girl her home number and tries to connect with her so that she'll get that important late night call about the parents trying to "send her to hell". Well it came pretty soon and with the help of her cop friend (played by Ian McShane), they break in, subdue the parents and save the girl from being burned alive in an oven. Emily then drops her case and takes her into her home until another worker can find her a new home. That's when the stuff starts happening. And when I say stuff... well that's exactly what I mean.

"Case 39" isn't a slow burn horror, thriller; it's just lazy. The first half cruises along without much intensity, intrigue or emotion. The second half is almost as empty, but has dull and uninspired devil movie sequences inserted. It's all just random stuff that would've been lame back in the heyday of horror movies. Jodelle Ferland ('Silent Hill', 'Tideland' and 'Twilight: Eclipse") plays the little girl and shoots for the moon trying seem evil and menacing. Sadly none of it works. Bradley Cooper basically has an extended cameo type role before he's dispensed in a prolonged, ridiculous and generally stupid fashion. In fact just how he dies is something up for debate... you know if anybody really cared to debate about it.

Zellweger is just as boring and generally flat as she usually is when she's not aiming at another Oscar nod. When things do heat up for her character she lacks the strength (or care) to really send home the whole panicking or terrifying feeling. When dealing with the other adult characters she's simply bland and dull. The horror aspects are straight from the early 2000's and seem like lamer pieces from stuff like "Darkness Falls", "The Ring Two" and "Boogeyman". So basically it's in the vein of already really shitty horror movies. There is no reason to seek out "Case 39" with so many really fun and impressive movies out right now. This is something that will hit DVD and probably within a couple of months be tossed into the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. If it's not busy being a boring thriller then it's slowly trying to just be a piss poor supernatural movie. Seriously, this is a massive waste of time and money.

Let Me In review

2010-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Time to talk remakes again I suppose. That dirty little word that's uttered anytime people in the film community want to discuss what appears to be wrong with the American system. I guess we'll just overlook the highly unimpressive Asian remake of the Coen brothers "Blood Simple"or the fact that the Italian's were doing worse things in the 70's and 80's by ripping off whole movies and retitling them. Ok, soap box moment over... my feverish annoyance at this idea that we're the only country to remake things tends to always put me in a bad mood. Even more so when they write off pieces of work that are actually very, very good before they come out because 'it's an American remake'.

"Let the Right One In" is regarded as a modern classic in the geek community and somewhat in the film community. Is it as the Washington Post put it "the best vampire movie ever"? I can't truly say. It's a great story, but personally I don't think it's a great movie. It's really, really damn good, but there's more than a few things that I wasn't completely taken with where I can't fall in love with it. Matt Reeves' remake on the other hand does have that quality and I am shocked. Granted I was interested/skeptical to see what Reeves had planned and after reading his thoughts a few months back I was even more interested, but I still had my doubts about things. However pretty much from the minute the film starts it's clear that he's aiming to make something different. It does tie well into it's book source, but also take a few cues from the original film. It's not playing the "Psycho" game where everything is just as it was, but there is that subtle safety net that's there if needed from time to time.

The entire movie really hinges on two things; the performances and relationship between Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Abby (Chole Moretz). There honestly is nothing for Reeves and co. to fall back on. The adult characters (Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas) are in VERY much supporting roles and the true, blue horror movie elements are secondary at best. Happily it all works though. Their chemistry and performances are golden and actually work to make you believe it. From there it's simply making everything move in a slow, but strong pace of building that relationship and shaping the world around it. Owen is mercilessly bullied at school, his parents are going through a rough divorce and it's clear on both sides things are far from getting better. In effect Owen is an anti-social outcast. Abby moves in during the night with her father (Jenkins) and slowly build what becames a friendship and then possibly more. Again a lot lays on their shoulders and when they get closer on Reeves' (who also wrote the screenplay).

It's easy to pull vampire-human romance with attractive teens or twenty-somethings. Granted "Twilight" hasn't been able to do it in three movies, but for people with at least half a creative thought in their head it's simple. When it's kids around twelve or so... not so much. With kids romance or general strong feels aren't really about arriving at sex. Let's face it once you hit a certain point that does become even if subconscious or way removed from your up front feelings, an unavoidable thought concept. And as the relationship progresses so does the sexual build up. But with kids it's not nearly that far up the ladder. For them kissing and maybe light groping could be the 'end game'. Unless of course if the kid is a straight hormone charged freakazoid. They play off the advanced relationship with much of the same quiet subtly they place on everything else in the film. For them it's not about a bunch of big moments, but tons of fucking great small ones.

Composer and Oscar winner Michael Giacchino ('Star Trek' and 'Up') delivers what I think is one of his best, but most subtle pieces of work yet. His musical score plays up the slow creepiness of the picture along with the emotion and then gives us some fantastic operatic thrusts to send it all home in the more intense segments. Something else that Matt Reeves had stated in an interview was that he was visually inspired by 70's and 80's Spielbergia where films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "E.T." and "Poltergeist" took place. Those little places in middle America that were like advanced, living forms of Norman Rockwell paintings. It's photographed beautifully and with a film grain that often even gives it an 80's appearance. It's an atmosphere that so few horror films and thrillers kind of lack and can honestly only help your picture.

Fuck it, I'll say that yeah I do love this version a bit more than the original. It's similar to my love of "Sorcerer" over "The Wages of Fear". Both are great, but I get way more engrossed with Friedkin's remake than the original film. I still feel the best remake probably is "The Departed". The original Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs" remains an example of the type of H.K. action film I don't like; where it's over edited to such a point to where the biggest scenes resemble trailers rather than an actual movie. As far was this goes though it's probably too soon to tell, but it's among the best I've seen. As a American horror picture it is the way I feel we ought to be heading. We've proven that we can have fun still and be bloody, but it's so rare that we can produce strong, dramatic horror anymore. We're afraid of the slow burn horror so we simply don't make it anymore. Granted audience also choose not to see them also... ummm... I wonder could there be a connection?

Now while I'm writing this on Monday morning I'm already aware of the film's box office results. Personally I was rooting for David Fincher's "The Social Network" and it performed as I would have imagined. Congrats to them and Sony on that and for making at this point the most engrossing and entertaining film I've seen this year. Seriously before that the best film I'd seen was "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and that came out in March. Seven months and even the closest film to it wasn't nearly able to top it. However I was looking for "Let Me In" to perform a lot better. I imagine it didn't because people didn't see the original, but might not have wanted to support a remake. "Twilight" has honestly fucked up chances for good vampire stories to come along and do well. And also because the trailers are angled at... I'll say it... idiots. Overture did for this what Focus Features did for "The American". They lied. This IS NOT a straight or kind of straight horror film. It's a drama with horror elements. They lied because they wanted that horror fan money and sadly it seems they didn't get it. I guess now I have to wonder what might have been if they did release a slow moving, dramatic and methodical ad campaign instead. Landing at #8 your opening weekend is rough. It's hard to bounce back and considering "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" was at #4 and couldn't do, I'm sure this won't either. There's not a lot of convincing I can give to see the movie that hasn't already been stated so I figure readers that have the interest will do it on their own accord. But... even though films like "Paranormal Activity 2" and "Saw VII" and "My Soul to Take" by Wes Craven are a little ways off... I can almost assure you that by missing this you will be missing the most impressive horror film of the season.

Surprisingly writing this review sort of depressed me by the end. Yet another bitter finale to a great piece of work.

The Social Network review

2010-09-30T23:48:00.001-07:00

How does one make interesting the dull story of the creation of a website that has in many ways defined a generation? Some would say lie, but others might say you need not but re-analyze the truth. "The Social Network" isn't so much about facebook as much as it's about it's introverted, egotistical founder Mark Zuckerberg and his various relationships he had with people around the time of the sites creation and rise to fame. It is a 120 minute dramatic, funny, intelligent and sometimes tense ride through the modern business world as seen through the eyes of college kids. And it may also be David Fincher's best film to date. I'm not 100% on that as I do strongly LOVE "Zodiac", but this is a damn fine piece of work that deserves all the acclaim it's gathering currently.

Interestingly enough though still so many people write off the film simply as 'that facebook movie' and so on. Can I call you closed minded? I'll call you closed minded, but perhaps it isn't your fault. For all I know you could have some... issue or brain dysfunction that impairs you from putting the various pieces together that this isn't something that simple. This isn't a movie of the week, here now gone tomorrow. The point isn't simply to tell us of the creation of a website that has for better or for worse changed the internet. I don't feel like I'm spinning wheels here either. Realize that facebook is such a giant that it is used as a contact more often than just people exchanging numbers. Business' will create profiles on there to easily reach out to the consumer and let them 'feel' like they're part of something special by getting online exclusive offers that otherwise they might have never know about. You can nearly skip entire conversations and avoid bringing up the wrong subjects just by paying attention to someones listed interests, their status updates and so on. Hell the only way you might know about this review is through fucking facebook (or possibly twitter and tumblr). It is the dominating social networking site.

Now onto the flick. Jesse Eisenberg has been doing the small, indie scene for sometime, but had a big mainstream hit last fall with "Zombieland". Basically he can play the awkward teen much like Michael Cera, but with a little more cockiness to him. Much like Cera in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" however Eisenberg steps up his game A LOT as Zuckerberg. Is he awkward? Yes, but not in the conventional movie terms. His version of Zuckerberg (or Citizen Zuck as he's been renamed) appears to have more a disorder than simple shyness. He's cocky in his own way, smart and unfortunately knows it, but appears uncomfortable around large groups and even after a while close friends. He seems like an asshole and honestly probably is one. You can youtube some of his real life interviews and make your own assessment as well. Andrew Garfield (who has been getting some killer work lately) plays Eduardo Saverin, Mark's best friend, co-founder of facebook and later on someone who would sue him for everything. Garfield plays Saverin with a careful ease. It's not as playful of a type of character like Zuck, but one built more off of his diction and manners. Of course having a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin doesn't hurt you either.

Sorkin (who also has a brief cameo in the film) in my mind may have clinched a Best Adapted Screenplay victory with this. It is occasionally showy diolouge in the David Mamet way, but it's delivered with a careful flow that is perfection to listen to. You know when you hear film speak and it's just like beautiful music? This is it. Speaking of music we have something interesting and damn near the best score I've heard all year. Now... yes I AM a Nine Inch Nails fan and thus do already like Trent Reznor and all, but as a stand alone piece of work, he and Atticus Ross (who also did a great job scoring 'The Book of Eli') have made a score that perfectly compliments the visuals, enhances them at times, has fun with them at times and as a musical piece apart from that is also beautiful and emotional. In fact there isn't much of anything I didn't enjoy in "The Social Network".

From the opening scene between Eisenberg and Rooney Mara you see the pace and the tone of the entire picture. It's serious, but funny. It's fast, but methodical. It's got whimsy, but it's pretty damn dark. When we start getting into the flash editing between the Harvard days and his court cases with him against Eduardo and with him against Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra (who claimed Mark stole the idea of facebook from them) we see the dark humor and the dramatics coming out in spades. When we're introduced to Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) the darkness sets in more and more and there's this added foreboding to entire situation that was there for a while, but never this quietly intense. There are a number of scenes that might include humor and other emotions that still maintain a subtle intensity due to the acting, music and directing.

This is VERY much a David Fincher film. You get some visual echos of past Fincher films like "Se7en" and "Fight Club", but you also get that newer and more matured simplification of style that we saw in "Zodiac" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". These are strong characters and there are strong themes that run throughout the entire film. They aren't messing around when they say things about it's elements being as old as storytelling itself; they're right. These are strong and basic themes that make stories interesting and here they are so fucking interesting that I could hardly believe it. Furthermore it works as a tech movie by filling you up with shit you have no idea about (or at least I didn't), but making not the words important, but the meanings and emotions behind them. It's very similar to Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" films in that sense. I don't know much of anything about the stock market and yet those film are FILLED with stock jargon and even though we don't know all the definitions we still care about what happens. It's the driving emotion.

Simply put I can't tell you how much I honestly love this film. I've been finding some really good and some great stuff lately, but hands down this exceeded my exceptions. Sure I thought I'd like or love the movie, but I wasn't sure quite how much. When I watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and reviewed it I remember writing that it was my least favorite of Fincher's great films. I imagined loving that film to no end, but that simply wasn't the case. Here though I might have found the best movie I've seen all year and possibly the best from Fincher. But I don't know fully just yet. Rest assured I will be watching it again soon and might even offer further insights and thoughts on it. However for nearly four in the morning on a Friday I'll have to leave it by saying that this is a great, entertaining film and also a very important one.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps review

2010-09-27T08:09:00.001-07:00

A great performance drama is as exciting, entralling and flat out entertaining as any action movie or genre film. Sometimes all you need is just the right combination of performers and creators to have find pure, unfiltered cinematic enjoyment. "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" does it proper from square one and keeps it's tempo all the way through the closing credits with the Talking Heads melody. It's an important film because it does tell of the inner secret thoughts of wall street fat cats come the time of the market crash in 08' and it's an Oliver Stone film because it gleefully plays with the humanity of it's characters through moral and logical dilemmas.

If you're an avid reader of this (which is to assume I have avid readers, pft!) or simply know my tastes then you know that Stone ranks among my favorite filmmakers and that's heavily thanks to "JFK"; which I saw at a young age and I can honestly say changed my life to a certain extent. Beyond that however are a number of other greats by him ('Platoon', 'Born on the Fourth of July', 'Nixon', 'Natural Born Killers', 'The Doors', 'Any Given Sunday', 'W.' and of course the original 'Wall Street'), but they all enjoyed playing with their characters moral compass. Interestingly it's something that got Stone criticized back then, as he allowed for a lot of emotion to overrun logic in his characters. However something we all know is that human beings aren't particularly logical by and large and when put under hard situations become even less logical. But hey those films were also angry as hell. That was his angry phase; now Stone appears to be in his older, more centered, somewhat more forgiving, but not forgetting phase. It's a nice evolution where it never feels quite like he's delivering a lighter package to us, but simply a different one angled to effect you slightly differently.

With the new 'Wall Street' the rules have changed much since the 80's, but the objective is still the same. Get more money than somebody else and do it the best way you can without getting caught. Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko (the character for which won him his Oscar) is released from prison and into the new world where he's seen the writing on the wall and knows where the market is heading. So he writes an explosive book prophesying a new market crash soon and starts in up doing college tours. At the same time Shia LaBeouf is young stock trader Jacob Moore who's just made his first million and is preparing to marry Gekko's daughter Winnie (Carry Mulligan... who apparently can do no wrong). As the market crash nears Jake's company takes some major hits and is refused any help by the other company heads which leads to it's founder and Jake's mentor (played by Frank Langella) to commit suicide. Jake believes it was caused by Britten James (Josh Brolin), who has had it out for them since the early 2000's. And wouldn't you just know it, but Gekko believes that James might also have ratted him out to the feds back in the 80's. And thus the stagings for a wall street revenge plot are erected.

The plot grows much more personalized throughout as it deals heavily with Gordon and Winnie very estranged relationship and also how far Jacob gets into this backstabbing, cut throat world. Through this the film sheds some of it's docudrama feel as well as some of it's general spite towards wall street. Overall though I can it was for a reason and I suppose a rather nice one. Who is Gordon Gekko in the year 2008? Has prison changed him or made him worse? It's worth finding out for yourself. But Douglas does play him with less edge and subtle villainy and I'll say that's what makes the final act work so well. You generally like him this time. Shia LaBeouf has had to deal with the oh so shitty public backlash pretty much since Indy 4. I don't think he was the problem with the film so much as the lackluster script. Generally I really like the dude. I've seen him and read him in interviews and he comes off as a hard worker and someone who's down to earth rather than obsessed with making a name for himself or being a celebrity. Here he gives probably his best performance and more than holds his own next to Douglas, Mulligan, Brolin, Sarandon and Langella. I mean seriously despite liking the dude even I thought he was outmatched, but damn if Stone isn't able to bring out a full fledged performance.

The film is completely structured to give even the smallest character bits just the right amount of screen time and just the right amount of info to know where they lay in the world at that time. This helps keep the tempo fresh and moving along without too much lag time. Even cameos by Stone and Charlie Sheen are paced out in a brisk, but never rushed fashion. We also get a great piece of Stone film editing the day of the market crash. I won't say what the scene looks like or how it's set up, but if you've seen his films then you'll know what I'm talking about. It's a bit piece, but one that definitely made me crack a smile.

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is and isn't a sequel. Yes we get some of those characters from the original and all, but it never feels like a return so much as us viewing a new world that playing the same old games. Generally we don't get a lot of in depth looks at wall street anymore sans for documentaries here and there or the news. The downside of there is that 99% of docs are going to give one perspective to that world and more than likely it's negative. This cuts down the interviews and dampens the reception you might get when you come knocking and wanting things from the people you're calling white collar thieves. When it comes to the glorious world of fake movies however... people are a little more forthcoming. They don't always know how they'll be portrayed thus they might be willing to chat just a bit longer or let you poke around the business floor a few minutes more. Dramatizing certain events also makes it easier to explain complex and bad events without naming the real criminals or victims personally. Yes Wall Street is all about the money, but that's not always evil. The morality (or lack there of) is in what you do with it. It's can also be about who's the better liar, but really that's a lot like general life too. That's just how this human chess game works I guess. This is one of the most entertaining dramas I've seen all year and one made through it's ability to keep us constantly interested while watching it. Whether it be from rich man excess, business jargon or a character's emotional break down, we're right there and with it all the way.

The Town review

2010-09-18T20:37:00.001-07:00

I still say that Ben Affleck's directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone" is one of the best from an actor turned director. If you've never seen it, seek out ASAP. It's a great crime drama that's also set in the gritty Boston streets, but for as much blood and bruises that are in it there is also a lot of soul and terrific performances. Affleck's "The Town" isn't as strong, but it's still very damn good. Don't walk in looking for a straight away cops and robbers heist picture as there isn't quite as much emphasis on that as there is on the characters of Doug (Affleck) and Claire (Rebecca Hall). The opening is a fast paced and well executed bank robbery in which Doug and his crew including long time friend James (played perfectly by Jeremy Renner) take the money and run out the back, but also take a hostage as a just-in-case situation which happens to be Claire. They let her go, but James takes her drivers license and the next day informs the rest of the crew that the Claire he notices that she lives about four block away from them and could possibly rat them out to the FBI.

Doug decides to take a job tailing her just to make sure that doesn't happen and in the course of things meets and begins seeing her socially. Doug isn't the usual simple hard nosed bad ass robber thug like his buddies; he does have a heart and a brain although throughout the movie to two rarely agree. On the bank robbers tail is FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) who is a by the book, but harder to shake than most cops. And almost just as dangerous as him to Doug is the mystery man behind the gang known as 'The Florist' played by Pete Postlethwaite. It's not a large role, but damn does he make it count. Actually the same can be said of Blake Lively who plays Krista, Doug's ex. Lively mixes trashy sex appeal with actually care. It's an underused character, but she does exceedingly well each time she gets her shot. In the end though all performances were thoroughly fantastic and Affleck has again assembled great talents and pulled from them some fine, fine work including himself.

Now the reason (right now) I don't feel it's quite great is due to it's pacing and conventions. Some of the "The Town" drags a bit and gets dry. Mainly it's when the FBI is playing catch up while will slowly see Doug and Claire's more than likely doom relationship blossom more and more. However... I will say that the final act in my opinion fully elevates the entire picture. "The Town" is a world we've seen and often times seen done a bit better, but how it all pans out in it's novel fashion is lovely, strong and completely convincing. In addition to the great performances Affleck gets out of this cast he also crafts a strong, ear blasting shoot out near the end that is almost at Michael Mann level. There seems to have been a lot of attention places into the bigger pieces of the movie to make them feel authentic, dramatic and visceral as opposed to just being cool. Affleck's pacing sometimes even feels like work done in the 70's by Lumet or Friedkin in the crime genre.

Really "The Town" is really terrific thriller that I may come to fully love down the line. There's a lot of strong work on the screen here that ought to get some awards attention. Despite the weird backlash that Ben Affleck endured in the early 2000's I think it's safe to say it's over. Here is proves to not just be a terrific writer, but also a director and actor. He goes full Boston southie and never turns back once. Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner, who I actually thought DID deserve the Best Actor win for "The Hurt Locker" does the same and does the kind of character work similar to Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas". The difference is how feelings about his character change from beginning to end and the impact he has. I do intend to sit down and re-watch this soon to see how it suits me then, but for know all I can say is if you're looking a for a conventional crime drama that's still got the goods, the action, the emotion and the characters then look no further than "The Town".

Devil review

2010-09-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a film that was pretty much killed before it even hit theaters. I'm sure you've been in a packed theater when the "Devil" trailer played and the words "from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan" appears and boos and laughs cue up. Indeed it is based on a story by Shyamalan however not written or directed by him. So what difference does that make? Quite a bit actually.

While the concept is something feeling like a short story, it's execution is equal to that of a really entertaining episode of "The Twilight Zone", but with more blood and cussing. What you see from the trailer is indeed what the movie is all about. One of the five people pictured above is the devil and have come to kill. That's it. But with the addition of a depressed, faithless and recovering alcoholic detective (Chris Messina), some clever, twisty and fun writing by Brian Nelson it's made a lot more interesting. What the film attempts and accomplishes is to never give you too many classic movie hints to who might be the devil. Everyone has a thing about them that very well could make them the devil or just an innocent person stuck in a terrible situation. Fernando Velazquez's score cues punctuates the situation and the suspense in great manner and helps add to the tense atmosphere.

Our elevator passengers include an old woman, a young woman, a security guard, a salesman and a mechanic. All are in this office building for different purposes and with different destinations, but if Shyamalan's thought process has taught anything over the years it's that everything has a purpose. And when that elevator stops we begin to learn how it all comes together or mostly comes together. "Devil" has got some little holes riddled in it's side, but doesn't take away from the fun they have with it all. Director of photography, the great Tak Fujimoto paints the movie well and helps director John Erik Dowdle make the suspense in a tiny area work with very well set up shots and nice lighting that's never too moody, but great for the moment. It all works out well which actually makes me quite pleased.

Personally I have VERY mixed feelings about Shyamalan. I perfectly understand why he's getting the flack for his past couple of works right now. I don't get why other guys like Paul W.S. Anderson don't get it too, but I can see what people aren't digging from him. At the same time he's still somebody I that feel can do good again and regain at least some of his cred. Going into producing is tricky as hell as I said when I reviewed "The Last Exorcism" there's not many thriller or horror that end up producing even passable genre films (look at Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and John Carpenter for examples). His work here with "Devil" is good. It's damn sure not great, but it's a workable, entertaining and a fun thriller that feels like it embraces the right amount of suspense, character and goofiness much like "The Twilight Zone"; which from what I understand is what his Night Chronicles set of films is supposed to feel like.

The twist that occurs isn't entirely unforeseeable, but it's unveiling is nicely done in it's subtly. Again the tech side plays well with the overall tone of the story and makes it feel like a well put together package of B-thriller goodness. It does heavily involve faith and religion (as often is the case with his stories) and some of it does have a cheese factor, but in the end there is a rather stronger message behind some of it that kind of elevates it a tad just for the general bravery to take it in that direction. I won't say what it is, but most movies would probably go the darker and more cynical route (as is usually the case), but it's refreshing to see it go the other way for a change. This is a step in the right direction for Shyamalan and hopefully one that might spark some change in his own written and directed work. I'm interested to see if they can build off of this with the next in the Night Chronicles series and actually create an interesting and fun set of mid-level thrillers using young talents.

Resident Evil: Afterlife review

2010-09-11T12:57:00.001-07:00

It's said that when a movie franchise hits #4 you've gotta be giving this audience a reason to come back. Usually the trilogy does the trick. The "Resident Evil" films are... well hell... shit. In fact the only one that (for me) comes close to working as a movie is "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", which is by many considered the worst of the bunch. I HIGHLY disagree. The difference between these shit burgers and movies like "Machete" or "Piranha 3D" is that these take themselves VERY seriously. Sometimes unbearably serious to where you can't believe that none of these characters are commenting on why fucking ridiculous it all is. What writer/director/producer Paul W.S. Anderson has done is basically taken various things from these games and put them in the movie while making some other shit up that he probably feels fits right in. This is no longer a zombie story, it's a bad sci-fi story of the "Battlefield Earth" persuasion.

This fourth and nearly unwatchable installment opens with Alice and dozens of her clones breaking into an Umbrella Corporation underground compound in an attempt to kill what appears to be the head baddie, Albert Wesker. Wesker is basically a blond, weak and often hilarious rip off of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith character from 'The Matrix' films. Speaking of that little set of movies it's ripped off about a dozen and half times here, which is funny since the movie is over TEN YEARS OLD NOW. And yet with all the updated technology we have manages to cheapen the look of the effects despite having more money than Wachowski's did back in 99' . No easy feet I'm sure. Anyways the first massive and crippling logical flaw occurs after Wesker escapes and Alice goes in for her close kill when he injects her with something that is said to have destroyed the T-virus cells in her body that made her super human. Because it made sense in all the other movies that the same thing that turns people in the zombies turns her into Supergirl. Milla Jovovich delivers a terrible line thanking him for making her human again and the plane crashes into a mountain with a CGI freeze frame that looks like it's from a PS2 game. And then she walks away from the crash unharmed and no other explanation is given.

That piece pretty much should kill the movie outright and yet hey... it continues to Alaska and later to a burned out L.A. where a group of survivors took up refuge in a prison from thousands of zombies that just upon Alice and old friend Claire's (Ali Later) arrival have gained the strength and knowledge to dig under the prison and burst up through thick concrete to gain entrance to the shower room... which still works. You'll find out why later. In the prison there's about seven characters, but the only important one is Chris Redfield (Claire's brother) who they think is a prisoner and keep him locked up. Ok, so after all that truly boring bullshit involving piss poor characters, plot holes, plot craters and weak CGI we get to the truly terrible action scenes.

The shower sequence involving giant axe/hammer man ought to go down as one of the dumbest action set pieces in modern cinema. Basically the entire scene is in slow motion and plays out like dumb geek action movie porn, but lacks any real action to appeal to people who might know a thing or two about action movies. So what you're left with is Ali and Milla soaked, brooding and basically ninja warrior women(with the use of wire work of course). As I said earlier if this shit didn't take itself so seriously this might all work (well to a point), instead we're forced to believed a lot of incredibly stupid shit without much reasoning. Like per-say why in a world of zombies is there a 9-foot tall man in with leather skin, a sack mask and a giant hammer axe? Where the fuck was he at when shit went down? How come when we first see Alice and Claire they're both dirty as can be and next when they're flying to L.A. they are completely clean and NOTICEABLY wearing make up? But Anderson doesn't provide answers just more stuff happening that he apparently thinks is cool.

Most of the other action scenes are merely set ups to make his wife (Milla Jovovich... who by the way could do better) look cool in super slow motion out running a poor looking explosions. Sadly it doesn't work either as often she just looks kind of goofy. All this crap builds up to an enormously idiotic fight with Wesker in a giant white room under a ship in the ocean. How does it all end up? How it always does in these films. Now... why do I loathe this one, but actually somewhat enjoy the second and often considered worst installment? "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" was directed by Alexander Witt, a well known and impressive second unit director and cinematographer. You can see much of his work in Ridley Scott films with "Body of Lies" providing his best photographic work to date in my opinion. Witt seems to be the only one who might think these movies don't need to be as serious as Anderson wants. So basically he fills the movie with a good number of impressive physical stunts, over the top supporting characters and actually utilizes his R-rating for more than two fucks and a couple head shots. But what makes it all more funny and entertaining is that the zombie stuff is pretty cheap looking and he shoots it more like a parody of a zombie action movie. Witt might just get the joke, but Anderson sure as hell doesn't.

To him these movies are something else that I cannot begin to understand. The 3D (which apparently uses the same cameras as "Avatar") is very weak as are the effects and the action pieces. Furthermore Anderson can't have gone over this script hard enough to figure out it didn't make a lick of sense after the opening and worse yet neither did the actors. It's been a while since I've hated a sci-fi movie as much as this and yet people will eat it up like it's going out of style. Why? There are TONS of better films about girls kicking ass and looking good. There are TONS of better zombie movies, sci-fi movies and action movies out right now. I imagine in a few years there will be another "Resident Evil" and I imagine it will be pretty bad too... but honestly I can't imagine how Anderson or anybody else could come in and deliver a worst movie. "Resident Evil: Afterlife" has actually taken Anderson down in my mind to the level of Uwe Boll now.

The Girl Who Played With Fire review

2010-09-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

Something that can kill any thriller or mystery for me is a lack of style or suspense. Earlier this year I reviewed part 1 of the Millennium trilogy "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", which was being beefed up as a major deal. While I did really enjoy the stylish, sleuth picture I was never fully in love with it all. Now with the "The Girl Who Played with Fire" I'm kind of on the fence about how much I really care this whole story ends.

Like I stated above a huge killer for these sort of movies is a lack of style and suspense and that's the biggest issue here. Director Niels Arden Oplev stepped away and Daniel Alfredson took over for the last two movies. Apparently this was a fucking mistake. Oplev did a great job of creating a gloomy and grim world that our heroin Lisbeth Salander existed in, Alfredson however works to remind us that this movie series is based on books and also a tv show by displaying dull stylization and throwing as much random narrative at us as possible and seeing what sticks. Basically this is a mystery, in a mystery, about another mystery and none of it is made particularly interesting.

Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth, the gothy, hacker with a knack for getting to the bottom of tough cases. We meet up with her a year after the last film as she's preparing to head back to home after noticing some emails on her parole officers computer that she wasn't too fond of. (That makes a lot more sense if you've seen the first movie) On the flip side is friend and journalist Mikael Bloomkvist who's working on a new story with a new reporter involving sex trafficking. When the the new reporter and his author wife are found dead and the murder weapon has Lisbeth's finger prints on it... then something is thought to be... amiss by Bloomkvist and Lisbeth has to decide how she's going to clear her name and find out who's behind it all.

There's more to it all, but nothing too note worthy since none of it works to full capacity. The main yarn is that of a suspenseful expose' story. Really our main character this time out isn't Lisbeth, but instead Mikael; who follows up leads and attempt to figure out who the mystery man behind it all is other than the codename: Zala. Some of his poking and prodding lead to intrigue, but most to boredom. Lisbeth occasionally comes out of her hiding place to strong arm some nasty men into getting answers, but really doesn't do too much until the final act which is... somewhat interesting, but never too thrilling or suspenseful. The revelation of who's behind it all isn't particularly startling either. I question is it the direction or just the story that makes it all so weak. It's very much a bridge plot that appears to lead up directly to part III ('The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'), but still I feel like with better writing and direction it's a movie that could've been at the least entertaining.

So now this brings up the whole remake business. David Fincher has officially began shooting of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' with Rooney Mara ('A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'The Social Network') as Lisbeth. Fincher's not known to make mistakes so I have no doubt in his ability to craft an interesting if not widely better thriller than the original. But if things come to pass and the whole trilogy is remade I wouldn't mind seeing it done more like 'Red Riding' in which each film has a different director that brings something slightly different to the table. In anycase I feel like most name filmmakers that could be brought up to do this would probably handle it better than it has been.

Machete review

2010-09-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Witness the movie that the summer ought to have had in it. Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" easily works to become one of his most gleefully over the top works and also one of his most fun and ultimately most satisfying. Is there any real surprise to 'Machete'? Maybe yes, maybe no. For me I walked in looking for pure, bloody, grindhousey fun that's played for laughs. And I got just that. The film is everything that the original fake trailer showed us, plus some wonderfully over the top social commentary about illegal immigration reform. I happen to live in Florida where such reform is being heavily talked about. Not being a person of strong political beliefs, I do however attempt to keep up with certain things and educate myself of on them to get a real standing. And let me say that I do think their 'idea' is horse shit. But more on that later.

What Rodriguez and company have really done is made their ultimate mexploitation film. His 'El Mariachi' trilogy is just the foundation of what he's now done. He's made a big, bloody and explosive live action cartoon that's just as insipid as it is strangely brilliant. I mean let's face it this isn't a movie where plot and character development come first as an attempt to relate to the human condition; this is an exploitation film. But within the subtext and social commentary there is a film that's a great parody of modern latino culture and the political climate surrounding the illegal immigration situation. They gleefully play with stereotypes for the fun of the movie, but also making a solid point. In the end though I suppose it's the violent fun that wins out.

Danny Trejo IS Machete. He's been with this character forever and plays him like a classic action movie actor. Somewhere in connecting Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson. He's the quiet strong man that when he opens his mouth the theater goes silent, but when he's swinging around his machete it's a mad house of laughs and cheers. The supporting cast works as well as any of Rodriguez's others. Michelle Rodriguez, who pretty much only plays the 'tough chick' seems to have finally gotten a part where she's allowed to do that and NOT look completely butch at the same time. Steven Seagal plays Torrez a Mexican drug lord and manages to be the odd man out as he always half way tries at the role. Whether it's on purpose or just his inability to act has finally matched his inability to say no to super sizing his Quarter pounder combos is unclear; but it has a silly as shit charm.

The best supporting characters however are Jeff Fahey as Booth, the senator's menacing aid that manages to feel highly sinister despite only speaking in whispers, Cheech Marin as the shotgun touting priest, Don Johnson's evil and racist as shit boarder patrol vigilante Von and yes Mr. De Niro as the two faced, coward, racist senator John McLaughlin. De Niro helps remind us of how fun he can be to watch in films where he really has a character he can play with. Remember the first "Meet the Parents" movie? Something close to that, but with A LOT of his interpretation of Max Cady from "Cape Fear". It's levels out into something hilarious, different and truly fun to watch. Jessica Alba is somewhat mid-ranged as the immigration officer with a heart for her people. Sometimes she can feel just right in the whole mix and other times it feels like there could've been a better casting choice. And let's just say she's no Bill Pullman when it comes to giving rousing speeches. And I do wish there was more with Lindsey Lohan's April character. Granted it wasn't so much acting for her and much as it was a typical Monday morning, but still it was nice seeing her on screen again and the little she does get to do really makes you think that this genre might be a good fit for her as opposed to chick flicks.

Now onto the whole politics of the film. I read and early review for the film it I feel like it sums that whole thing up perfectly by saying (I'm gonna paraphrase) 'Machete' is the left wing equivalent to all the 80's right wing aimed action films like the 'Rambo' movies or 'Red Dawn'. It really is. The reason many people (some of which I know) seem to have no problem with some of the ideas brought by the new immigration reform is because it would never really effect them. They wouldn't get pulled over at 9pm because the police want to see if they're an American citizen because... well... they're white. What do they have to worry about? We complain about mexican workers taking our jobs, but those jobs are the ones we generally don't want and when we get them we tend to half ass it because we hate it so much! And at least it's keeping the jobs in this country, which to me is a bigger issue. Then there's the whole heathcare issue and yadda, yadda, yadda... whatever. The politics of 'Machete' display cartoonish extremism on both sides and anyone taking it seriously is really, truly an idiot. The same goes for people thinking it wants a 'race war'. The movie lampoons the situations in an attempt to kind of show just how ridiculous people CAN be and how some probably are. I for one think that's a great way of beginning a conversation about the issue.

"Machete" is much like "Piranha 3D" as in it gives you what it advertised. You can pop in, turn off your brain for 105 minutes, laugh and have a good time. Or you can walk in with a stick up your ass and complain for that duration about the state of cinema and politics and so on and so forth. Can't imagine how that's helpful to ya, but it's your choice. For me though I loved every stupid, nasty, outrageous and satirical thing about it. I love that Robert Rodriguez has carved his own genre nitch with these sorts of films and has been so successful with it all and I hope that success continues long into the future.

The American review

2010-09-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

It's extremely rare for U.S. spy dramas or like-spy dramas to go with a lovely slow pace instead what's become the norm for the genre via the 'Bourne' or 007 movies. "The American" has more in kin with samurai dramas or thrillers of the 70's than it does with the current genre and it's made all the better for it. George Clooney plays Jack or Edward, we're never really sure; an assassin of sorts whose last job involves him hiding out in Italy and crafting a weapon for his successor. Right there is 90% of the film as he mainly walks about the town, occasionally meets and chats with the locals despite his somewhat cold demeanor. He gets close to a prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido) and something more begins to appear in the character. Something like love for her... however not too long after that so does something comes out of him too.

The other 10% of the film deals subtly with paranoia. I say subtly in the form in which Coppola used it in "The Conversation". The entire time you feel like something more is going on, but you can't quite get a grasp on it until it's right in front of you. The entire final act is a well devised tight rope of tension and character emotion that's accomplished through patience and skill. "Control" director Anton Corbijn does what ought to be an award nomination worthy job along with screenwriter Rowan Joffe of making Clooney's mostly silent character likable by the end of the picture; making us fully care what happens in the final minutes. It's also a film that I would call sexy; not a adjective I tend to use when referring to movies, but it is.

I'm not talking just for the nudity or the sex, but generally they've shot this movie in such a beautiful fashion and soaked it in mystery and drama to the point that if this was a person, you'd want to meet em', befriend them, bang them and have a picnic with them the next day. At the same time not everyone will feel as strongly about it all as I do. The one beef I have against it is Focus Features marketing of the film. The first trailer was around 1:30 and played up the drama and romance of the story rather than the action (which is probably the third or fourth important aspect). That trailer aired in theaters probably for a week or two before a 30 second cut came out which utilized Mr. Voice talking of assassins and George Clooney while just showing off the action pieces in the film. Thus several people will walk in expecting an action film where Clooney goes ape shit killing baddies for his final hurray. THIS AIN'T THAT MOVIE. This is a smart, quiet thriller.

"The American" might be considered one of Clooney's awardy type films by some, but I'm not so convinced. I'd love to see this get some real legs and viewers and nods come that time of the year, but it feels more like a film destined to be left behind somewhere in that race. Why,I'm not entirely sure yet. Perhaps it's the heavy European feel that could hurt it. The somber tone that concludes in a rather bleak fashion or the fact that there just isn't a much of money shots in the film. Either way it is a film that deserves viewers. It's one of the best films I've seen all year and also warrants many technical accolades as well.

Summer 2010: The Few Highs and the Several Lows

2010-08-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-08-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-08-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Salt review

2010-07-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Apparently the ending of the summer is shaping up to kick the beginnings ass. "Salt" literally came out of left field for me. I wasn't feeling the trailers or posters or "Who is Salt?" tagline. I liked that Jolie was showing off her age a tad bit and looking somewhat less pristine than usual, but there wasn't anything there that got me exciting to see it.

But damned if I don't love a good surprise here and there and "Salt" was it. Not only does it work as an action film, but also as a more than competent thriller and chase film that recycles things we've seen before and yet displays them and uses them in a fresh and very, very exciting way. Off the bat I'm not telling you who Salt is. But I will say that shock of all shocks that tagline IS important to the plot of the movie. It's an awesome early story turn that brought me into that 'where's this headed' zone. Damn... I remember when tons of action movies had those fun moments where you just weren't at all sure what was to come next... good times.

"Salt" is written by Kurt Wimmer ('Equilibrium' and 'Ultraviolet', I think I finally forgive him for that second title), who is pretty good at using all the old tricks, but making them fun again. Salt is on the run and is a highly training enemy the CIA must track down and grab. Been there and done that, but damned if he and director Philip Noyce don't attempt to drum up some interesting tension, have fun with the characters and then go into full ass kicking mode. Noyce, who is a highly skilled action filmmaker on the level of Mann and Zwick, never gets the credit he deserves. To this day I absolutely love "Clear and Present Danger", "The Quiet American", "Patriot Games" and "Rabbit Proof Fence" and that is where "Salt" fits in. It's a smarter than usual, espionage action, thriller. It's shot fantastically by Robert Elswit (all of Paul Thomas Anderson's film) and edited by the glorious Stuart Baird and John Gilroy. Both are men who KNOW this world back and forth. Shit... why the fuck wasn't I jazzed for this movie again?!

Now we come to Jolie. As an actress she's got her ups and downs. I'll say with her action based roles it's definitely been more downs. Her work in "Wanted" was pretty good, but nothing mind blowing (pun intended), but then there's the dreadful "Tomb Raider" pictures as well as "Gone in 60 Seconds" and probably a few others that escape me. Here she finally hits that mark for me that makes me fully buy her action hero status. Very little CGI, mostly hard hitting practical action work and stunts that look fantastic and are never too over the top as to remove you from what going on. I like the fact that Jolie is willing to get dirty in the film. She willing to be beaten to a pulp, tortured, shot and so on and not look like a super model or superhero the entire time. There's even a nice little homage to the world of "Mission Impossible" that is pretty ridiculous on some levels, but she sells it. Honestly I'd like other performers looking to dive into action to look at this as a training tool. How you can sell some rather insane things and make them work for an audience. Might have sorta helped "Prince of Persia". Well... maybe not that one.

I do think Sony's chosen release for "Salt" is unfortunate. While it's a prime film for the summer, still I think it could've been a monster success if released during a dead heap of the spring or fall. Much like what studios did with "Taken" or "The Transporter" films. I feel like right now it's just caught in the massive coat tails of "Inception" and will only get lost in the shuffle of other big ticket action pieces coming in August. "Salt" is absolutely one of the most generally entertaining and fun films I've seen all summer; trumping "The A-Team" and even "Predators". Have you seen "Inception"? Are you looking for something lighter that you can kick back and watch some good ole' fashioned ass stomping, but with some cognitive thought and a story? "Salt" is by far your best bet.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work review

2010-07-26T16:48:00.001-07:00

The mark of a truly good documentary is when it can take someone or something you dislike or simply don't care about and actually make you care. After watching "Exit Through the Gift Shop" which is brimming with topics that highly interest me and thus made me love the film and it's subject matter more while viewing it in somewhat of a different light, I then went for "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work". A documentary chronicling a year in the life of the groundbreaking comedienne/ talk show host/ red carpet interviewer/ plastic surgeon's blooper reel highlight. The result was an entertaining, witty, funny and seemingly truthful look at show business and a dimming star trying to regain her clout.

I grew up long after Rivers had 'peaked' in the entertainment world and thus have always seen her as that frightful looking, loud mouthed woman that talks about fashion while making rough attempts at humor. I was well aware that she had been a stand up comic, but I never really cared to see any of her shtick. However with this film not only did it make you understand where she came from and her importance, but also somewhat sympathize with a comic that in her heart of hearts always wanted to be more. Someone who wanted to be a serious actress. In addition to that it also showed that despite everything she is (to my surprise) funny and witty both on stage and off. Seriously... did not see that coming.

I do find comedians to be interesting people. Stand ups are especially interesting as they really must take a grand leap of faith to get up under those lights and attempt to make people laugh anyway possible. Seeing her life of doing fourth rate venues, attempting to get a new play off the ground and trying to get any work possible is a fascinating look into that two headed monster called show business. Much of Rivers' insights into it all are equally fascinating and most of all seemingly earnest. After all she's been doing this since the late sixties, is still around and living like a queen so she must be doing something right. At the same time we get a look at someone who is pretty damaged. A lot of the film steers slightly away from her various plastic surgeries, only touching on it near the beginning. From what I could gather it all seemingly came from her desire to be loved and how she never felt beautiful. Fairly classic tale of the whole thing I guess so perhaps no further discussion is necessary. Instead it talks about her quick rise to stardom, her falling out with Johnny Carson, NBC and FOX and the death of her husband and what followed. And despite it all... here she still is.

So how is it that Rivers, who is now more of a joke than anything has lasted this long? Because she's a work horse. She's constantly looking for new gigs anywhere possible to return to the spotlight and reinvent herself. In this day and age it isn't impossible obviously. Look at the huge Betty White following that's come around. Do I buy into it? No, but who cares cause everybody else does. Chuck Norris was even a fucking... thing for a while and why?! He can't act, 90% of his movies are shit even on the it's so bad it's good level and he's a fairly boring guy. But hey... if someone like Carlos fucking Mencia can be something of note then I firmly believe that Rivers can arise again as well. Through what though I don't know.

The one flaw that holds the whole film back from greatness is simply run time. It's all really damn interesting and entertaining, but it never seems to have a particular finale in mind until it's splashed upon you. It's inter cut with pieces of Rivers' stand up acts which are sometimes too over the top, but a lot of times far wittier and funnier than A LOT of the shit we hear from Dane Cook or other crap comedians around now. I almost feel like docs like this for other comedians who've lost their way could be a helpful tool for the public to see them in a different, more candid light as well as for them to exorcise some of their inner demons and get them out in front of them (Murphy and Myers, I'm looking at you). Despite all my highly mixed emotions going into the film, I'm very glad I did see it.

Exit Through the Gift Shop review

2010-07-25T20:44:00.001-07:00

Question: have you heard of this film "Exit Through the Gift Shop"? If the answer is no then I'm not at all surprised and I'd highly advise you to head to youtube or imdb or whatever and take a look at the trailer and the reactions it's been getting from viewers. If you the answer to the question is yes, but you haven't seen it, then I'd advise you to find a fucking way to see it and pronto.

"Exit Through the Gift Shop" is a documentary directed by Banksy, a well known UK street artist that has widely expanded his particular brand of artistic, politic satire across the globe. And while the film is made by him its main focus is actually on a somewhat cartoonish and never dull frenchmen named Thierry Guetta. Thierry for several years has lived with a camcorder stuck to his hand. Everywhere he went, everything he did... was recorded. It wasn't until he met a street artist named Space Invader (made popular for replicating 8-bit characters on streets using discarded rubix cube pieces) that all his filming began to have a direction. From then on Thierry was hooked to the world of street art and through Invader was able to meet dozens upon dozens of other creative and mesmerizing artists.

However the question must be asked... why was he filming them? What was the purpose of it all; the end result? No one knew. Thierry didn't even know. But that didn't keep him from filming everything in sight. Eventually all Thierry's filming of artists came to a head when he wanted to meet the infamous Banksy, who is still a man of mystery. But by luck of the draw they did meet and became friends after a few quite rough, but rewarding events. Most of what they show and discuss is pretty hairy stuff and actually makes from some intense, tension filled sequences to the picture. Other encounters are quite humorous and light hearted, but help to really see a little bit more what these artists are really like.

I refuse to spoil much else about the whole film because it's best seen than heard about. I will say that by the end of the film your opinion on Thierry may change and you will question how sane or flat out insane of a man he really is. But not everything hinges solely on the very fucking interesting story of this man. It's also the best account of the world of street artists. Really in the 2000's it's been hard to identify what the counter-culture is. It's been pin pointed easily anywhere from the 50's thru the 90's... but now the lines have become quite blurred. Some might suggest that hipsters are the current counter-culture, but I highly disagree. My thought is the world 'culture' means more than shopping at thrift stores, smoking cloves and drinking cheap ass beer while sportin' an 'I'm-better-than-you' attitude. They're simply a more fashionable slacker. So I would identify the new wave of graffiti artists as that counter-culture. Guerrilla art that often is satirical of world happenings, the media and other hot button topics or concepts. Plus a lot of it looks cool.

"Exit Through the Gift Shop" has a little bit of everything I love seeing at the movies. Not just in documentaries, but films in general. The characters, the humanity, the realistic humor, the tension, the stories and the experience of seeing something new and creative. As it stands right now this may be my favorite film of 2010; it has all the energy and creativity of any big brand film out right now. I urge you all to see this film.

Cyrus review

2010-07-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

Modern Hollywood is in love with making awkward romance comedies. "Cyrus", written and directed by the Duplass brothers is among the better ones to come around a while. The reason is because it's a performance piece above all and John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei kill in these roles. Reilly plays John, a divorced kind of down on his luck guy who goes to a party after being convinced by his ex-wife (Catherine Keener, yet another great actress in the picture). While there he makes an ass of himself, gets more drunk and more depressed before meeting Molly (Tomei). They end up really connecting and falling hard for one another. Slowly though John starts noticing weird things about Molly's actions. Eventually he meets the reason, Cyrus.

Jonah Hill is known for being strictly the fat, funny kid ala' about a dozen movies. Here he actually managed to be funny, sympathetic, creepy and dramatic. It's perhaps a performance that deserves some heavy thought for awards season for it's subtly and success. Cyrus is simply put a weird kid/guy. He's in his early twenties and his relationship with his mother is much closer to that of roommates than to mother and child; which wouldn't be weird as shit unless it didn't involve things like using the toilet while she's in the shower singing. But one thing is known about Cyrus pretty quickly and that's he wants John out of Molly and his life. The why is pretty easy to figure out all things considered, but there's much more self-revelatory things surrounding it.

The Duplass brothers work has always left me a bit off center. "My Puffy Chair" aka the movie myspace sold, was a cute and funny little picture, but I never came close to loving it. They followed it up with "Baghead", a qusi-comedy, thriller about people with bags of their head. The problem was that it was neither funny nor suspenseful just annoying and stupid; which is a shame because I loved the trailer and the idea (to a certain extent). So "Cyrus" is by far their best and most satisfying work to date. It's not a straight comedy or drama, but the very definition of the dramedy genre. They pulled together these great talents and used them very wisely and made it feel much more realistic than atypical rom-com shamaltz. We often forget that John C. Reilly IS NOT a comedian. Despite starring in several big name comedies in the last ten years, he's a hardcore dramatic actor that's simply put, very fucking versatile. I'll always love his work with Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese; hell he's one of my favorite characters in "Gangs of New York". With "Cyrus" it was like getting a little bit of the new and old Reilly in one package.

Tomei is an actress that honestly took me a while to really get a read on. When I saw Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" though... wow. I mean yeah the hooker/stripper with a heart has been done several times and will be done several more, but damn it all if she doesn't work it like it's a fresh concept. She's very likable and seems to have a great wit and sense of timing. On the physical side she's also an actress that's very easy on the eyes, but not phony looking. She looks like everyday people and for me that's always a bit more attractive than the people who look like they get pampered day in and day out.

When it's all said and done "Cyrus" is the kind of funny, sweet and (mostly) realistic piece of been wanting to see again. It's not 100% perfect and it's damn sure not something everybody is going to love or like, but for me it's that kick in the ass that rom-coms have needed for a while.

Inception review

2010-07-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a fully realized science fiction opus, in which Nolan goes to great lengths to completely convince us of this science of dream invasion and what not. To date I can fully say this is Nolan's most complex film and also most wonderfully misleading as far as what we're really dealing with. I think it's great to see that in addition to providing trailers that just give us nothing but money shots, he's also gave us a film that's got an action sense about it however isn't quite what I'd call an action movie because after a while it's no longer driven by action, but the emotion of the characters.

You probably know the players and what they do by now. You know DiCaprio's Cobb is a dream thief and he's given a chance to 'make it back home' with one last job of inception. Inception is the planting of an idea in someones mind; as opposed to extraction which is them going in and stealing an idea (what they primarily do since inception is said to be near impossible). Cobb's team is great and if ever there was an exciting group of young actors to come together on screen for something like this, you couldn't do better. Joesph Gordon-Levitt is Arthur (pointman), Ellen Page is Ariadne (the architect), Tom Hardy is Eames (the forger), Dileep Rao is Yusuf (the chemist) and Ken Wantanbe is Saito (the tourist). Their job is to planet an idea in the mind of Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) that would destroy his father's empire. This will involve many complicated devices to work including dreaming within dreams and so on and so forth. All matters that are made more sensible and interesting by Nolan in the film than little ole' me could ever make them seem.

The dream worlds are created a way that's fresh for film. They are fully moving cities, snow capped mountains with bases, cliff side retreats and so on. Sure there are a many elements of the fantastic that occur, but it's nothing like the fully fantasy dream worlds we're used to. There are rules and concepts that haven't been explored or visualized the way they are here. Furthermore there's a heavy emphasis on physical action (aka what things look like when ACTUALLY blow up and not just CGI blow up). There's a difference and it's always something more visually striking and dynamic about the right thing. Much like when they flipped the semi truck in "The Dark Knight". You can pick up on a few influences of Nolan including 'On Her Majesty's Service' and 'Blade Runner' to some extent as well as a few noir and heist movie elements. But all in all this is a very original piece of work.

But it's not all derived from Nolan's script or directing. Like I said a HUGE part of the film deals with emotion and just who these characters are. Cobb is a troubled man and getting into dream cons with him has it's ups and it's downs. The downs being his wife Mal (Marion Cottillard), who appears to sabotage missions if Cobb tends to know too much about the lay out of a location or even sometimes when Cobb is losing control of his own thoughts. Their story is perhaps the most important of any in the film and something that's been left quiet when discussing it. There's a reason and I'm not going to spoil that. In fact I'm not really going to spoil much more of the film because it's one of those rare occasions when the film has manged to advertise itself this much, but still provide a theatrical experience that you are unknown to until you're there watching it.

In the 142 minutes of "Inception" I found myself engrossed in the action, engrossed in the story and engrossed and invested in these characters. I'm not attempting to boast hype or spin any wheels, but it's quite something when a movie (especially in the summer) can really do all the things that have been done here. Hans Zimmer's score plays slightly counter to traditional summer action scores and has a much more dramatic and emotionally driven feel. I really love that Zimmer is experimenting more now that he did in the 80's and 90's; creating a different sound for these types of films that fits like a glove. Wally Pfister continues to shoot beautifully and is well on his way to becoming one of those cinematographers that's a go to guy for great imagery (like Robert Richardson, Robert Elswit, Roger Deakins etc). And finally the performances in the film run like clock work. Not one performer misses a beat and not one is unconvincing of who they pretend or proclaim to be. The entire final act becomes less about action and race against time, but about these people and what happened to them. I can honestly say the finale kinda killed him in that respect and I loved it. It's a feeling almost completely reserved for the good ole' end of the year Oscar movies that get their jollies by depressing the fuck outta you and then sending you home.

"Inception" probably won't convert non-fans of Nolan, but anytime something like this can get into that mass audience range and actually be successful, I'll take it. The hope is that other filmmakers will learn from what Nolan's been doing in the blockbuster range and perhaps others will go down that road. Start creating genre films for the summer season that have more to them then the usual bang-bang. It's definitely the best thing I've seen all summer and among the best of the year, although is WAY too soon to see how it stacks up among others I liked. What I'm trying to say is you should probably see it. If you're tired of enduring the same junky summer films we've been getting, the bland animated films or the lackluster action pictures... then here you go. Don't wait... just go and experience it for yourself and see how it grabs you.

Despicable Me review

2010-07-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

If Pixar and "Toy Story 3" told of what is all right in the world of animated films, then "Despicable Me" tells heavily of what's wrong. Yes, much like my unpopular opinion of this springs big hit "How to Train Your Dragon", I just don't get the greatness that's supposed to be found in "Despicable Me". I get the references and the point of the story... but I don't see what's supposed to be so great about it all. Perhaps if the movie went as far as to give us something that was... oh say... original feeling, then maybe I'd be on board.

Basically the film is as the trailer dictated. Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell) is a super villain who has been out matched by Vector (voiced by Jason Segel). This starts a rivalry between the two that ultimately leads to Gru adopting three young girls so that they can sneak into Vector's fortress and steal a shrink ray which will allow him to commit the crime of the century; which is stealing the moon. And as mildly complex at that might sound, it's really not. In fact it's so incredibly simple minded that at one point I forgot it entirely and felt the film was designed for the sole purpose of making an over the top villain have to take care of kids. In my mind that's about as awesome as action heroes taking care of kids ('The Spy Next Door', 'Race to Witch Mountain', 'The Pacifier', 'Kindergarten Cop' etc).

Now much like in 'How to Train Your Dragon', our lead (in this case Carrell) offers up a voice that after about forty minutes or so will have officially gotten on your last nerve. Basically Gru is something of a Russian or German or general Europe type and Carrell's voice acting chops wavers throughout. Sometimes it's meshes together alright and sometimes it's like he's speaking normally, but very slowly. Regardless of that it's still an annoying ass accent. Segel's isn't much better as his tries his hardest to sound dastardly. All the while his character Vector simply does mildly smirk inspiring things like dispatching attack sharks on Gru by dragging his butt across a computer board. Splendid.

I can say however that I don't think this is quite as horrible as I expected. Honestly I've been dreading this movie all summer. None of the trailers interested me in the slightest and after a while of hearing the snazzy one line the world loves ('it's so fluffy, I gonna die!') about fifty thousand times I was pretty dead set against it. But it's not totally bad, just really lame. In fact while watching it myself and my friends noted the similarities to the animated adventure, comedy "Hoodwinked"; both through substance and animation style. Oh and they're both super lame. One thing I remember about "Hoodwinked" specifically was that it was ugly as far as CGI animation goes. Obviously it was made much cheaper than most, but the characters looked oddly shaped and almost so cartoonish that it was a turn off. The lighting was always really wonky in which it would range from awkwardly lit in the house to this blue night which made it's characters look slightly crappier. With "Despicable Me" it all seemed like it was one tier up. The designs were better, the lighting was better, the storytelling was... about the same and the character movements were just as stiff as before. I should say that I don't know if it's the same team, but there are many connections that could be made. Some of the jokes are fairly clever due to the timing of the actors and sometimes of the images like in the case of the sight gags. But it's never anything to write home about.

Yes... that's the phrase I want to use. It's nothing to write home about. The world is that of Roger Moore- James Bond movies and not in the cool way like 'The Incredibles'. It's a world of general cartoonishness, but with less interested writers. They never go full 'Shrek' sequel and just start pumping out pop culture references for laughs, but it'll play tricks like it. It'll somewhat be touching and somewhat be clever, but none of these things ever hit their marks. It's simply a safe and easy going animated feature that brings nothing new to the table. I maintain what I said about animated films in the spring, in that so many of them play by the same rules. I'd love to see some more animated films that attempted something more creative or more clever. I have hope for projects like Gore Verbinski's "Rango" (in glorious 2D) which he explained awesomely and I'm interested to see what Zack Snyder's "The Legend of the Guardians" will be like. I feel like there's a push to just give out the most generalist animated pictures and maybe if a couple of more experimental or stronger written ones come along and spice the field up, that it could create a change in the flow of things and maybe we'll end up seeing some more impressive animation features coming out way.

Valhalla Rising review

2010-07-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

"Valhalla Rising" is not a battle movie. It's not really an action or adventure movie either. It's a strong mediation about violence, the unknown, spirituality and humanity. While at times co-writer and director Nicolas Winding Refn tends to perhaps get a bit pretentious with certain elements, still he has crafted an impressive and daring experimental picture.

Mads Mikkelsen ( best known in the states for 'Casino Royale' and 'Clash of the Titans') plays One eye, the mute slave. His origins are unknown and even more mysterious is the way he possibly conducts conversations through other people. As a slave he is caged most of the time and fed by a young boy and when that's not happening he's placed into fights with other slaves. He always wins. In the few pieces of dialogue we hear that many men think that he is from hell. I can't say if he is or isn't, but there is much going on in his mind that we see throughout the chapters of the film that would at the least explain that he's slightly more or less human. Eventually he escapes and meets up with a group of Christians that plan to go to the Holy Land and 'take it back'. They offer One Eye as well as the boy a chance to come along with them. This essentially places them on a foggy descent into madness and hell.

I have to stress that 'Valhalla Rising' is far from something for everyone. There's not much dialogue, the violence isn't stylized but instead is just straight gruesome and it's not a paint by numbers film. For these reasons the film is also outstanding and will hopefully catch on with viewers looking for something different. The biggest star is the overall atmosphere of mystery and dread that's soaked over the characters and their journey. The scenery (which is completely Scotland) is mystifying and dangerous, helping to really deliver the kind of backdrop this story needs. The music is a percussion based blend of electronics and mild symphony. It's at times hypnotic, other times haunting and maddening; PERFECT for the story. And as we all know, I do love me some complete technical movie packages.

The longest piece of the film is probably the fog shrouded boat ride. They're blind and lacking wind for days on end while out of food and water. Some of the men believe it's a curse brought on by the two new members; some even saying that One Eye was leading them into hell. The sequence plays like a stage play with all the claustrophobic pieces fully intact and bold, unsettling imagery. Once they reach land it's discovered that they haven't landed in Jerusalem, but instead somewhere in North America. Again all the scenery is astonishing in it's mysterious beauty and horrors; add to that the over tension and the acts taken out by some of these men and you've got a recipe for a really interesting finale to a film like this.

It pleases me so much to see something like this that is more of a Werner Herzog or Terrence Malik piece than a Zack Snyder piece. Nothing against him or those kind of films, but during these summer months it's been hard finding stand out films like this that work on all these levels. Honestly this is a tough film to write about though simply because it's ideas might be subjective to the viewer thus my reaction and feelings could be far different from yours. Regardless of that though is the fact that it does make the viewer think and that's always a good thing. "Valhalla Rising" should start making little theatrical rounds starting on July 23rd and then possibly expanding it's release after that. Hopefully I'll have to chance to to see it theatrically and see how the experience differs from seeing it at home, but as it stands this is one of the best films I've seen all year and definitely an art picture to check out.

Predators review

2010-07-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

I find it incredibly odd how FOX in only a year and half has turned around from releasing 90 minute, half-assed, wussed up movies; to putting out some flicks that are actually closer to the gleefully over the top and fun films they became popular for. Despite my feelings on final act of "The A-Team" it was still one of the few summer films I had fun watching. Now they've managed to not just make another extremely fun film, but also the best "Predator" sequel/re-issue to date.

The best choice FOX could've have made was placing it in the hands of Robert Rodriguez and allowing him to produce it and lead the film under his Troublemaker Studios banner (which he's attempting to heavily expand so they can greenlight films). Rodriguez's interesting plucked up director Nimrod Antal ('Armored', 'Vacancy' and 'Kontroll') who opted to go less CGI and more practical action and effects. The end result in a fantastic throwback hunt picture instead of an all out action film or a half-assed attempt at a science fiction film. Oscar winner Adrian Brody leads up the cast which includes other less conventional performers Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins and Mahershalalhahaz Ali; as well as the likes of Machete himself Danny Trejo and Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne. Rather than deal with action throughout, we're given lots of time with the characters as they figure out where they are and what's going on.

As much as I dig Brody, I did tire of him figuring it all out first. Yes, he's probably the ultimate badass of the group, but still I might have liked it more had they gone with letting the discovery happen more so as they trekked through the jungle. When it came to the action sequences, they are spread quite apart. One thing I tend to forget about the first film is how there's only really heavy action in the beginning and the end; thus with this film there is partial action sprinkled about, but the real stuff doesn't come until the final act. But it's pretty worth it. They also work to add a bit more to the predator lore with the addition of a sort of alien, hunting dog creature that can gore you or at the least snuff out where you are in the woods.

As far as the 'Predator' film legacy goes, this is a tad under the first, but far above all the others. The crew really seemed to be fans of these characters and of the first movie so it appears that the proper mindset has returned to the alien badasses... thus no more running silhouettes with the predator and human running to fight together and save the day (thanks Paul W.orthless S.hit Anderson) . The entire vibe is that of the original movie. Photography wise, score wise (which by the way at the beginning the credits is a little number fans of the original might remember) and pace wise. Out of a summer of pretty rotten films with not even a sliver of fun or excitement, FINALLY we have something to kick back and really be entertained.

The Last Airbender review

2010-07-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

With "The Last Airbender" M. Night Shyamalan has indeed made his worst film. This is coming from someone who actually does find "The Happening" entertaining on that 50's-60's cheap horror film way. All this said I don't buy this as the worst film of the summer. At the very least I can say TLA is nice to look at and James Newton Howard's score is as good as most of his for M. Night's films. The cinematography is dry, but in a refreshing way for the genre and hell I'll even give Shyamalan some credit for NOT falling into the pits of the genre as far as shots are concerned. There's a lot of issue with what's there (I'll get into that in a second), but after 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Harry Potter' almost all fantasy films are shot in the same fashion ('The Golden Compass', 'The Chronicles of Narnia', 'Stardust' etc) and that's been killing me while watching them. At least when Night wasn't in extreme fucking close ups for no reason, he could lay down some interesting looking images here and there that wasn't all middle-earthy.

Ok, so why is this such a clusterfuck? First off what Shyamalan screws up is a potentially interesting beginning to what could be his trilogy. Since the money numbers are in, it's in that weird stage where a sequel might or might not happen considering it's budget was ... $280 million dollars and it's at $70 million right now. By the way if any of that money was accidentally sent to your house by mistake please contact someone at Paramount Pictures cause it damn sure was not used on this movie. With that kind of cash this film should've been about two and half hours long. In fact with this source material it would dictate a two and a half hour long movie. Instead we get 103 minutes that speeds along jumping where necessary and using action derivative language the whole time. It also plays the whole we'll talk about, but not show action through the means of weak appearing and disappearing narrations via Nicola Peltz's character Katara, whose voice could make an angel's anus bleed for weeks. The few fights scenes are over in a blink mostly and kind of awkwardly composed. The first one involving some earthbenders defending themselves against firebenders starts to seem impressive before ending about a minute in and doing little more than making a dirt wall and throwing some small rocks. As a mild fan of the series I can also say that is does change many aspects of the first season. Somethings are understandable and aren't that important at this state, while others might need to be addressed... like oh say... figuring out how to say the words 'Avatar' not 'Ovatar' and 'Aang' not 'Ung'.

That brings me to the acting of our three leads. Noah Ringer plays the young Aang who awakes and begins this pretty lackluster adventure. Ringer isn't an actor (and it shows). Shyamalan found him through tapes sent into Paramount looking for kids who could be these characters. He's apparently a martial artist and I'll say that's probably true as his moves and form seem quite on par with that. His acting is... well it ain't good, but compared with the other two characters he might as well be Daniel Day-Lewis. Jackson Rathbone ('Twilight's Jasper aka Willy Wonka) plays Sokka, Katara's older brother. Almost everything thing he says is cringe worthy. Part of it is due to some of the junk Shyamalan has written for him, but even when it's general stuff he performs like he's never acted before. Equally Peltz seems to have the most bizarre fucking reactions to everything. When things are at peace she looks like she's about to faint from frustration, when things are burning around her she's smiling and pleased. So either she's a mental case or she's an action junkie that gets her jollys from drowning people in mid air. I'm more incline to believe the prior though.

On the villain side we have 'Slumdog Millionaire' star Dev Patel as Prince Zuko, who was banished and disgraced by his father played by Cliff Curtis. Zuko can only return to his place in the empire by catching the avatar. Patel is one of the few here that actually works for me. Had the film been the length it should've I could maybe even see him getting a nice monologue to really pump up his villainy as well as the duality of his feelings towards Aang. Shaun Toub plays Zuko's Uncle Iroh who ain't so bad and tries to get Zuko to think that being an outcast isn't a bad thing. But ole' lonely Zuko just can't stop pissing and moaning about how he wants back in and blah, blah, blah. At some point Iroh should've told him to go bitch about it in his diary. Then there's Commander Zhao played by 'The Daily Show' star Aasif Mandvi. Not the role for him. I agree with the rest of the world by saying here's a role for a strong, meaty and actually frightening actor. This is the real bad guy to everybody in the story and Mandvi doesn't cut it.

And after going through all this I still can't say this is this big awful piece of work. It sucks, it sucks on several levels, but I've seen worse. I question HIGHLY how critics actually liked "Macgruber" or how "Grown Ups" gets a critical pass. Honestly the whole bad press over this film got me thinking a few days ago about another director and his out of his element film. David Lynch's "Dune" had a very similar fate as this. Interestingly enough it has now achieved a cult status, but go back and read reviews from 1984 and it was pretty much called the worst film of the year and it was only January when it came out. "Dune" isn't good, but it's not utter shit. "The Last Airbender" isn't good, but it's not utter shit. Perhaps I find it difficult to fully destroy the idea of any film with an interesting concept, but I don't think it's a total wash.

I think with this film Shyamalan got scared while writing and scaled back to such a bogus level as to leave next to nothing for viewers to get wrapped up in. It reminds me of FOX's box office train of 90 minute, PG-13 films that were all cut to ribbons and by the time people saw them, they didn't make any sense, but they made money. If ever he were allowed to make a sequel to this (which I highly doubt) or to do another effects heavy film I offer up these thoughts... 1: if you subscribe to making an action film, don't puss out and NOT make one. 2: films can be and often should be longer than an hour and a half. 3: Fucking pay attention during casting sessions! And furthermore fire the fuck out of Peltz and Rathbone or send them on a weekend with Tom Hardy, Daniel Day-Lewis and Viola Davis. If they don't know how to act after hanging with them, then there's no hope for their careers. 4: Hire a writing buddy or someone to check what you're writing and make sure it doesn't involve people repeating the same lines over and over and over again. 5: I hear there are deleted scenes... GOOD. For the DVD Michael Mann the fuck outta your movie and throw it all in! Got different takes of some of the acting? PERFECT, put that in too. Any thing you can do to fix this is a good call.

So really that's all I have to say on the matter of "The Last Airbender". Admittedly even with a misstep with "Lady in the Water", I found it an interesting one. Honestly I like the guy because he does have a style that's all his own and isn't interested in compromising it in this day and age where a lot of movies look the identical. At the same time maybe it's time he really analyzes that style and figures that there is a way to still utilize it, but in a better way that's more in tune with what people want to watch in general and what people want to watch from him. Regardless of what people say I think he's still got some good stories in him, but God help him if he can't tell them better than this.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse review

2010-07-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today I heard a great analogy and it pertains to these films. "I could say that getting punched in the face the third time was the best time, but I'm still getting punched in the face." And thus my feelings on 'Eclipse'. Well... let me alter that slightly; I won't use the word 'best', but I'd say it's the most watchable of the films.

With the right people I can and have sat through all three of these mindless, boring drones people go gaga over, but at least here with this one my butt stayed awake the whole time. Probably has something to do with the slightly shorter running time. But alas everything in 'Eclipse' is pretty much the same as it was in 'New Moon' and the first laughably bad film. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is still in love with count paleness Edward (Robert 'foot face' Pattinson) and the runner-up for any 'Teen Wolf' look-a-like contest Jacob (Taylor 'the sun is in my eyes' Lautner). I'd say in this film her cock teasing gets a bit more heated because she's simply achin' for it. Part of me would find her whole plight interesting and funny if not for how intensely serious they all are about everything.

Sadly though it's not so simple. You see now Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard with about five lines) is raising an army of newly turned vampires to come after Bella and get her vengeance for what Edward did to her boyfriend James in the first film. The army is lead by Riley (Xavier Samuel) whose back story yields some intrigue, but apparently not enough to explore more of or at least remove us from having to listen to our three main characters groan on and on and on and on about how much they love Bella, hate _______ (enter Edward or Jacob) and want her all to themselves and blah, blah, blah.

Look... is there going to come a point where it's shown that any of these people can act? With two more films to go are they going to continue to kiss awkwardly, snarl during scenes of embrace and take a thousand fucking pausing in a conversation?! God bless the world cause finally Kristen Stewart cracks a damn smile, but good ole' foot face Pattinson... nahh... he'll have to go with a smirk; launched over at the shirtless Jacob who was warming his woman on the snow covered mountain. At said point it could be summarized that Bella pants were officially 'creamy' with delight. But more interesting is those looks between the rival lovers... I mean why couldn't they just get there Brokeback on and be done with the whole thing. Sort it out old school Greek style with dicks not fists. Oh well... perhaps my 'orgies solve everything' ideas are too dated.

Also involving said mountain scene was the following morning in which all three characters are FAR from correctly dressed to be outside on a giant, fucking, snowy ass mountain! Jacob's still shirtless for Gods sake! Then again that part was probably on a sound stage as the entire area looking fantastically unrealistic compared to the other wooded and mountainous areas in the film. And hey why make those poor actors pretend they're freezing on a snow capped mountain if it's really just a sound stage? That's just silly. During that massive logical temperature mystery is the big fight, which I'd equate to the meeting and following beating dished out between rival schools on a yearly high stakes football game that gets out of control. The one plus I found during the sequence was that it gave me sweet silence from those jabbering idiots we have to listen to 95% of the movie.

The fight itself isn't that exciting. Basically I just learned that in their universe vampires are made of crystal, so snap one open if you want to get to their sparkly center. The wolf transformations have grown on me, which is to say that instead of it being laughable most times its more like just another lame element in a big lame movie. Seriously fans... how do you find this romantic or interesting? I'm so tired of hearing these character talk about how important and special Bella is because frankly... she's not. She's a boring shell of a character designed for lost readers (and in this case viewers) to place themselves in. Basically it's for people who want to be loved by two people and string them along till they're finished and ready to be with just one. That's the fantasy this shit has created.

The only few things about 'Eclipse' that works is it's score by Oscar winning composer Howard Shore ('The Lord of the Rings' as well as pretty much all David Cronenberg movies) and a couple of the Cullen family member's flashbacks. Jasper's I find funnier then anything as he out of the blue develops a southern accent and then we're shown him as a confederate soldier during the Civil War. Rosealie's is better as it's basically a 1930's rape story with vampires, but it's shot and played out well. Had the movie been about their past then it may have been worth sitting through. Sadly it's just the same boring money making song and dance that get ill-informed kids all a flutter, feeding them lies about romance and the mythology of monsters. FACT OF THE DAY: Vampires NOT filled with crystal.

Mother and Child review

2010-06-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

Taking a slight detour from the usual summer fair is "Mother and Child", a film that hit Sundance earlier this year and was picked up by the king of picking up great smaller works Sony Pictures Classic. The film is basically three stories that could equally warrant three films about three sets of women; all involving either the children they've had, don't want to have or desperately want to have. Annette Benning plays Karen, a physical therapist who lives a bitter life taking care of her dying mother. She has dreams of the child she gave away at birth and it seems that it has had a strongly profound effect on the rest of her life. She cannot get close to anyone and demands far too much from anyone else thus making it where no one wants to get close to her. Kerry Washington's Lucy character cannot get pregnant and with her husband they attempt to adopt. However the girl giving her baby up has turned down several couples before them and insists on knowing as much as possible at their life, but mainly Lucy's. Finally there's Elizabeth played by Naomi Watts. Elizabeth lives alone, is a workaholic lawyer and very good at it and is great and seeing what she wants and taking it. Which is a nice way of saying if she wants to bang you and you want to bang her... then it's going down. Her independence in work, life and sexuality was great until... well you know.

Each woman in this film shines brightly and performs at their best. Not a moment passed where I wasn't convinced by these characters. It's a highly emotional and dramatic film, but still with a nice amount of human realism like humor. Nothing to make you laugh out loud, but the type of human comedy that happens everyday. Lucy (who gets a slightly less screen time than the other woman) is the kind of woman you hear and read about from time to time. The one whom you question if she's ready to be a mother just because she says she is. The relationship between her and her husband is also something of note as it seems like from the first time we see them together he doesn't appear happy. Her mother (played perfectly by S. Epatha Merkerson) has a lot of love and concern for the situation at hand, but Lucy rarely seems willing to accept it. Some of their conversations are the most difficult things to watch in the film, possibly because you start picking a side and you constantly have this feeling of dread surrounding them.

Karen is just a sad person all around. As the story progress you begin to understand that much of her grief is caused by herself. When that change occurs in her (which involves meeting Paco, a nice co-worker played my Jimmy Smitts) it's refreshing and wonderful to see unfold. Elizabeth's story on the other hand could get as difficult to watch as Lucy's at times. Her boss (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and her begin a slight romance that appears to be a simply fling. He's an intelligent and caring man, not sex crazed or wanting to get with everything that moves as a film like 'Sex and the City' would portray him as. Later when she learns she's pregnant we see the different degrees of her come out. Elizabeth can be calm and professional, but also hot headed. Watts plays it all off perfectly and takes a character that could've simply felt conniving and foolish and makes her real. Hell all these ladies pretty much do.

On the surface none of them seem like nice people, but writer-director Rodrigo Garcia ends up displaying fantastically the ability for change. They are human and weak and often the weakest of people need something to pull themselves up. I'm not saying "Mother and Child" is all tears or all smiles by the end, but it's real. Executive produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (writer-director of 'Babel' and 'Amores Perros') means that there is some of his way of connected storytelling here, however not quite as strong as in his own pictures. That said "Mother and Child" is still a great film that's packed with emotional and bold performances; and is a film that shouldn't be missed.

The Karate Kid review

2010-06-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

Nothing kills the taste of a horrible movie than a movie that not horrible. Scientific fact. When the movie is actually pretty good then you're doing gangbusters. The new "Karate Kid" is a very nice pallet cleanser. It's no amazing piece of work, but it's well made and is just as rousing as the original.

Did you ever see the original film? Yeah? Well it's pretty much the same thing with a different cast and crew (sans producer Jerry Weintraub). Sometimes making a beat for beat remake is a bad thing, like what Gus Van Sant did with "Psycho". However "The Karate Kid" ain't no and will never be "Psycho" and with something like this just about anything can work. This movie is a rousing crowd pleaser about a Dre (Jaden Smith) who moves to China with his mother and meets a cut girl. However said girl seems to be a magnet for this group of little doucebag Chinese kids that like to fight and therefore she is a magnet for public ass kickings.

Enter Jackie Chan's Mr. Han. He's a janitor at Dre's new apartment complex and helps him out one day by fending off the group of bullies. After that... well you know, training and more training. Dre learns to world of kung-fu (not karate) and how it can apply to ones everyday existence. He gets to know the girl a lot better and starts to really enjoy his time in China, despite the fact that it's all leading up to him fighting publicly and possibly getting his beat down on a larger platform. No matter... fore Mr. Han is a good teacher that turns pissy and lonely Dre into an ass kicking machine that never says quit.

Smith plays this like a mini version of his dad really. Here he does a stand up job and doesn't feel flimsy or fake. In the fight scenes it's apparent that he worked damn hard to prepare for those pieces and the end result pays off. Chan is somebody who honestly with every shitty kids movie he makes I just try and remember the good days. I try and remember that "Police Story" is one of the best action films I've ever seen and that his fight scenes are among the best in film. Getting to see him showing his age and being grizzled is exactly what I want from him. I've yet to see his film from earlier this year "Shinjuku Incident", but I've heard nothing but good things and more surprising is that much of it is about his performance. Like Jean Claude Van-Damme in "JCVD", Chan just needs the right material to shine and I think his work this year (sans "The Spy Next Door") is a step in the right direction.

Overall "The Karate Kid" remake is entertaining and highly watchable. Sure it's got cheese and it's flow is off from time to time, but it's fun and gratifying to see punk ass kids get kicked in the head. Now given the amount of cash this film has taken in so far the early world is of course sequel; might I make a suggestion? Now that he's an awesome ass kicker, why not explore a true blue kung-fu picture with Jaden leading the way. There are forces at work attempting to bring back the kung-fu genre so why not be at the forefront? Just a thought though.

Grown Ups review

2010-06-26T21:21:00.001-07:00

So I thought back in late May/early June that I'd probably found the worst movie 2010 with "Sex and the City 2". I figured while I might find some stuff that is so powerfully unfunny and rancid that NOTHING else I would see this year could possibly compare. And then I sat through 102 minutes of "Grown Ups" and found a worthy opponent for the two and half hour epic of incomprehensible sewer gunk.

"Grown Ups" is just what it's advertised as. It's Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider acting like they think kids are supposed to act when around one another. What's worst is they bring in smarter people like Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph and make them act they way they think kids think women should act. And before I fucking deliver this piece of crap the knee in the groin it deserves lets go through some of the less painful portion of the movie. If there's one thing they get right it's eye candy. If you blank out the words some of these women have to say and just sit back and look at them then hallelujah, you've just seen this movie best way possible. Most of these women have had killer roles where they were convincingly smart, sexy, crazy, FUNNY... and all that is lost in this picture by reducing them to the lamest of the lame jokes involving farting, role reversal and breast milk. One day I hope to see these women in a film again together and God willing doing the work they deserve to be doing.

Ok with that said everything else in this entire movie is utter shit. It's like a shit sundae with extra peanuts. None of the jokes or sight gags or anything works on even the basic, making you smile level. Sandler pulls the hat trick by starring, co-writing and producing this utter trash and given his really impressive and really self-deprecating work in Judd Apatow's "Funny People" you might think he would've used just a single shred of that to make something in "Grown Ups" likable. Furthermore his character has nothing to do, but attempt to not get made fun of because he's a super successful Hollywood agent with his fashion designer wife and nanny. Kevin James is basically here to be made fun off because he's fat. So they run through the book of fat guy jokes and then when they're done they run it through again just in case you missed one. Because remember everybody... Kevin James=FAT. Then we have Rob Schneider who's been married three times, has two humorously beautiful daughters that look nothing like him and one ugly one that does. HAHA... he's ugly and so is she. FUNNY! Oh and he's now married to a woman around the age of 60. HAHA... he's fuckin' an old lady. FUNNY! And last, but not least David Spade and Chris Rock. You know... these two kind of get a pass because they barely have any lines. Spade is a lonely horn dog and Rock is Mr. Mom, but only a few jokes get thrown their way so it's almost like they were called in to fill out the poster.

There's no point to "Grown Ups". The movie is undeniably an excuse for these guys to hang out and make some money. Okay, I'm cool with that. But what they've actually managed to make other shit comedies they've been in ('I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry', 'Pootie Tang', 'Benchwarmers', 'Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star', 'Click', any movie that Schneider was the main character in) pale in comparison. Why make something so apologetically stupid?! Granted I don't walk into 95% of Adam Sandler movies looking for something great, but at the least sometimes he's funny. In no way shape or form is any of this movie even close to being funny. But hey that doesn't matter because the audience for this will eat it up and think it's great. They'll repeat it's God awful, disjointed one liners till they're blue in the face and there's nothing anyone can say to stop it.

But with all this out in the open... is it worst than "Sex and the City 2"? As for viewing experiences I can say they're both unwatchable and soul crushing, but surely one most be more distasteful. I'm getting close to thinking it's worst than "Macgruber"... but Satc2 is another monster entirely. There was a movie that fully embraced ignorance and intolerance for other peoples religion and customs because they just didn't like it. I guess "Grown Ups" was too busy smashing David Spade's face in a large pile of poop to think about being offensive AND being unfunny. That's a lot to take on in a helium headed picture, right?

Knight and Day review

2010-06-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

James Mangold's "Knight and Day" suffers from one big fat problem; it doesn't know what movie it wants to be. What's worst is when it kind of decides, it's a weaker choice and ends up killing any fun hoped to be had from the film.

Before I jump into this I wanna say that I'm not a bandwagon hater of Cruise. He's more a showman than an actor, but then again most big names are. He gets flack from people saying he plays the same characters and the same people and yet isn't that something most actors and actress end up doing at some point? As great as Sean Penn is he has played watchable scumbags a dozen times with fairly the same look, movements and voice. Samuel L. Jackson is usually playing Samuel L. Jackson in either scream mode or soft spoken, but intelligent mode. Johnny Depp plays the creep or weirdo more than anybody else. And really when's the last time Christopher Walken DIDN'T play himself in a film? Like everyone else Cruise has taken easy street and looked for better things; however I really feel that a heavy percentage of the backlash comes from the 'he's crazy' sector. And yet we all seems to have forgotten drunken Mel Gibson screaming about jews, John Mayer using the term nigger (twice and not in a tolerable way) or Christian Bale tearing a DP a new one for moving a light. The point is leave the bullshit TMZ stuff at the door or just stay at home all together because tabloid B.S. rarely has anything to do with ones final work.

The set up is this, Roy Miller (Cruise) is a spy running from the CIA and a group of Spanish arms dealers. June (Diaz) is his somewhat unwilling accomplice after they meet in the airport and he saves her by landing the plane that he killed everybody on. Don't worry they were all bad guys. The next day June comes face to face with agents telling her the same thing Miller told her they'd tell her right before they take her away and kill her. This leads to some high flying stunts, CGI action sequences and lots of dead people. Normally this description from me would amount to a meh, but something about the first thirty to forty minutes is actually kind of fun. And the biggest reason is because of Cruise and Diaz's chemistry. Their banter can sometimes be eye rolling, but other times quite charming and funny. For example during the big freeway chase/shoot out scene, Cruise's reactions and handling of June is really funny just because of how happy he is to see her. It's one of those stupid juxtapositions that's just goofy enough to work.

On the other end are these pieces of the movie that just feel way too hokey and completely take you out. But there is a straight forward point in the movie where it finally decides what to become. It's comparable to Mel Gibson's "Edge of Darkness" from January. The beginning had stuff I liked and stuff I didn't, but then came a point where I was completely on board and loving every second of it. "Knight and Day" however takes another path and turns what was an up and down movie and just heads straight down by delving further into lame cliches and ridiculous action sequences that kind of work followed by ones that really have no place in this movie.

A great way to fix this all would have been to not aim at being this summer action, comedy; but aim at what it's material probably began as. "Knight and Day" sounds and at times feels like a real throwback to the 60's spy films. Handsome spies and the foolish women that strangely fall in love with them faster then you can say Ian Flemming. Seriously watch some of those movies from back then; it doesn't matter what country made it the chick always ends up lovin' on Mr. Spy within one to two meetings. Had this film tried more to be a romance with action bits things could have worked out. Or at the very least NOT taken itself quite so seriously so when those crazed action sequences arrive you don't feel like they're from another movie.

Furthermore I think director James Mangold ('Walk the Line' and '3:10 to Yuma') could have passed on making this one. While I think he's very skilled and love that he doesn't stick to one genre, this needed a type of style he doesn't have. Mangold is more a person for drama and less for humor or stylized action of this caliber. I think poking around for an action director looking for something with more character and less action, but work really hard on the little there is would have really helped things out. Pierre Morrel, Joe Carnahan, even Edgar Wright or Tony Scott might have turned out a real first class piece of entertainment. Instead a safer and ultimately weaker hand was played.

All that said my first thought on "Knight and Day" was that this wasn't a movie Cruise or Diaz needed to make. The "Romancing the Stone" styled action, romantic comedy is great for performers looking to boost up their viewership and get their name out there some more. James Franco or Colin Farrell would've been pretty damn cool to see as Cruise's charming and collected spy on the run Roy Miller. For an actress this would have been a nice role for someone like... oh hell I'll say it... Kristen Bell, who NEEDS something out of left field to take her out of this shitty, shit, SHIT rom-coms she's doing. However I can understand FOX's thought process on getting big names to sell this movie. I can see them sandwiching the quite impressive throwback poster between "True Lies" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and thinking... we've done it again.

Unfortunately I don't this will get the bucks they might be hoping for. As one critic said, 'if Knight and Day doesn't find it's audience this weekend, then it never will' and that's the truth. As it stands Cruise/Diaz is fighting off an Adam Sandler movie (which I'll be reviewing soon...) and next week will lose to both "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" and M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender". So any success it's going to have must happen now or it will be forgotten in the pile of junky summer movies out right now. Actually... that's where this one belongs anyway.

Marmaduke review

2010-06-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

"Marmaduke" is something that was probably set up to be made somewhere within the 90's and got lost in the shuffle of bland ideas with lamer than lame jokes. With a host of bizarre things in this movie however the biggest oddity is the quite talented cast involved.

After watching the film in it's entirety it's hard to imagine most of these people reading this script beforehand and thinking 'yeah... this is a great movie to be a part of'. My guess is that a nice sized pay check came paper clipped on top and that was all these people really looked at.

Basically the story of "Marmaduke" is that of an 80's high school movie... wait... no. It's like a 90's high school movie that thinks those movies from the 80's high school movies were so super cool that it wants to have that same vibe. Only with dogs. Owen Wilson voices Marmaduke, a two hundred pound teenage dog who moves from Kansas with his family to Orange County California. Basically it's everything you've ever seen with human teens and high school cliches, bullies and set ups... but with dogs. There is dog romance, dog dancing, dog DDR, dog partying, dog surfing even dog white water rafting without rafts. All done with creepy and fairly annoying CGI mouth work.

Now lets talk some more about this cast, shall we? In addition to Wilson, we have Emma Stone ('Zombieland'), Sam Elliot ('The Big Lebowski'), Fergie (singer... you know who I'm talking about), Keifer Sutherland ('24'), Damon and Marlon Waynes, Lee Pace ('Pushing Up Daisies'), Judy Greer ('Arrested Development'), Steve Coogan ('Tropic Thunder'), Christopher Mintz-Plasse ('Superbad') and William H. Macy (far too many fantastic films to name). Oh and George Lopez, which is the only non-surprising name in the bunch. He probably offers up the biggest reason to never (even for the sake of laughing AT the film) watch this. He voices Carlos, Marmaduke's cat friend. What the writers or Lopez himself have done is made sure that everybody and their mama knows the character is Latino, by stereotyping the hell out of everything he says. His character alone dances on the line of annoying stereotype and being out and out racist.

Also there's a sequence in which basically Marmaduke pretends to be racist against cats so the 'cool' dogs will like him. And yes I'm aware of what they were aiming for with that segment, but at the end of the days that's what it is. Moving on from that though is just tons and tons of awful things to look at and really weird things to think about. Like how can dogs string up lights and hook up DJ equipment in a house? And why after the house is trashed to almost cartoonish fashion do the owners not think that they had a break in and someone wrecked the place? OH NO it's just our giant retarded dog! That's why there's random ass turntables and what not crunches on the Ikea rug. What happens after the doggy date in the junkyard with the girl dog Jezebel? And why is William H. Macy so freaking creepy in this film? So much to ponder.

I do seriously wonder though why any execs thought this movie was a great idea. Then again while watching the trailers for "Smurfs" and "Gulliver's Travels" with Jack Black I wondered the same thing. Unless both films hide some great, lovable magic that comes through only while watching the film (not impossible, but I highly doubt it). But why create this movie? As crappy as all this was at least as a full ANIMATED movie I could have seen some of this junk maybe... SORT OF working a little better or at least not being so weird. I could live with Lee Pace's character fucking falling every time he ran in the animated world because perhaps it would be some sort reoccurring joke that he mentions later. Actually... scratch that; that would imply that the writers would have had some idea of what humor is. It probably wouldn't matter what medium "Marmaduke" was in because it'll still be unfunny, witless and annoying.

Jonah Hex review

2010-06-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

I did a bit of research before I sat down to write this. See I've been following the production of "Jonah Hex" for quite some time now. First off I'm a fan of Josh Brolin and the idea that the dude was going to attempt to dive into being an action hero struck me as cool. Second was that "Crank" and "Crank 2" creators Neveldine & Taylor were writing and directing the film. And third because of the previous reasons and knowing that the world would have a hard R-rated action piece with a nice sized budget about a disfigured gunslinger fighting supernatural evils. Sorry art world, but that shit will win my bucks any day. Unfortunately as time passed a lot changed. Neveldine & Taylor were out as directors and in was Jimmy Hayward; director of "Horton Hears a Who!".... I'll let everything I've told you sink in. So I wanted to know what happened, but we'll get to that later.

Now I'm all for giving people a chance to try something new, but that's considering if the material works for that person. For Hayward... ehhhhh I'm gonna go with no. All that R-rated shit... out the door. Time for some good ole' fashioned PG-13ing which is apparently what Warner Brothers was looking for. Now in addition to Brolin let's bring in John Malkovich cause he sell anything... Megan Fox for all those horny men out there and then toss in some other familiar faces for good measure. Yeah... now we have a movie that someone will buy to see right? Right?!

Apparently wrong goop for brains. The story of Jimmy Hayward's "Jonah Hex" is basically this... Hex was a soldier whose family was killed by Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) for killing his son and Hex's best friend (reasons are pretty paper thin). He's now a supernatural fighting, disfigured bounty hunter that's been hired by the government to hunt down Turnbull who is going for destroy Washington D.C. with a super weapon (aka a big ass cannon on boat) for some reason. Oh and he apparently likes Lilah, a hooker played in a couple scenes by Megan Fox. I don't know... call me crazy, but there could be some holes in this story.

As it turns out Malkovich can't sell everything. For example being a ex-southern general who wants to destroy the capital. I guess we're supposed to believe that since he was a confederate that he's just hell bent on destroying the U.S. or something of that sort. But as little sense as he's whole dastardly scheme makes, still it'd be nice if he could sound like a southerner. Instead he does this odd vocal changing that makes him sound more like slack-jawed northerner than anything else. Equally Megan Fox's accent is flimsy, but sometimes works. I'm not a Fox hater and I think she's far from being a horrible actress. Mainly because she's never tired to be anything out of the norm character wise that would make me think that. It doesn't take Kate Winslet to read Fox's lines in "Transformers" and most of the Fox haters I've discovered are simply people who dislike her media attention. I could care less. The thing of it is she can work and with someone like her in your film you can use what she has (ala' some skill, but lots of looks) to your advantage. Instead she has about four or five scenes, is loosely connected as a "love" interest for Hex and really has no reason to be in the story except to be there and get people to see the movie.

Rounding out the casting fuck ups is the under using of great talents like Will Arnet, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Fassbender and worst of all Michael Shannon who has ONE LINE. A man who is one of the very best working actors today... has one fucking line in this film. He had more lines in "Bad Boys II"! He had more lines in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans"! What in the living shit is going on?! At least that was what I was asking myself for the latter half of the movie. The first twenty or so minutes isn't terrible. The introduction to Hex is alright; as is the following train sequence. But after that it's all downhill, with the only saving grace being Brolin.

I can honestly say that despite all the fuck ups in the film, Josh Brolin is a great looking and acting Hex. He'd be even better if he wasn't neutered and was allowed to be the ultimate badass he could be. As far as spouting quirky one-liners and the dispensing of bad guys however he's pretty darn good. I should also mention that with all the killings and what not that we don't see a drop of blood or anything. In fact one thing that kills the pretty nice train scene is the fact that when the cart with all the people in it blows to kingdom come, the aftermath simply shows a couple of fully intact, semi blackened bodies near the rails. The final battle between Hex and Turnbull is also strange. It's short, shot through awkward close ups and honestly the most forgettable thing about the movie. Oh and there's this completely ridiculous and pointless "dream fight" where the two battle in the red clay desert type arena that keeps getting cut to in the sequence.

So who's to blame? Neveldine & Taylor are still credited as the screenwriters however their script is VASTLY different from what they ended up doing. How different? Well being a fan I did some digging and discovered this great article going through what they intended to happen versus what was made. Also on Neveldine & Taylor's website you can actually purchase their scripts including their original one for "Jonah Hex"; something I might do the next time I've got some extra cash. From what I've read and heard their version would have been without a doubt superior and could've really delivered that kick in the pants the summer season has yet to really get.

I would love to think that someone, somewhere is reading that article or their screenplay and is realizing how much Warner Brothers screwed up. I'd love to think that they're going to wait it down for a while and try to figure out a way to use this character from something worth while. Of course that MIGHT have been the case if they hadn't released the film against "Toy Story 3"; one of the biggest movies of the year. You see if you have a shit movie and you know it's a shit movie and you just want to release something to grab some cash and be done with it all... then perhaps picking a proper release date would be wise. The film opened at #8 so it's my guess that it won't be making back it's $65 million dollar budget (by the way... I'd LOVE to know where that money went). However their is a silver lining to all this. As it turns out someone did love what Neveldine & Taylor wanted to do for "Jonah Hex" and apparently wants them to do that for another back-burner comic book character, Ghost Rider. And while co-writer/ director Mark Steven Johnson ("Daredevil" and "When In Rome"... yes the one with Kristen Bell) did make the first awful damn movie, it seems the "Crank" boys will sweep in to actually turn it into something fresh, exciting and I'm sure quite ballsy. Everything "Jonah Hex" was not.

Toy Story 3 review

2010-06-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

I've waited since Thursday night to write this up. It's taken so long simply because I wasn't FULLY sure how I felt about the film. Granted to did really like it, in fact if anyone didn't like it then I'd think they lacked a heart. However I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about the film as a whole. I looked at different pieces as something all their own, but the big picture wasn't quite visible to me. After much thought and re-watching key sequences (including the ending with nearly "Terminator 2" level intensity) I've concluded that this is A: the best film of the summer thus far, B: one of the best films of the year and C: the best film in the trilogy.

As for the Pixar lineup I'd say it's somewhere under "Wall-E" and "The Incredibles". On a technically level this is beautiful and from a storytelling perspective it's smart, somewhat tipsy in the middle but has a final act packed with intensity and emotion. You all know the story, Andy getting ready to head off to college and his toy's getting donated to Sunnyside Daycare only to discover that their new home isn't as friendly as they thought. So the crew must go all 'Great Escape' on these goons and get back home. However it won't be easy. Woody's dead set on everyone simply returning home and being there for Andy no matter what, whereas Buzz and the others truly believe that it's time to move on and have new owners. These differing mind sets is where 90% of the emotion with the rest coming from that last bit of hardcore peril the toys must face.

We gets lots of great new characters including Ken and Barbie, the evil Lotso and the creepy Big Baby. Despite it's G-rating 'Toy Story 3' plays in the darker side of things quite a bit. Sure there's that frolicking good, bright fun we see in all their films, but there's also a heavy amount of darker toned sequences, jokes and general style. Those things really make the film stand out and adds something fresh.

It's funny seeing how fantastic a picture "Toy Story 3" is compared to the dozens of animated films that have come out this year already and were simply cookie cutter tales with rehashed jokes that don't work. Here is a well written conclusion to a story began in 1995, that's still funny and charming and witty. Here's a film that doesn't need bottom feeder jokes to get you laughing. Really there's not a lot else to say about "Toy Story 3". I was surprised at how good it was and how strong it gets, but not surprised that Pixar could pull off something this impressive for their only real franchise piece. I can't swear that we'll NEVER see Woody or Andy again. I don't really think it's something necessary, but I wouldn't be against it either. Let's just say out of everything in theaters now THIS is the best you can see.

The A-Team review

2010-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

It almost seems like with each review this summer I've had to pretty much sum how things ain't how they used to be. I've pondered over this thought quite a bit; is it the fact that I've gotten older and seen other things and have outgrown the popcorn and mindless summer films? Has the elitist side of me take over and I'm now forced to look at these movies with an up-turned snout or perhaps elitist views of others that have rubbed off on me? The very nature of why to go the these films has started to plague over the past month due to... really just a lot of pretty unimpressive works.
Overall I liked but forgot "Iron Man 2". Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" was nice spectacle, but still a B-Scott film. "Get Him to the Greek" was a fun enough ride and then there's the careful-who-you-tell-you-like "Splice" ;which has divided viewers and placed them in the love it or hate zones. Pretty much everything else has been crap.

I guess these times occur. I remember a few years back during Oscar season critics and audiences could easily say that a lot of the films had great performances (like Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote"), but the movies weren't really as good (also like "Capote"). However here and there are sprinkled films that remind you of why these times of the year is supposed to be great for movies; whether it's for fun or for acclaim. While I'll say 'The A-Team' isn't greatness, I will say that it is a subtle reminder and example of why the summer season is fun. TV to movie adaptations can be rough. There's that fan basis you have to attract who want fucking everything from the show top to bottom on the screen and for some reason feel that it's owed to them. Then there's casting, finding a story that works well enough for a movie NOT an extended episode of the show and finally getting somebody behind the camera that can bring the baby home. For my money the best two are still Andrew Davis' "The Fugitive" and Brian DePalma's "Mission:Impossible". Both got it right and both work well still.

For FOX the wanted to gather themselves a damn good team to make work a four year running show that was influential, the butt of many jokes and relished in it's ridiculousness. Personally I'm a moderate fan of the show. I used to watch the re-runs on TNN (now Spike TV) and after a long while of never understanding why people liked it, it hooked me in. Mainly Murdock... but it hooked me. Here they update the whole pack and deliver jokes that work, characters that are quite like that of the series and equally fun to watch and action sequences that... are absurd but in that kind of "that was pretty fucking cool and extremely unrealistic" way. Liam Neeson's Hannibal has charm and is always fun to see play around in this type of film. While I wasn't a lover 'Taken', I do have to say it's reinvented his career in a great way. Bradley Cooper's Faceman is pretty spot on. Cooper's a funny guy and I do remember seeing him a few movies pre-'The Hangover' that really dug him in, so it's cool seeing his expansion into this genre. "District 9" star Sharlto Copley never quite over plays Murdock. He hits the right notes that play into his humor and insanity and keep you wanting more. And finally UFC fighter Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson. Not bad for a first film. Granted this isn't 'Hamlet', but he still did a more that passable job of playing B.A. Baracus and not trying to copy Mr. T. Patrick Wilson is also here playing a nasty and quirky CIA man and Jessica Biel as a former lover interest of Faceman's and the person in charge of finding them all after they escape custody.

Co-writer and director Joe Carnahan ('Smokin' Aces' and 'Narc') works hard to make it much more of a character piece (like with his previous films) rather than as a simple and straight shooting action movie. That said there is no shortage of over the tip-top action sequences and it gets pretty damn ridiculous in that big final act. I'd have loved to have seen some of the big and ridiculous scenes done CGI-less, however I'm fully aware that attempting to fly a tank doesn't work too well in real life. Seriously though there is some less than lovely CGI pieces coupled with the really nice looking ones and they practical effects work (which there's a lot of). I do wish that was more evened out. But never know could be something to work on for a sequel.

"The A-Team" is probably the single most entertaining action film of the summer thus far and that's what this season is about. (RANT ALERT) I've honestly hit a boiling point where I've lost all tolerance for the elitist film pushers. Yeah... I'm fucking balling my eyes out that's I'm not renting your fucking Fellini or Goddard films. And yes I'm well aware (probably more so than you) of what foreign films are coming to America and why I should see them. Guess what... just because it's from another goddamn country DOESN'T MAKE IT GOOD! And pardon me all to hell if I wanna watch something with less substance from time to time. I'm fucking sorry you're pissed that people like "Avatar"; guess what I'm pissed that people think "Cold Mountain" is a good movie and that Renee Zellweger deserved her Oscar for it! I'm pissed that people seem to think Jonnie To is the next John Woo and I'm pissed that most Criterion DVD are hard to find and really fucking expensive. I'm pissed that people actually think that Vincent Gallo is an artist instead of the dirty, pretentious, tactless prick he is. But by no means bombard me with your sophomoric peddling of older films that you know you're supposed to like and thus you do even if you don't understand it. It doesn't impress me, it just pisses me off because if there's one thing I hate (hahahaha... like there's only one thing...) it's elitists film pushers. (RANT ended)

So... hmmmm... I was talking about something... oh yeah "The A-Team"! If you like fun, mindless movies that don't attempt to do anything other than allow you have a good time and say fuck off to 90 degree weather, than this is it.

Get Him to the Greek review

2010-06-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Movie spin-offs work about as often as television spin-offs. As great as the people in and behind them are usually they just don't work out the way they're supposed to. A lot of times it's due to the massive lack of effort put fourth by the creators because they feel like they've got their fan basis so what does it matter. Other times it's just things not clinging together well. Fortunately "Get Him to the Greek" aka Aldous Snow from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" gets his own movie is part of the few spin-offs that does work well. I'll say it's not as good as it's leaping point film, but they aren't the same types of comedies either.

A big part of why "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was so good was because it was first and foremost a romantic comedy that was both sweet and nastily funny. It attempted to lampoon everything about celebrity and celebrity relationships while still creating an ensemble group of memorable characters that tired to deal with the situation in a fairly realistic manner. "Get Him to the Greek" at it's core like a rock n roll excess film in which Jonah Hill's Aaron Green character must go through hell and back in transport his idol Aldous Snow to the Greek theater in L.A. for an anniversary concert which could easily revive his fading career. We get to learn a lot about Aldous' music, family, relationships and lifestyle which leads to scenes of utter and out of control hilarity and surprising moments of conviction in which he discusses his long spanning trouble with drugs. What's more interesting is when they attempt to blur those two things and try both in the same scene. It's kind of half and half.

I've read about a half a dozen reviews for the film and one thing I keep noticing is that people have been picking out who makes the movie. That's something I highly disagree with because like in 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' I felt ALL the characters help shape the picture. Hill plays (for a change) the straight man and actually manages to kill it and at times out shine Brand who works hard to be the center of funny. I'm not saying Russell Brand isn't funny (cause he damn sure is), but there's a lot of sharing going around with the others performers. I will also say that indeed Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs does steal a number of scenes. As a music and business mogul I don't care for him, but as an actor... I've got to say he's impressed me. Between this, "Monster's Ball" and the remake of "A Raisin in the Sun", Diddy's got range. Elisabeth Moss as Hill's doctor girlfriend is the un-sung hero I feel. She works hard to be a likable, sweet and kind of realistic character in Aaron's now maddening world of rock excess that he's trying to escape. And finally Rose Byrne who I don't think I've ever seen in a comedy, plays Snow's former girlfriend (or wife, I'm not entirely sure) model and singer Jackie Q. You might remember Byrne from a number of dramas including FX's "Damages", "Wicker Park" and "28 Weeks Later". It's great seeing her cut loose a bit and doing something very much unlike her normal fair and as it turns out she's fucking great at lampooning atypical posh, UK female musicians.

I have to say between this and "Splice" the weekend of June 4th has been pretty damn good. Writer-director Nicolas Stroller is one of the few Apatow backed directors that appears to have a greater sense of style about him, that could and probably will carry him much further. It certainly takes the film further and creates something great to look at even when a few of the jokes don't fly as well. The songs and the writing are still fantastic here and this cast is pitch perfect to every scene. Really with all the shit comedies out right now (looking at you 'Macgruber' and 'Sex and the City 2') here is finally a one that lives up to it's potential and provides numerous tear inducing scenes of hilarity in a great looking package. Perhaps finally the summer season is churning out something better than what we've been seeing.

Splice review

2010-06-04T14:22:00.001-07:00

What is happening in the cinema world right now is fucking awesome. Despite all the massive, massive amounts of crap being tossed out there and the usual junk food pictures there is people at work attempting to revive the science fiction and horror genres. Some of these people you know like Oscar nominated filmmaker Neil Blomkamp of "District 9" or Duncan Jones of "Moon". However some have been hard at work attempting to bring us smart and original ideas for a while. People like Vincenzo Natali. Natali created "Cube" in the late 90's; a Kafka-like psychological science fiction picture about people trapped in a giant cubic puzzle. After that he somewhat disappeared only really popping up once more on my radar for his directed piecein "Paris Je T'aime" which was among my favorites. All the while he was cracking the story that would eventually become "Splice".

Is it really horror? Not by the conventional thought of stuff jumping out and all that, but instead something very, VERY close to his and executive producer Guillermo Del Toro's feelings on horror, science and monsters. Del Toro is well known for of course the "Hellboy" films and "Pan's Labyrinth" however people tend to forget his bizarre vampire tale "Cronos" (which is getting the Criterion treatment soon), the war ghost story "The Devil's Backbone" or his homage to Universal movie monster favorite "The Mummy", his mega roach monster film "Mimic". Aside from that the man is a fucking Cronenberg junkie and obviously Natali is as well; something very evident here.

What the film is really about is Clive (Adrian Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), a rock star bioengineering team who have cracked DNA splicing and want to step it up a notch. So they do. From dealing with animal DNA, to tossing in some human DNA and the result is Dren. Clive fears what they've created and often speaks of destroying it however Elsa continuously reminds him of all that they could learn from her and eventually come to possibly love their creation. Dren is genetically a dozen different animals which allows from some fun and mildly tense sequences of discovery involved them dealing with her. But like most mad scientist creations something goes pretty wrong. Dren ages quickly and within a few months she appears to be in her mid twenties. She's tired of being cooped up in basements, labs and barns and wants out and that's the last thing Elsa or Clive want. Also as time progresses more and more is learned about her genetics as well as subtle hints about one of the character's childhood. For me much of what happens near the end of the second act play strongly into the things we are never told about this character's past and family life and why they might act the way they do.

"Splice" then uses it's final act to go for the gut and go out there. Creepily out there with stuff you've definitely not seen in modern horror. My friends we have entered Cronenberg-land. It's a wonderful place full of bizarre, skin crawling things that play more into ideas and morals and less into just straight gore. In fact there isn't much gore in the film at all, but it does warrent it's R-rating. I dare not spoil anything major and really do ask people to give this a shot, especially if you profess to like sci-fi movies or horror movies. Nowadays we mainly get remakes, torture porn or straight forward gore pictures. It's rare to find original, intelligent, disturbing horror pieces that don't need to relay on half-assed tricks to get viewers. Granted A LOT of people will probably not like this film, but that's honestly because they've promoted this to seem very much like a basic horror film and that's what they want to see. Those viewers are the reason we have so many damn "Saw" films in the world. No taste for the truly bizarre and disturbing, just for mindless gore and stupid traps. Let me just say that Cronenberg's "The Brood" is smarter and creepier than any of the "Saw" pictures.

I know I could repeat that last bit over and over again till my fingers bleed, but it's the truth and honestly I know this film won't to be major success. It's too strange for mainstream audiences that want movies like lunch meat. They want simplicity, easy understanding and whatever is the flavor of the month aka funny zombie movies. Being a horror fan it does piss me off to high heavens, but fuck all I can do about it. All I can say is that "Splice" goes to places few horror movies go to anymore and has fun with it. It's not a heavy-handed morality tale of why you shouldn't play God and it's not a brainless monster movie. It's "Frankenstein" mixed with "Cronos" with a scoop of "Dead Ringers".

Sex and the City 2 review

2010-05-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

As we return to the world of "Sex and the City", the highly successful book series, television series and now film series I'd like to note that yes as a young male this film is NOT geared towards me or my demographic. I'd also like to comment that I have watched various episodes of the show and did in fact watch and review the first film so I'm not unknown to this world and these characters. With the first film we leaped into the life of Carrie Bradshaw and and her gal pals as they bitched over a span of two years about the problems they were having with the men in their lives until they all finally pretty much realize that several of the issues were caused by themselves and their neglect, ignorance or idiocy. After resolving all their past issues (which were boring and pretty damn nonsensical) Carrie and "Mr. Big" get married and that was that.

So now we meet the girls again two and half years later for "Sex and the City 2" where Carrie and Big's marriage has lost it's spark. All he wants to do is sit at home and watch black and white movies while bathing in Old Spice and all she wants to do is to graze out under the stars every night. Samantha Jones aka Skank-o-tron 1000 is in full swing popping two fists full of pills to keep from looking like the Crypt keeper while still managing to go about the planet fucking anything that moves. (thanks Dennis Hopper, we'll miss ya) Charlotte is having a break down because she can't get control of her possibly retarded children that either continuously cry or fight tooth and nail to get some of mommy's precious attention. And then there's Miranda the walking corpse, whose googly-wide eyes, bleached white skin, flaming red slicked back hair and tiny Irish teeth could scare anyone better than the best Hollywood effects artist creation. Oh... yeah she's supposed to have a problem right? Hold on.... oh yeah, her male boss didn't like her cause she was a woman and all so she quit and started working with a bunch of happy hippie lawyers and then she was happy again. Spoiler alert.

But let's hop into the real meat of this film. Here is Michael Patrick King's second 'SitC' picture that is just as painfully long (146 minutes, longer than "Robin Hood") as the first film, but manages to be unfunny, borderline disgusting and yes pretty racist and insensitive. While I'm not going into this looking for well written humor (actually I'm going in to make up the humor with my friends, mission accomplished by the way), I would expect something clever or witty to slip out of one of these walking 'What Not to Where' promos. Instead we're treated to some of the out and out lamest ass jokes you could hear in modern cinema. I mean just hand in your face lame. The opening sequence which was a gay wedding decided to go as over the top as they probably could until they send it ONE STEP FURTHER by having the God of the gay men Liza Minelli sing a Beyonce song. That was the first scene in which I had my head in my hands... the first of many.

As we continue into that slow, steady descent into shitsville we head around the world to Abu Dhabi where the girls are on a free vacation of complete and utter vomit inducing decadence. I mean the fucking money these wee-brains spent while on this trip would really make you a bit sick to your stomach. At one point Carrie's hotel shadow aka paid slave tells her about how his wife lives in India and every three months they have enough money to see one another. After telling this to her friends the next morning over an elongated table filled with food, they quickly suggest going on a desert trek and picnic. I could only think about how everything on that table was probably a year of that guy's salary. But seriously what do they care? They've got their own problems like if Charlotte's smiling tub a goo husband is going to cheat on her with her large chested and bra-less Irish nanny. No readers this lovely lass says no, no, no to the shackles of the modern world of female undergarments and thus lets it all swing-a-ding loose. But hell at least she's good with the kids unlike their actual mother.

Honestly it's rare to see a two and half hour film completely filled with nonsensical bullshit. Not even the dreadful "Twilight" movies go as far as to make me just feel depressed watching it. While in the middle east they figure, hey this is the NEW middle east; a world without war, oppression or a super conservative moral code, religious belief system and law structure towards open sexuality so why not just grab on to a dude's erect cock at the hookah table?! This then brings about more sequences of ill done humor and general offensive bad taste. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for offending people but only when it's done for a point. Here, no point... just a bunch of bullshit to get horny older women and impressionable younger women laughing and mildly aroused.

Seriously though this film actually manages that moment where the film hits rock bottom. I've only witnessed this in a few pictures; not all terrible movies have a moments of complete and utter shit where the house of cards comes crashing down and all that is left is a horrible image on screen you'll remember for as long as you see movies. For "Sex and the City 2" it would be Kim Cattrall in the middle of an Abu-Dhabi market air humping in a linebacker like fury while swinging around a sheet of condoms and tossing out the finger like high fives after a Panthers game (ra-Oww!). This then leads to a scene that is equally as ridiculous and idiotic, but without that furious botox rage face and protruding Hulk veins. Really this is a horrible movie and as it stands the worst film of the year. The only plus side to the film is as a cinematic experience it was far funnier than watching "Macgruber".

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time review

2010-05-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was first getting hardcore into movies one of the first names I learned was that of producer Jerry Bruckheimer. I've probably mentioned this in past reviews, but I wasn't someone who began to love film via French new wave, the works of Goddard and even smaller power pieces by modern auteurs like Soderbergh. I enjoyed spectacle and things that were exciting to the eye and at least mostly tolerable to the mind.

I feel a bit sad every time I see his name placed on yet another half assed police show or another family geared, mild adventure movie. I remember the days of "Crimson Tide", "The Rock", "Con Air", "Armageddon", "Bad Boys" and "Enemy of the State". Days when he really pulled out all the stops and had hella stylish and original (or at least fairly original) fun with the films he presented. After the mega success of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films he's chosen to stick with these types of movies (or lower like fucking "G-Force"). Not that I'm a hater of PoTC, but it's not something that has the same glorious excitement as his older work.

Now this is his first video game based property and something that... well... COULD'VE been fun enough to watch; although I've liked NONE of the games older or newer for this, but I see how in film form it could be ok. Instead "Prince of Persia" is a bland bowl of ice cream that's poppy and watchable, but not in the slightest bit memorable or unique or all that fun honestly. I will say that in true Bruckheimer fashion he casts against the usual grain and goes with his proven and usually pretty cool formula. See he picks two fairly un-proven for the genre leads with a film like this. Usually people with good or even great track records and then surrounds them with vets that have done everything under the sun. So we get Jake Gyllenhaal as Daston and Gemma Arterton as Princess Tamina and they're placed along side Sir Ben Kingsley in villain form as usual and Alfred Molina as the comic relief.

They all sell their roles as best they can in this. Gyllenhaal isn't a proven action hero, but he is a proven actor that has a lot of range. Arterton is literally what prompted me to want to see this as I loved her (or loved looking at her) in "Clash of the Titans" and remember her quite well from "RockNRolla" and "Quantum of Solace". Both are really allowed to have fun and play around with their characters, but it's all done in that classical romantic adventure sort of way which is generic and sort of cheesy at times. Which is what people wanted "Robin Hood" to be like. They have chemistry as well and that goes a long way towards making their conversations less cheesy and distracting. The major problems lay with the directing choice and the story they went with. Granted this is based on a video game and this is the first in that version of the series of games, but it's presented in a kind of boring ass way.

Basically the dagger has magic sand in it and it can turn back time and Kingsley and the other bad guys want to get their hands on it. Most of the movie however is a desert trek that's... well... boring? Nah, I'll just say dull; after all there was ostrich racing! Nothing wrong with a little bit of that. (Fingers crossed this leads to Bruckheimer producing a live action version of "Joust") The problem is the fight scenes which are... seemingly well blocked off, are shot with about a billion close up cuts that greatly kills what fun could be in there. Director Mike Newell who did make by favorite Harry Potter film, just doesn't seem cut out for this sort of action setting honestly. The fighting is very much designed around parkour which as we've seen before can be pretty damn cool... but if it's done through 10000000 quick shots, then it's boring. Can I say that Pierre Morell, Martin Campbell or even "District B13: Ultimatum" director Patrick Alessandrin could have been better suited for this job? Yep! And that even with a dull-ish story it might have still been alright.

But alas we end up with another very run-of-the-mill action adventure picture that is better than most video game movies, but still doesn't work anywhere near enough to be called good. At the least people can see that Gyllenhaal is someone who wants to extend his range into more action fair and I think given all the work he put in it will pay off. Arterton is a strong actress that deserves stronger female roles and God willing that will happen for her too. Who knows maybe they'll even be used again in a film worthy of both their talents and looks.

Robin Hood review

2010-05-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Walking into "Robin Hood" this evening I stepped with heavy doubts. Simply put I read bashing after bashing of the film and with them pretty much saying the same things about it both things that were good and things that weren't. After the 148 minutes of crashing, bashing, slashing and galloping I could see why people weren't so loving of Ridley Scott's new epic vision of the birth of a legend however I wasn't one of those people. Granted I can't say I love "Robin Hood", but it was an entertaining and well made adventurous battle movie. And that right there is why it's getting handled this way critically. Is this really a Robin Hood picture as we know it? No. It's maybe... 30% a Robin Hood story. Traditionally Robin Hood films are high, frolicking adventure tales of nobility, honor, friendship and love. Robin is a quirky sort of man that loves causing trouble for those who abuse their authority and harm the good english people for personal profit. He vies for the love of Maid Marian and loves the adventures he has with his merry men. By the way I'm not saying this as some back-handed insult, I think that stuff's great and really feel like there are so few adventure tales told in todays cinema, because not as many people are interested or it's simply done in a very watered down, highly commercialized way as to never stick out too much.

Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" is about the birth of who that character COULD become given another film or what not. So instead of high adventures and swashbuckling, it's waring, ravaged lands, people being burning alive in houses, grit, grime, crime, corruption and betrayal. On second thought maybe I do kinda love it. The thing of it is (and I REALLY do get this) is that most critics (or at least the ones I read) have a certain expectation of the character and story due to be accompanied with this stuff and as you can see this ain't what's expected. This is a battle movie that at times attempts to bring about the concept of high adventure, but it's never frolicking, it's still brooding. And a heavy thanks to that goes to Russell Crowe, king of the brooding actors. But that's not to say some fun is had here and there. Once in a while he interacts quirky and freely with his men as does he with Marian played by Cate Blanchett. The moments are far between but there are little kick back and relax moments that occur when there is no fighting to be done.

Really the story is about the death of King Richard the Lion Heart, played by Danny Huston and the crowning of the tyrannical and oppressive King John the lying dick wad played by Oscar Isaac. John doesn't really give a damn about the people, just about money and power. Mark Strong plays Godfrey who is secretly working for the French and is bringing them into England to try and take over while Richard and his troops are still at war. Robin and his men fought with their king till his death in which they fled and aimed to get home rich. Well long story short shit gets poppin' and things don't go the way they're planned and now Robin, Marian and the merry men gotta go get badassed up and roll on these jive suckas. Again if you're a lover of the legend, not your cup of tea, however I'm not so in my book that's a simple case of bring on the mayhem. And it's Scott at his best bringing a stylish and grim eye to the battlefields that's still impressive even after seeing his proof that he's the best at this several times before.

Personally when it comes to the stories of Robin Hood I've never been a huge fan. I don't think I find them boring, I just don't find them too interesting. On film I've seen Flynn as Robin (cool, but I preferred 'The Count of Monte Cristo'), Kevin Costner (nice cast, boring as shit movie), Mel Brooks' 'Robin Hood Men in Tights' (which is fairly funny, until compared with other Brooks films in which it doesn't hold a candle) and then Disney's. That last one's probably my favorite and even then I wasn't a grand lover. Oh and that crappy TV show. So for me it's like going in with a blank slate and just hoping to, at the very least be entertained. As a Ridley Scott fan I'll say that visually it's quite a notch in the belt. I wasn't so sure from some of the trailers, but it appears that he went to great lengths to not show case the same landscapes we've been seeing since 'The Lord of the Rings' while also digging back into his stylistic past to present a much more interesting looking color palate. I will say it's biggest flaw is Brian Helgaland's screenplay which is pretty point blank and lacks much of the complicated depth we get in most of Ridley's pictures. It's not one dimensional story by any means, but considering both of their last couple films I would've expected something much more complex than this.

At the end I can say it was a good ride and one of the more rich looking and flowing summer films I've seen thus far. It's not a perfect film either for it's genre or Ridley Scott, but it's like B-Ridley Scott. You know like "Black Rain", "Legend" or "The Duelist". I'd also think it might treat people differently by knowing what kind of picture it is before hand rather than thinking it'll be like all the other Robin Hood films of the past fifty years. It's not that and really it's not a re-tread of "Gladiator" either (still not a big fan of that one by the way), it's more like grim adventure on an epic scale. Now if down the line things worked out and an idea for a sequel made on the concept of the stories we all know, but using this film as the foundation; that would be something interesting to see. I imagine it'd be dark yet still thriving with frolicking adventure. Best of both worlds I think.

Shrek Forever After review

2010-05-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

Is "Shrek Forever After" aka The Final Chapter the grand send off for the major animated franchise of the past decade? I'm hoping it is. While this newest installment is nowhere as bleeding tear boring as "Shrek the Third", it still doesn't live up to the glowing originality, humor, wit and intelligence of the first two. This time around the basic construct of Shrek is that of 'It's a Wonderful Life' where Shrek is never born after he gets all bitchy for not feeling like a 'real ogre' anymore. The subtle point at the end being that parenthood ain't easy, but always be thankful for what you've got.

So he signs a contract with Rumpelstiltskin who in turn plays the trading game where Shrek will get his one day of being a feared ogre again for a day he doesn't remember, that ended up being his birth. Awwwww snap, the playa got played! This then takes us down remake road where Shrek has to do basically the same things he did in the first film just with less death and depth. The only way to break the contract is for true loves kiss so he has to find the now warrior queen Fiona and get her to fall in love with him again and along with way re-friend the loud mouthed and only slightly humorous Donkey and the now retired and overweight Puss who isn't bringing in the laughs either, but he's doing a better job than the others. Oh and he has to defeat a small man with a big ego. Ah memories.

Ok, but seriously I don't hate this film. In fact I don't really dislike it, but it doesn't do anything for me. "Shrek Forever After" is 100% forgettable. Like "The Rocker"! You watch it, you shrug it off then you eat and go about the rest of your day. Nothing in this film is funny, but nothing is so blatantly unfunny as to make me hate it. Thus I'm not having to re-watch "How to Train Your Dragon" which is a film that I STILL go over and think of just how annoying and headache inducing those terrible jokes were and how tired I am of the overly cartoony and uninspired designs being used in a lot of these movies. Oh and don't get me started on Baruchel's fucking voice. Instead this final chapter plays is safe and does things that work to move along the fairly weak little story while not carrying on too long or throwing in too much.

I will say that the multitude of pop culture song uses have worn out their welcome and at this point it's like watching an episode of "Cold Case" and seeing what oldie they've got headlining this weeks episode. So what comes next in the animated world? I have zero interest in Universal's "Despicable Me", which MIGHT have been just a mediocre idea until they decided to turn it into complete junk by giving him kids to take care of. There's "Toy Story 3" of course which will probably be alright as most Pixar movies are, but I doubt it'll send us forward in anyway. And then to round out the ones being pushed now and that HAVE a chance to be something (that's right "Alpha and Omega", you look like shit, sound like shit and probably are shit) is "Megamind" which is basically a lot like the plot of "Despicable Me", but without kids and with a better cast including Brad Pitt. In anycase I don't feel like any of these will recapture that special something the first "Shrek" had. That certain kick that the animation world needed where they didn't think kids just wanted pop culture references and silly jokes, but that they could understand at least some form of satire and parody.

MacGruber review

2010-05-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

You know I talked a lot of shit about "MacGruber" before it's release, but there was heavy praise from critics as well as from advanced viewers I started thinking that despite the lackluster trailers and my general lack of love for comedian Will Forte and this SNL skit that I could be quite surprised and delighted in the glorious R-rated humor and excitement of all that is "MacGruber". And you know what? It didn't happen. Not for one second of this steaming pile of fecal matter did I feel like I was enjoying myself. So to the critic whom stated "The Best SNL Movie since "Wayne's World", you sir or madam are an idiot.

To summarize MacGruber is an idiotic former Marine who can basically do what MacGyver did on tv and also tends to dress and carry himself in a similar manner by keeping a 1980s mindset while in the modern world. On the other hand he also fucks everything up as constantly as possible while [SPOILER ALERT] still defeating the bad guy played by Val Kilmer [END] who killed his wife and has now stolen a nuclear warhead that he plans to blow up Washington D.C. with. I wanna first deal with why this sucks quite as much balls as it does. On the surface one could simply call the movie boring and forgettable because honestly it is but certain things have an ability to work. Kristen Wiig who plays MacGruber's love interest and partner Vicki St. Elmo is never really let to have too much fun, because she's forced to play straight-ish second fiddle to whatever bullshit Forte does. But there are one of two moments for her that really work. Both Kilmer and Powers Boothe (who plays Col. Faith) could sell just about anything on their worst day and here they try to make the most of what they've got. And Ryan Phillippe, God bless him even pulls off the dumbest of moments kind of well. The major huge annoyance of the movie is sadly enough star and co-writer Will Forte.

Basically the man jumps around, tries to impersonate action heroes and makes really, really, REALLY bad jokes the entire film. The only scene that works for him his a sex scene between him and St. Elmo and even that is made better due to it's editing. Beyond that he's just on one long ass running joke that no one finds funny except maybe himself. And I'm not saying this because I'm not a fan of the dude. He's no Ashton Kutcher to where I cringe even at the thought of him getting another movie, I just don't think he's that funny most of the time. He's like David Spade, with the right people around him and the right writing he can be pretty damn ok, but without it he sucks the big one.

The film is actually quite comparable with another powerfully weak action, comedy for this year, Kevin Smith's "Cop Out". And while both films work to try and kill the genre by created some really, really lame ass low brow jokes that never ever work, I can at least say SOME of "MacGruber" has action scenes that look nice. Mainly the opening scene which involves little to no action, but it's shot damn well after a bloody ambush had taken place in the desert. "MacGruber" is directed and co-written by Jorma Taccone, one of the members of The Lonely Island, which for my money has big hits and nice sized misses. He was also a big part of Andy Samberg's big one piece "Hot Rod" which I still have fond memories of, but by no means is it a great comedy. In fact its humor and style is lodged way up the butt of "Napoleon Dynamite", but it's was still kind of funny.

Now to what could've made this crapsterpice work. Something I've remembered since the Coen's "Burn After Reading" was that it proved once and for all you don't need the usual suspects for comedies to make a really, really funny movie; you just need the right people. This needed writers that A: knew how to make dirty jokes that were actually funny. Meaning poop jokes that worked, sex jokes that worked, gay sex jokes that work etc. B: could create a real sense that this was an action piece, but everything in it is just hilarious because of these crazy characters. And C: people that could tell some sort of a story. Even with the most basic genre example as Piere Morrel's over the tip top film "From Paris with Love", you always felt like you were in an action piece, but the antics worked so well. Even when Travolta would lay down some lame shit like 'wax on, wax off' (referring to his name and killing people), then Meyers' reaction would make it all worth while. Plus it pulled off some surprises with it's story and at the end you have had a good time filled with cursing, violence and low brow humor. That'll be on DVD soon by the way and if you're thinking of watching "MacGruber", save you cash and spend a buck to pick up "From Paris with Love" from Redbox instead.

Now with all this said, I do think there is something important to be learned from this film. This is yet another failed action/comedy genre piece and I think this puts a little extra pressure on Sony and Adam McKay's "The Other Guys". Sue me even when Will Ferrall's at his lowest he can make things at least fairly watchable and considering the extensive cast of with and against the grain performers this can work out... if it's done right. I think this and "Cop Out" are great examples of what NOT to do and should be considered as heavily for this genre as "The Heartbreak Kid" is considered what not to do when making a sex/rom-com.

The House of the Devil review

2010-05-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Ti West's "The House of the Devil" is one of those movies that probably once you know what you're walking into it becomes a stronger overall piece, but less frightening. I'm not saying this to knock the movie either, because it's much more of a simple suspense story rather than a full fledged horror movie. The film is heavily mimicked after similar styled films of the 70's and 80's and begins with a similar 'based on true, unexplained events' tag, when it's about as real as the Coen's "Fargo". It could happen, but we don't know if any of this did and as long as it's interesting we really don't care too much. Jocelin Donahue played Samantha, a college girl that's trying to move out of her dorm and into a house off campus. The real estate agent (cameo by horror legend Dee Wallace, always great seeing her) waves the fees so long as Samantha can come up with the first months rent by Monday. Regardless of her waving the other fees, that's still money she doesn't have.

At school she notices a babysitting ad on the board and gives it a ring. There is no answer. However as she walks away the pay phone she called from rings and it's the man who posted the wanted ad. Surely this must be a bizarre sign. Eh, maybe not, but after meeting the man played by Tom Noonan ('Manhunter'), his wife Mary Woronov and generally being in their very secluded house for a little while and THEN something might click that this place and these people are bug nuts. However the plot REALLY thickens when he informs Samantha that there is no baby and instead they have to look after his wife's elderly mother. He even offers her four hundred dollars for the work. She accepts.

What happens then is really tough to play out, but it's something that relays HEAVILY on the viewers patience and willing to wait for it to get into it's real horror elements. I will say that once it does it doesn't last too long which is unfortunate because it works quite well. Stylistically "The House of the Devil" feels quite old and not in a showy sense, but in a low budget and slightly off cliter technically sense with some real talent behind the camera. West is honestly on his way to getting his name really out there and I'd love to see this guy get a real budget and some other talents for a horror picture. I won't say this is something completely new, but it does offer up a lot of well done suspense that's never in a rush to get to the juicy stuff. That restraint is something very admirable in this day in age where there's always a mad rush to get into the violence or macabre.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo review

2010-05-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Oh those crazy Swedes and their sex and violence filled ideas... ahh... but seriously this is a thriller that does have it's healthy dose of both. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is one of those films that includes many elements for which we've seen before in thrillers, mysteries and horror films, but finds a way to piece them all together in an interesting and provocative way. At the same time it's a much rougher film than I expected including sadists and rapists coupled with the already running who-done-it and what'd-they-do mystery.

Our girl with the dragon tattoo is named Lisbeth Salander a punk, qusi biker/goth sleuth and hacker that works for a major security firm in Stockholm. After she's put onto the job of tracking a magazine mogul/ reporter after he's sentenced to prison she continues looking into him after her job has ended. The magazine reporter, Mikael Blomkvist is spending his remaining six free months by taking a job in another part of the country for an old man trying to find the killer of his favorite niece. Fun part, a body was never found and the incident happened over 40 years ago. Needless to say he's got a lot of work ahead of him. The man is one of the heads of the Vanger group, which was a family owned corporation with a lot of secrets. However what is not so secret is the fact that most of the family hates one another and so it could have been any number of them who killed her. As time passes Mikael delves further and further into the families past and uncovers more and more dirt, but still not much of anything to link a single person to a crime with no clues. Not until Lisbeth comes to the forefront of his life.

Now going into to her background is a bit tricky as I don't want to give much away in the area of the darker, nastier things in the picture. But I'll tell you that she's not somebody to fuck with and have her just take it as she proves throughout a number of scenes. Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth with a bit more doe-eyed-ness then I would've expected, but there's something within her performance that works. I guess I like the idea of the tough sleuth character considering we see so many sheepish ones in films nowadays. I'm sure with the other two films probably making their way to the U.S. soon we'll see what the rest of her story is really about, but there's a lot of hints to her sorted past. Fun stuff me thinks.

As a whole I don't find it as perfect a thriller, but a damn entertaining one made with a lot of style and guts. There are things that remind of 'Se7en' as well as elements that pop up in a very novel fashion like they would and probably do in the book series. It's not something enough to shout out rip off or anything or even enough to distract from the picture. Fact is I'm just damn pleased to see so many well made mystery based films in one year that are getting big press. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is one of those that'll be talked about highly for a while before disappearing (like "The Vanishing", pun not intended) or perhaps it's fate will be decided upon the release of the next two films in the series; who can say just yet. But it's a film for those who love crime thrillers and grim character pieces. It's got its thrills and bumps and humor and sex appeal to go with it's expansive and classy yet gritty storyline. If the film is near you it's definitely something to go check out.

Never Sleep Again review

2010-05-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

It's things like this that remind me why I love movies, why I love horror movies and why these movies are important. If you're a horror buff, film buff, love the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' world or just have a curiosity into what it takes to make elaborate looking films with little to no money then this is epic, four hour documentary is for you. "Never Sleep Again" covers all seven Freddy Krueger films as well as "Freddy vs. Jason". You'll see tons of interviews with the stars of those movies (barring a couple who are quite large now) and their various creators as well as hear the tale of the birth of New Line Cinema. I do recall years and years ago hearing that New Line was the house that Freddy built and now I know why.

Wes Craven created the original story from hearing of real events in which people (mainly in Asian countries after the Vietnam war) were having vivid nightmares and trying their best to stay awake. One such story was of a boy who told his parents that he couldn't sleep or else he would die. The boy's father was a doctor and gave him sleeping pills. He never took the pills but after a few days without sleep he finally blacked out and they put him to bed finding the pills rolling around under the bed sheets and a coffee maker in the closet. That same night the parents awoke to the boy screaming and by the time they made it to his room he was dead. I happen to agree with Craven in saying, now that's an interesting story. Well he and others go in the every little detail as does the others involved about the thought process, filming, writing and effects design of each film in the series. If you've never gone through and watched all the Freddy movies then I would actually say go for it.

Unlike the "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" franchises, Freddy is a different kind of lead; and while he did become a bit of a game show host after he was pimped out as much as possible he still had so much more than the other slasher hosts. Freddy could be funny and dark and make it all work together. Now I'm not saying all those movies are good, because that's not the case. But are they watchable? Yes. Can you find something entertaining about going through those films and looking at the crazy set designs and the old school effects and delve into it's cheesy charm? Yes. In many ways this made me long to see more horror done in these pre-CGI ways that's NOT torture porn or some clever variation of torture porn (lookin' at you "The Human Centipede"). It is fact possible to say that no other horror franchise is as original or interesting to sit through than that of the 'Elm Street' collection.

Granted my favorite slasher picture remains John Carpenter's "Halloween". There's many, many creepy, classy and trashy things I love about that film and I'll never forget the fear I had as a kid trying to watch it and jumping throughout the whole movie. But "A Nightmare on Elm Street" always fascinated me and I wished I'd gotten to see it when I was younger because while almost everything in it I already knew about, I could have still be freaked by some of the stuff around that age (I wanna say I was 7 or 8 when I saw 'Halloween' and had never seen a horror movie before that). I think the idea of a man that can kill you in your dreams is a shit load scarier then anything else really. It's hard to control you're mind in a dream. It's more like watching a movie rather than playing a video game so easily someone could snap your neck in a dream and that'd be your end.

There is nothing like this around anymore and it's kind of sad. Some people might want to argue that "Saw" is that, but it's not. There's not different between "Saw II" and "Saw V". It's all a continuously stupid series of senseless stories, bland characters and traps that are not longer interesting. Also it's main character Jigsaw is a boring mix of John Doe from "Se7en" and Hannibal Lecter. The 'Elm Street' series while not always having the best stories, still brought an original vision to the table and had fun with it each time. Those films aren't fun they're just clunky editing and lame set ups that kill any sense of terror. I know in twenty years or so they'll be a documentary of those films as well, but it won't be deserving. Hell I'm even sure the one for "Friday the 13th" was deserving, but this one... yeah I guess it is.

What this saga did was help launch acting careers for the likes of Johnny Depp and Patrica Arquette as well as careers for writers and directors like Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins and Brian Helgaland. It made a horror movie character a superstar known the world over, granted causing him to lose much of his fear effect for fun and games, but for a while he was a mega star. Now I wish I could say the Platinum Dunes remake was worth while and I wish I could say, yeah in a few years we'll see Nightmare 2 with a bigger cast and budget and maybe even somebody a little more tested behind the camera. I wish Jackie Earle Harley, who's performance of Freddy Krueger was in fact quite impressive will get a second chance to expand on his version of the character. Unfortunately I can't say those things cause I don't see it happening. P.D. played it pussy and turning in a shitty, shitty film. Almost as shitty as what Tim Burton did with "Alice in Wonderland". It's made some money so yeah... perhaps Bay and company will throw down some more cash and look for better names for a sequel. But what's the point if you're not going to be original and daring with what you do?

Rather than think hey we have to stay as close to this film as we possibly, why not take away the lessons those sequels taught us. Do they have to connect? No. Does it have to be scary all the time? No. But we must be original and fun. I know they can do that and I'd love, LOVE I tell you, to see Harley as Krueger again with some real writing talent going on behind and a director who's not afraid, has unique vision of surreal horror and knows how to make a fun movie. I think it's possible, but not going to happen right now. But in the mean time pick up the DVD for this or watch it online ( as I did) and kick back for a lengthy look at the creative world of horror cinema at it's best, worst and everything in between.

Babies review

2010-05-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

The main point of Focus Features new picture "Babies" is that babies are cute. Well generally they are. I've seen some not so cute babies, but for the most part those tiny people are cute and often very humorous to look at as they gaze around seemingly taking in the world around them. Is that enough for a documentary? Meh, sure why not. "Babies" is a pretty original concept and the film carries no narration and very little talking from the parents in the scenes with their children. Sometimes there will be music, but for the most part you're watching pure, raw, baby biz and I really like that.

But I'll say it works like a basic nature documentary sense of something you might see at an IMAX. You watch it, it's interesting and what not but you're always watching it and never really invested into it. It's not like that's a bad thing as it is pretty much designed as such, but it doesn't make me love what I'm seeing. Another point about "Babies" is that it's really a personal preference kind of movie. If you really love babies and/or kids or have never really experienced being around them, then this movie is right up your ally. If you have kids or not really a child person then it still might offer something fresh and interesting for you to view nonetheless, but you'll never like it as much as the first crowd probably. It is a very polished and well shot and edited documentary which includes families from Africa, San Francisco, Tokyo and Mongolia with the first and last families yielding the most interesting footage. For the most part the U.S. and Japanese families are a display of modern world parenting and what not which is all stuff we've seen over and over again. Sure they do cute things like the child getting noticeably frustrated about her toy and all, but there was always something really interesting seeing the other kids with their parents in the dry lands of Africa playing with rocks and bottles or stepping over goats and playing with their siblings in a field.

Clocking in at 73 minutes was also a wise choice as this isn't something that could carry on for a full hour and half or longer. Yes it's polished and looks like a movie, but too much of it might leave you feeling like you just got sucked into watching someones youtube playlist of their baby doing funny little things and you lost track of time. Personally it did take me a little while of watching to really get into it. I'm not a big kid person in truth. I like them well enough, but I'm not wild about em'. I know some day that'll change, but for now that's me. When I did start enjoying the footage it did work me over in the cuteness department and made me smile throughout the rest of the picture and perhaps laugh here and there.

"Babies" is as advertised and it works. I won't say run out and see it or anything like that, but it's nice and different. I'll admit while I didn't fully review Disney Nature's "Oceans" I did quite enjoy that a lot more than expected and while it too has that same lack of emotional investment, it was surprisingly large in scope and photographed several highly impressive and awe inspiring real world events. In the same token some people might call a child's first steps awe inspiring. I wouldn't go that far, but that's just my personal feelings on the matter. However I dare anyone not to smile when a baby laughs. That is undeniably cute always.

Iron Man 2 review

2010-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my last post, the hype machine got to me and I actually started looking forward to the return of Tony Stark. To recap my feeling on the first film they are now as they were two years ago. "Iron Man" was an good origins story, a nice character piece, but a slight bore of an overall movie. The few action set pieces weren't anything new and the finale was drawn out and yet still unimpressive. At the end of the day it was something I thought of on the same lines as Bryan Singer's first "X-Men" film. It works, but it's got problems. So this brings me to "Iron Man 2". At no point did I think, 'man this movies gonna suck'. Because I didn't feel that way, I just didn't feel like it would blow me away like the first did for everybody. Interestingly enough the films been capturing favorable reviews, but not as favorable as the first. Perhaps it's me but could someone out there explain why the first was considered so damn wonderful. Anyways, no I actually liked "Iron Man 2" more than expected, but it continues to suffer from a few very key flaws. The biggest one is that they pack the film with characters and major names, but tend to under use them. For example Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow has almost nothing to do in the movie and the little she does do could have come from a number of blank characters and actors. I'd have been more impressed if they used her in the same grand reveal way as Sam Jackson at the end of the first film. Paltrow doesn't really perk up till the final act or Cheadle for that matter so really it's a one man show for the majority of the film. That said when they do have a chance to really bring something to their scenes they do so quite well. I just wish they were given Downey Jr. screen time to a certain extent.

The climax arrives quickly after massive amounts of build out however it is more impressive than the first film's ending so I'm thankful for that. 'Tropic Thunder' co-writer and Lynch Mob member (group of actors connected with filmmaker David Lynch, not a group of people going around hanging other people. I can't stress this enough) Justin Treroux mainlines a surprisingly funny and quirkier than before story that isn't afraid to push Tony's disregard for peoples feelings or safety into the forefront of the picture. They show him more so for who he is which is a bad drunk and kind of a horse's ass. But it always boils down to he's our funny horse's ass and I guess that's something. Now for Micky Rourke, he fuckin' sold it. He plays Ivan to a tee and isn't a snarling villain, but a slightly more dimensional villain that does have a reasons for what he's doing and it's fairly valid. Samuel L. Jackson's extended Nick Fury cameo is also great because he really decides to lay into the role. He doesn't play it quiet and reserved but much more human. He's funny and witty, but on the level so as to never become a comical character there just for laughs.

Another beef I had with the first film was the lackluster action scenes which thankfully and to the films saving grace have been fixed. It appears director (and actor) Jon Favreau has learned some new tricks and puts them to use well within the movie. The best part of it... is that it's not all CGI. There's quite a bit of live action practical stunts being done and they really make a difference in some of these big sequences. Now they have a better feel to them whereas before it was like a cut scene from a video game. The race track sequence where Ivan attacks Tony is a prime example of the use of practical stunts that were noticeable and impressive as well as doing some very fine CGI and real world integration work. Neither film is action heavy which is a good thing and also neither films plots have calling for them to be action heavy. No, the main focus is very much Tony, his major problem and the man that he is at this point. He's flawed as all hell and is on a self-destructive path. At the end of this film we don't feel like he's any closer to a break through which will allow him to not do the things he does to people; we simply feel that Tony has lived to play another day.

But what can you say really? It's a big summer tent pole movie that kicks off the season and honestly it did a nice job of that. It's a solid super hero picture that'll provide it's share of enjoyment for a few weeks and works on those nice geeky, but not too geeky levels that the public can really dig into. Hell there's nothing wrong with popcorn fun as long as it's actually fun and this is. Now... for the secret scene or whatever you wish to call it. Unlike with the first film where the world was buzzing about what was at the end, I heard almost nothing about this one. Luckily someone told me to just stay and watch and I'd see for myself and that I did. It's a fabulous little tease of who we'll be seeing next summer from the Marvel universe. On a film lovers note said film in discussion has a fantastic cast and an interesting an extremely against the grain director behind it which could equal something very fresh for the genre. As a fan of the character in question I must say FUCK YES! No longer are we dealing with simple men and their devices, for now we have a film about a man born into badassery. I wait with baited breath that first official teaser trailer.