The Movie Buffer

Oscar Picks 2009

2009-02-22T17:53:00.002-05:00

Here are my picks for this year's Oscars (click to enlarge, red dots are my picks). There are a decent number of good nominees, but I was pretty surprised by some of choices - Anne Hathaway for Best Actress, for instance.

I don't agree with Heath Ledger getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor either, but he's an extraordinary case. If the academy wanted to give out a pity award, they should have nominated him for the Lifetime Achievement award.

I hope that you have as much fun watching the show as I do. Though I am going to forgo the live blog and twitter following that seems to have become rampant at these events. Isn't a 3 hour broadcast enough?

Taken

2009-02-17T21:33:00.003-05:00

***Note***

No MSG! - mono-spoiler glutamate

***EndNote***

Welcome back, 90-minute action thriller, I’ve missed you!

These days, longer seems better, but given a decent actor and relentless pacing, a short chase movie can be the perfect reprieve from two plus hour “epic” films.

This isn’t particularly new ground – father figure killing his way up a gang hierarchy to save his daughter from kidnappers. But this time the father is Liam freaking Neeson. He’s a genuine actor, so to see him dive into what should be a role for someone younger and greener in the biz, is an interesting juxtaposition.

Neeson plays a retired spy, Bryan Mills, trying to reconnect with his teenaged daughter, Kim, after missing much of her life. Even though he is uneasy about it, he caves to her request to go on a trip to Paris with a friend. Upon arrival at their Paris hotel, the girls are kidnapped and Bryan springs into action.

The draw of this kind of movie isn’t the story, though; it’s the star and the action. Anyone else and this would have been just a sub-par action movie, but with Neeson’s stone cold gaze and surprising brutality it’s a fun watch. The rest of the cast are set-pieces: the bereaved mother, the foreign goons, the wimpy French cops. They fulfill their roles by really making Neeson stand out and shine.

When it comes to the slick action film, we’ve seen many unlikely stars rise as action heroes, Matt Damn in the Bourne series and Daniel Craig in the Bond series, and Neeson has got his foot in the door with this role.

The main flaw about the film is that the story is so firmly entrenched in cliché. It will certainly be hit or miss with many viewers. See this film for the action, but remember the check your brain at the door, you won’t need it.

DVD review: Postal

2009-01-12T22:40:00.003-05:00

***Note***

A spoiler a day keeps the doctor away.

***EndNote***

Uwe Boll – this name strikes fear into the heart of every videogame/film fan. From House of the Dead to Far Cry, Boll has become one of the most prolific and maligned video game film producers with half a dozen completed and several in development. Brutally maligned is more like it. Rightfully so because none of his films have been well received.

Writers note: With so many unsuccessful films under his belt, you may ask yourself where Boll gets the money for these films. In Germany, there is a government program that allows investors to get big tax deductions and other write-offs for financing films, especially if they fail to turn a profit.

Postal is yet another strike out notch on Boll’s bedpost. Based on run-and-gun third person shooter of same name, it stars an unnamed man (usually called “Dude”, “Bro” or “Guy”) who has no particular agenda other than trying to make a living. Along the way he gets involved in several shootouts, a heist for a cult, and a terrorist plot. It’s also supposed to be a humorous, so they’ve heaped on some shit and gay jokes.

The film is a collection of 5 subplots connected poorly by “random” events in an attempt to capture the open world, choose-your-own-adventure aspect of the game. An open world works great in a game because the player thinks it and then makes it happen. In a movie it’s terrible because it’s difficult to follow one event to the next because what seems like a logical progression to the director may seem like an incoherent mess to the viewer.

Zack Ward, Dave Folley and Verne Troyer are in this film, but phone in their performances. Even if it’s a cash-grab guys, do your job!

There’s not much to say about because the film is pure fluff. I guess Boll was trying to make a movie that’s awfully bad, but kind of endearing. It’s too bad that everything that happens in this movie is so crass that any nugget of satire that may have existed was reduced to a dick joke. This sort of film would have been a challenge for any director (I’m looking at you DOOM director Andrzej Bartkowiak) which is probably why the rights weren’t picked up before Boll.

One thing in Boll’s defense is that he seems to be a guy who loves what he does and doesn’t mind taking some flak to get his projects completed. Look at Christopher Walken and Samuel L Jackson, they’ve done some goofy films and people love them. So why not Boll? Well, you need at least a couple decent films under your belt before you start going out on a limb. Then, people need to know that you realize that you’re doing a crummy picture.

Postal is a disjointed failure that wastes the talents of its actors and more importantly the viewers’ time. Pass on Postal. I tried to work in an undeliverable joke, but it didn't seem to have legs.

DVD Review: Kabluey

2009-01-11T21:38:00.003-05:00

***Note***

Hey, Hey, kids! No spoilers below!

**EndNote***

Dressed in a blue corporate mascot costume, Salman (Scott Prendergast) stumbles around listlessly advertising office rental space and comes to realize that he’s trapped, not only in the suit, but by his way of life. He’s been fired from several jobs and has had to move in with his sister in-law (Lisa Kudrow) to help her with her children; her husband (his brother) is fighting in Iraq with the armed forces. He’s a grown man, but not quite because he’s living an extended childhood by relying on everyone’s sympathy and charity.

Things begin to change for Salman when he dons his blue suit because people recognize him and even enjoy his company. This Jekyll and Hyde transformation sets up an emotional coming-of-age story and some bone-dry humor.

The trailers for this film are highly misleading because they focus on the absurd sections of the film and paint a picture that this is a pure comedy. With these expectations, I was surprised by what unfolded, a drama with deliberate pacing and plot development. After recovering from my initial disappointment, I bought into it and started to like that it for what it was.

Much of the humor is found in Salman’s deadpan reactions and timid speech. His bashful personality leads him into many painfully awkward situations, but they all have a thread of kindness as a lifeline from being too repellent.

Writer-director-star Scott Prendergast uses the stark environment of a small “every-town” to heighten the sense of isolation. Salman is a weird guy to begin with and it gets much worse when he enters the microcosm of the closely knit community.

The supporting cast came up huge in the film to drive the story forward. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a loud-mouthed, womanizer is perfect casting and his dialog is the most quotable in the film. Lisa Kudrow delivers an emotionally complex performance as the lonely sister-in-law. Some may call her bitchy, but given the circumstances, she’s over-worked and under-appreciated, her reactions are understandable.

Even though I came into this film thinking comedy, the deeper story did grab and hold me. I enjoyed seeing Salman’s evolution into a more complete character, though the ending is a left to our imagination. Ultimately, the film was better than I would have thought and I liked it a lot.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2008-12-21T21:46:00.002-05:00

***Note***

Here comes Spoiler Claus, here comes spoiler claus

***EndNote***

Authors note: It was hard to put this article together because my initial reaction was so strong that this would have just come of rant-y. So, I’ve let my thoughts settle and here’s my take on the film. I won’t sweat the small stuff and I’ll only give a couple of the biggies away because there are just so many.

To say that remakes are tricky business is to say the very least. It’s never the awful movies with a decent idea that get remakes; it’s the great or memorable movies remade as a cash grab. A cynical thought, but appropriate in this case.

To avoid comparing the new to the old is impossible, so I’m going to have to take this one head on.

The original the day the earth stood still is a cinematic classic made in 1951, which played on anti-communist fears to reveal that the human race needs to grow up and put aside our petty differences, or face the dire consequences. Both the story and the presentation would probably stand up with the appropriate technological upgrades. Though the special effects are laughably primitive, they were used in just the right way to keep the tension and the tone of the story even.

The new film plays up the environmental issues that are hot button today, which is an interesting spin on things. I was curious about how they were going to contort the plot to fit around this premise because it’s quite a different matter to change the perception of the planet rather than wrestle with the nature of being human.

Unfortunately, the wheels start coming off right after the 30 minute introduction of the players. Beyond the cosmetic changes of the characters and the story, there is a plethora of failings that doom the film, worst of all the terrible rewriting of the story.

The message of this film is very poorly articulated, even though it is a very important topic and should have some gravitas attached to it. There are many plot points that the director shoves in our face only to have every one contradicted.

Klaatu and Gort are now exterminators, rather than messengers, who arrive on Earth ready to pull the trigger on the human race. Right out of the gate, Klaatu says he’s here to save the earth from us because we’re violent, small-minded and irrational, but doesn’t even after he’s shot, imprisoned and denied access to anyone that has any power.

After seventy years of observation, the aliens claim, rightly, we’ve polluted and subsequently doomed the Earth to a slow death, so we must be eliminated. But what’s the first move they make – blowing up some planes which lights some trees on fire. Great appropriateness for environmentalism, guys. This scene was just a short filler device to show that our weapons wouldn’t work, so why not leave the original idea of Gort having a vaporizer ray? It even works from an earth-friendly perspective.

Upon reflection, it’s hard to imagine what was going on in the writer’s head. He portrays humans as brutally violent in one scene, Klaatu gets shot for trying to shake hands with Helen(the original had Klaatu offering an alien device that was mistaken as a weapon), and then five minutes later she’s begging him to see we aren’t all that bad, while he’s strapped onto an operating table. He gives us Klaatu, who says that he won’t let anyone get in his way, being stopped by a simple “no” when he asks to address the world. We also get a terrible rewrite of Helen’s son Jacob, who in the span of one scene flip-flops from glib adult to a petulant child.

In order to update the stuffy alien visitor, Klaatu has superpowers this time around: He can connect his eyes to closed circuit video cameras through electrical outlets; He can become a polygraph machine and defibrillator; He can heal wounds in his larval stage. Furthermore, his spacecraft can subvert all communications and defensive satellites, travel at the speed of light and has an impervious shield. Even with all these upgrades, he needs to walk around and talk to people to deliver the bad news about the planet. In the original film, the idea that he has to talk to everyone personally makes sense because it’s the simplest way. Here, Klaatu can easily hijack the satellites, broadcast his message, and reach practically the whole planet.

If I really stretch, the story works between Klaatu, Helen and Jacob, but the whole world is involved and everyone outside these three would have been totally in the dark about what had transpired. Originally, Klaatu sees that we have the potential to change, so he addresses the world and tells us to shape up or there will be consequences. Here we get a feel good ending where on the brink of destruction, Helen and Jacob forgive each other for their failings as parent and child (A great scene if the story is about peaceful co-existence but this movie is about saving the planet and all the hugs in the world won’t stop greenhouse gasses). Then, Klaatu disappears into his ship and leaves earth.

My feelings really varied about this movie, though none of them were good. At first, I was upset because nothing was resolved, which dulled over a few days to where I am now, disappointment. They missed a good chance to capitalize on a current fear and shine a bright spotlight on what could be done about it. The anti-war message of the original, I think, is still very relevant and could have been involved. Like The Critic, Jay Sherman says, “If it’s a remake of a classic, watch the classic” and that’s the best advice I can give you.

DVD Review: Fido

2008-12-18T19:37:00.002-05:00

***Note***

Spoilers, bad!

***EndNote***

There’s not denying that Shaun of the Dead reopened the zombie movie door. Now, we’re seeing a renewed interest in the genre and some pretty interesting takes on the classic zombie movie. One such film is Fido, which is part Dawn of the Dead, part Lassie and part Pleasantville, as strange as that sounds.

In typical zombie horror fashion, the world has been overrun by zombies, so the humans have had to setup a safe zone with electric fences, sentry guards, the whole nine yards. There are also neighborhood zombie extermination squads, marksmanship taught in schools and up to the minute zombie reports on the news. To further combat the zombies, a mind controlling collars has been developed to pacify and reintegrate zombies back into civilized society, many of them are used for menial labour or as household servants. Now, set this paranoia against the wholesome vibe of Leave It to Beaver and the stage is set for Fido.

Fido is the Robinson’s servant zombie, who is picked on constantly by family patriarch, Bill. Though everyone thinks that he is an unthinking monster, Timmy tries to befriend the zombie and humanize him a little by giving him his name and teaching him to play catch. Timmy believes that Fido is a good zombie, but when his zombie control collar malfunctions reverts to his cannibalistic ways. This Jekyll and Hyde back and forth is the pivot of the story as Fido and Timmy try to figure out ways of fixing the trouble they create.

Billy Connelly plays Fido and is terribly likeable as the zombie. We see that perhaps even zombies have a lighter side to them and the viewer is made to sympathize with his plight. I liked Carrie Ann Moss as the dainty housewife who is far more rugged than appears. Though she is treated as just the lady of the household, she quickly becomes fifth business and really pushes the action forward. The rest of the cast is pretty one note but they get the job done in a humourous fashion.

Fido was a pleasing experience, if a little saccharine at the end. It wouldn’t have hurt the film to end on a less absolutely happy ending, but it fits in with the 50s sitcom theme. I would have liked a little more depth to the mischief that Timmy and Fido get into, but really, Fido’s a zombie so the worst he could do is eating people. This is a well made zombie centered film, but a comedy at its core. For the zombie enthusiast, this is a lightweight but a nice one.

DVD Review : Smart People

2008-12-18T19:34:00.003-05:00

***note**

The spoilers are everything that is the case

***EndNote***

A story about dysfunctional intellectuals is great material because a culture of the unrelenting pursuit of knowledge (and the notoriety that comes with it), it is easy to sacrifice other aspects that make up the human experience. Smart People consists of two such stories: Lawrence’s (Dennis Quaid) story and Vanessa’s (Ellen Page) story.

Lawrence is a tenured English professor, who actively distances himself from his students, discourages their growth by stifling their interpretations of his subject, Victorian Literature, and loathes having to simplify his books and essays to get them published. His abysmal relationships with students and co-workers are only eclipsed by his disastrous handling of his family.

Vanessa is a child sized version of her father, the above mentioned Lawrence, though she does have a dream of moving away from her dreary surroundings. She shuns all her cohorts and isolates herself, but she’s lonely and wishes that she could just integrate.

The crux of the film is that Lawrence has a seizure and is treated by Dr. Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), who was a former student of his. One of the side effects of the seizure is that he can no longer operate a motor vehicle, so his lay-about brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) moves in to help him out.

Chuck becomes a comedic foil to both Vanessa and Lawrence, but nothing can save these two utterly unpleasant characters. Chuck tries to remind Lawrence that even fleeting happiness is still happiness and he should take a chance with Janet, though Lawrence seems just as happy to remain sullen. Chuck also tries to introduce Vanessa to adolescent banality by getting her drunk and stoned.

To put it absolutely plainly, Smart People tried to portray academics like Sideways portrayed wine connoisseurs, but instead of showing their humanity and frailties, we see that they are terrible people who sabotage themselves and those close to them. There is no reason given to believe they don’t deserve to be in their particular situations or that they can change.

I wanted to enjoy this film. I like Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page, and Thomas Haden Church but for the life of me I just couldn’t connect to the characters or the story. This film appeared with little fanfare and went quietly into the night and I think we’re all better for it.

DVD Review: American Gangster

2008-12-18T19:29:00.005-05:00

***Note***

There can be only spoilers

***EndNote***

When the phrase “based on a true story” pops up in the trailer for a movie, it always leaves a pang of disbelief in the pit of my stomach. I ask myself, “So what did they make up?” and “What was the real story?” and this one seems to be based loosely on actual events.

American Gangster missed me in theatres because I didn’t think that it was going to be all that interesting. The new crime boss that rises to the top of an empire to be undone by an act of hubris is something that most gangster films involve, so I passed on it. Though, having Ridley Scott as the director did pique my interest.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of Scott in films, after a lull in his career in the 90s. I was interested how he would tackle this subject matter because he was one of the last marquee directors not to have a big budget gangster movie under his belt.

American gangster dives into the lives of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas and the detective who is trying to stop him, Ritchie Roberts. Frank, who was brought up in the old school of organized crime, assumes the mantle of neighborhood boss and ascends to kingpin by devising a new scheme for importing drugs and increasing his influence in the local business.

American Gangster was quickly compared with classic films like Goodfellas, The Godfather, etc., though the movie that is really matches up against is Scarface. Unlike these films, American Gangster lacks artistry and complexity of The Godfather and Goodfellas, and the balls out destructiveness of Scarface. I can appreciate the lack of pretentiousness but a few touches of subtlety would have really jazzed up the picture quite a bit.

For example, Franks rise to power is so quick and veiled it’s no wonder that it all comes crashing down. Though Frank’s drug scheme is pretty clever, wouldn’t the other bosses and gangs have figured out what he was doing in order to maintain their market share? There are plenty of issues like these that could have been resolved with a few scenes but I guess they were over budget or late so explanations were deemed unnecessary.

The limiting factor on American Gangster is that it hasn’t had to stand the test of time like these other movies. We’ll see in 10 years if it survives or not. My guess is not because there is nothing quotable in the film, like Scarface or Goodfellas, and nothing poignant like the Godfather. It’s a decent film but forgettable.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

2008-10-06T23:46:00.001-04:00

***Note***

/spoilers

***EndNote***

Considering my boon-dock town will never be chosen for a limited release location (I couldn’t see Choke, Religulous, or Rachel Getting Married) and anxious for a good laugh, I was in hoping that “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People” was going to be the metaphorical marshmallow in the cow patty of this week’s releases.

In the world of parasitic tabloid magazines, paparazzi and celebrities all too willing to smile for the cameras, we find Sydney Young (Pegg) yearning to be on the inside of that Hollywood veil of success. Except, he’s not in the industry, he writes for a homemade magazine lampooning that lifestyle. When his over-the-top stunts to find a scoop catch the eye of editor of Sharp’s Magazine, Clayton Harding (Bridges), Young takes a step towards his dream and moves to New York City to work for Sharp’s.

The film is based on the memoirs of a Brit (Toby Young) who, for the lack of a more accurately crass expression, star-fucks his way to semi-notoriety as a reporter for Vanity Fair. Of course, in both stories, the names are changed so no one would be the wiser.

The book was an excellent example of putting the media in its place because if any of the media outlets complained that they were being painted like vacuous sycophants, Young could turn around and call them bitter. If they said that it was a good read, he could only say, “I told you so”. So, the book enjoyed good reviews and fair amount of success.

The main problem about telling the story of the shallowness of the entertainment industry is that you run the risk of becoming that which you despise. The characters are all one trick ponies, who hobble around barely cognizant that no one is paying attention to them. Toby could probably cut into the people and the magazine he worked for deeply, but doesn’t because otherwise he wouldn’t get published. So, he tones it down further and further until all that’s left is a string of piss jokes and spit takes.

It’s all so meta - an artistic void trying very hard to pose as satire about an artistic void. Not only do we not get to know any of the characters, you have a menagerie of the damned for the starring cast: Megan Fox as a vapid star. Really!? Kirsten Dunst as an anal-retentive, whiny misanthrope. No way! Worst of all, you have Simon Pegg, who could pretty much save any film, barely doing anything. His character gets dumped onto the screen as a half-baked asshole, who rants about never selling out, so his inevitable sellout is a real shocker, I swear. There is just nothing going for Pegg’s character so why should we care what he does or doesn’t do.

The only characters that are any good are Jeff Bridges and Gillian Anderson. Bridges plays the editor of Sharp’s and former media hatchet man, Clayton Harding. Harding is Young’s hero because he, Harding, had written his own media bashing magazine in his youth. Anderson plays the cut-throat publicist, Eleanor Johnson, who manipulates Young into writing several puff pieces with Megan Fox as the prize. If only these two weren’t secondary characters. As a footnote, there are several good actors in bit parts, such as Chris O’Dowd and Katherine Parkinson of the IT crowd, and Thandie Newton as herself.

I was sorely mistaken about this film and I’m ashamed that I was so easily duped into dumping cash into it. Pegg should have known better than to sign on to this sinking ship, but I guess the opportunity to roll around with Megan Fox only comes once a lifetime. As an avid Pegg fan, it pains me not to recommend this film. Rent it for completeness, but otherwise avoid it.

DVD reveiw: Batman Gotham Knight

2008-08-20T23:09:00.004-04:00

***Note***

What harm are spoilers if you have no mouth to speak them?

***EndNote***

Batman Begins is probably the best “reboot” film ever and The Dark Knight is the best sequel of all time. So, spin off material was bound to show up sooner or later and in this case. it is the animated feature, Batman Gotham Knight.

Taking place in a timeline outside the continuity of the film frees Gotham Knight to explore other aspects of Bruce Wayne and Batman. We see two sides of Batman: the idealized version as seen by a bunch of kids and maligned version of him as portrayed by two detectives. There are also several stories that bulk up the Batman origin story and mythos.

Gotham Knight follows the same formula that The Animatrix set out: Six vignettes created by different animation studios that tackle different aspects of the character. It’s kind of gimmicky way of tacking on some exposition that was too lengthy to add to the films.

The first and second segments make up what I think is the best part of the movie. The first segment is about how kids see Batman, as an awesome superhero. The four friends regale each other with stories of close encounters and how great he his. Eventually, they end up meeting him in person and though it’s apparent he is really just a man in a suit and cape, they can't help but project their fantastic ideas onto him. The second segment is about how the cops react to Batman joining the fight against crime. The detectives in the story talk at length about how he may be helping people but is hurting the reputation of the police force.

The other four segments play up the action parts of Batman’s life. The first of these action stories shows us the how Batman will not risk innocent lives during his missions. The second is about Killer Croc and the Scarecrow involved in a kidnapping, which Batman resolves by kicking ass. The third segment is about how Bruce developed his skills of pain management during a trip to India. The fourth segment is a very rushed story of an assassination attempt on Lt. Gordon’s life. Batman shows his fierce loyalty to Gordon, not only averting the assassination but by taking a few bullets himself.

These actions stories were pretty standard fare and failed to excite because there was so little time to get into them. Moreover, the fight scenes were pretty lame compared to what we got in the live action films. I liked the two other parts because they spent their precious time explaining something outside the two films, creating something new.

The animations styles vary wildly from one part to the next, so it was hard to get bored with the visuals of any of the sections. I preferred the animation style of the first segment which was a very simple and streamlined approach, where as the rest are overwhelmingly detailed and stylized.

Though this film will probably get over looked because of it’s proximity to the release of The Dark Knight, it’s worth a look for fans of the two newer Batman movies as well as animation fans. Despite it’s flaws, Batman Gotham Knight is an okay footnote to the two great Batman films.

DVD Review: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

2008-08-11T22:05:00.002-04:00

***Note***

I needed Spoilers 'cause I had none..

***EndNote***

After Harold and Kumar finally get to White Castle, eat their burgers and each have epiphanies, they segue into a trip to Amsterdam in order to follow Harold’s love interest, Maria, and smoke a ton of legal weed (Of course).

The films are separated by 4 years but the events of each flow together uninterrupted. What the viewer felt as a couple of years was, in movie time, just a couple of hours. They wash up after a long night of extreme mayhem and just keep on trucking.

John Cho and Kal Penn play the eponymous Harold and Kumar, respectively. These characters seem to be within the comfort zone of the actors so, there is very little change in this film from the first. The plot does allow for more development of Kumar, who was left rather hollow. New comer, Danneel Harris (from One Tree Hill) plays Kumar’s ex girlfriend/soulmate, Vanessa, who has reformed from her pot-smoking ways to become the fiancée of an up and coming young Republican, Colton Graham. Upon learning of the wedding, Kumar realizes that he can’t lose Vanessa to such a “douche-bag” so, wedding crashing becomes the secondary mission.

The jokes start up pretty fast and furious with one about shit and another about pubes. There are plenty of nods back to the first film that were rather superfluous, but, as always, if you hadn’t seen the first one you wouldn’t notice. Like the first film there are a plenty of raunchy jokes and being a sequel the writers jacked it up with even more offensive racial jokes. But these jokes never tread too deeply into the hate-mongering side of the stereotypes.

I intentionally skipped this film in theaters because I knew an “unrated and uncut” version would arise at some point, loaded with several new scenes and more dialog. Unfortunately, most of the new dialog is just over-dubbed on the original cut so, it sounds pretty cheesy. I would have liked them to pay a little more attention to their production rather than add a few extra lines.

"Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" had a certain charm that was lacking in this installment. Though the antics were pretty much the same, "White Castle" always held a grain of realism so they could ground the story, but "Escape from Guantanamo Bay" is much more fantastical it doesn’t draw the viewer or make a lick of sense if you think about it. Nevertheless, I liked the characters, the continuation of the story and the final conclusion so, I would recommend this film.

Pineapple Express

2008-08-10T23:49:00.003-04:00

***Note***

No spoilers! Yeah, what!

***EndNote***

The duo of Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow strike again with this pot-fueled extravaganza. Pineapple express deserves such fanfare because there is quite a bit that goes on especially for what is essentially a buddy comedy.

Even though these guys could probably get anything green lit right now, they seem to be focused on putting out some seriously funny material. Many fans were eagerly chomping at the bit to see this movie, myself included, and we were not denied. The plot of the film is pretty straight forward, it’s like Cheech and Chong meets Snakes on a Plane, Dale (Seth Rogen) witnesses a murder and unwittingly drags his dealer/friend Saul (James Franco) into a string of acts of extreme violence and heart-warming male bonding.

The director of this film, David Gordon Green, hasn’t been in the director’s seat for very long and his other fare has been in the vein of serious drama. But to the contrary of what Harold Zoid says, “You’re un-funny and untalented – that’s why you’re perfect for drama!”, Green is talented and handles comedy with a sleek no-nonsense style.

Rogen and Franco have great chemistry together and they play the pothead and dealer with ease, despite the characters being pretty stereotypical. Even though some of the jokes are pretty weak, their delivery of the lines and their mostly drugged out performance really shines through.

When the film gets a little deeper into the action parts, there is a bit of gore, gunshot wounds mostly, but it’s mostly for comic effect.

Given that the other characters are one-liners, the actors play them well (there are a few notable names but the film is really about Rogen and Franco). Ed Begley jr. and Rosie Perez are the next biggest stars of the film and they get a few solid laughs.

The structure of the film is pretty lopsided – the first half is all talk and the second half is nothing but running around, explosions and vehicular man-slaughter. And like I said before the writing does slack-off here and there.

The last thing that I can praise this movie for is changing my opinion of James Franco. I never really liked him in his other roles. To me he always seemed like a Hayden Christensen-type, sour faced, crybaby actor but now I can see him in a different light.

Overall the film is good: Good laughs and a good heart with decent acting and some clean directing add volume to a pretty typical movie plot. The deficiencies are mostly negligible but as a whole the front half feels wordy and the back half feels tightly packed. This is not a film for everyone but I would happily recommend it.

Phew, I got through this whole review without resorting to a weed pun! Hooray!

X-Files: I Want to Believe

2008-07-31T23:57:00.003-04:00

I went into this film really wanting to love it. I loved the series, well, most of it and I liked the first movie. With ten years and six years separating those memories and this film, I felt that absence would make my heart grow fonder. But the film was pretty ho-hum.

I’d heard right off the bat the film was like an extended episode (or two episodes combined), which was great news for me but as I read on they really meant was it looks and feels like a television show rather than a feature film. They spent 30 million making this movie and I struggle to see where it all went. The casting was probably the biggest expense because there was very little in the effects department. I guess getting Xzibit broke the bank.

Resurrecting characters is more than a trend these days, it’s an epidemic and in most cases it’s a case of a last cash grab or to reinvigorate a stagnant career. But David Duchovny is on a hit show, Califonication, and Gillian Anderson has been nominated for numerous awards for her other projects. So, maybe this one was just for fun. Anyway, Duchovny and Anderson play their famous characters almost perfectly. Neither of the actors has markedly aged or changed from the last time we saw them so, the illusion of a seamless transition works. Though Scully is a lot more churchy in this film than I liked or remembered her being from the series.

With the X-files basically wrapped up, there is a new breed of mysterious cases that the FBI is handling and they need to bring in a couple of experts to help solve a peculiar case. Scully is tapped to track down Mulder and with a little persuading the duo are back in the thick of things. Agent Whitney (Amanda Peet) is the new Agent Mulder and she’s conducting an investigation to track down a lost agent with the help of a pedophilic priest, who seems to be a psychic medium. It’s a pretty decent plotline, but there is a main diversion from this that hampers the flow of the story.

During her time away from the bureau, Scully practices at a church run hospital, where she is treating a boy with a currently incurable brain disorder. She continues to treat the boy even though her options are quickly disappearing. There is some hope of treatment, but there is an ethical debate because it requires stem cells. Holy cripes, this is getting heavy! So, the priests are against doing anything and letting God do His thing with the boy. I actually find it pretty jarring when Scully makes her decision because it doesn’t seem like she hesitates even though she’s put to dilemma that is personally gut-wrenching, her child had some problems plus she’s catholic, and scientifically dubious, the treatment is experimental.

I had hoped that this film was going to be great, but I should have looked at it a little more objectively. I liked the movie and there was enough new material as well as key references to the series to elicit some hoots and hollering from the crowd. I wish I could recommend this film to everyone, but it was really made for fans and not to win anyone over.

This is what we know.

2008-07-22T23:00:00.002-04:00

Over the past three decades, two men have bickered across the aisle and either upthrust or dangled extremities to signify approval or disgust. Encapsulating entire films into a simple gesture is the trademark of "Siskel and Ebert" and "Ebert and Roeper" and will be missed if it suddenly disappears from the show.

In a statement released yesterday, Ebert reports that Disney, the producer, is moving in a new direction with the show and he will not be going along for the ride. It really is the end of an era, but this did not come as a shock considering Ebert's health issues and not really being able to recreate the chemistry that was lost when Siskel passed away.

As for the new program, who knows? We'll have to hope for the best.

Source: Roger Ebert's Webpage

The Dark Knight

2008-07-20T23:43:00.003-04:00

***Note***

Same Bat-Channel, no Bat-spoilers!

***endNote***

As a preamble, I haven’t seen the likes of The Dark Knight’s marketing blitzkrieg since the insidious campaign of Godzilla in ’98. Every thing that could have a batman logo on it did. With Heath Ledger’s performance and death as a talking point, not only did the movie have the industry’s spotlight, it also had the mainstream news media covering it. Fortunately for us, the Dark Knight lives up to about 90% of the hype.

The Dark Knight follows immediately from the end of Batman begins, Wayne Manor is still being rebuilt, Batman is still figuring out how to fight crime and Bruce (Bale) is still pining over Rachel (Gyllenhaal). Lt. Gordon (Oldman) is trying to keep Batman in the loop of police work but there is pressure for Gordon to cut ties and arrest him.

Meanwhile, a new villain has been hired by the mob to reinstall their rule of the streets that has been regained by the police and Batman. Unfortunately for the mob, they unleash a monster that they could never hope to control, the Joker. On the other side of the law, a new ambitious district attorney, Harvey Dent, is going after the mob with extraordinary vigor and seems to be reining them in.

The story is a great continuation from the first film, maintaining a somber atmosphere and keeping the characters from getting too over the top. The film has a sense of gravity which guides it deftly through introducing new characters and plotline without becoming too full of itself.

Christian Bale continues to be a great Batman, though his Batman voice is markedly more gruff and deep in this film. The rest of the returning cast fit like a comfy pair of slippers – playing it consistent and predictable. Though Maggie Gyllenhaal thinks she’s a great actor and bashed Katie Holmes, she doesn’t play the part any better than Holmes did and looked like she didn’t sleep for more than an hour before shooting. Her sullen face and deep eye bags really take away from the vivaciousness of the character. Aaron Eckhart plays the D.A. Harvey Dent and the disfigured, coin flipping vigilante Two-face. His performance wasn’t as solid as I would have hoped, but being a secondary character had it limitations. There is one really lame involving him where it looked like their budget ran out and had to patch some effects together on the cheap.

I can’t write a review without talking about Heath Ledger, who died unexpectedly earlier this year. His portrayal of the Joker draws from the many personalities and performances the character has been given over the years: He’s manic like the Cesar Romero version, theatrical like the Jack Nicholson version, and as ruthless as his portrayals in the comics. Ledger plays the Joker in every way he should be played but something fell flat. His Joker didn’t seem to be enjoying the mayhem - he just went about business as usual. Almost everyone says Ledger should win an Academy Award for his performance and I guess he will but I don’t know if he deserves it.

In conclusion, this is a great sequel that equals the original. It’s dark story provides a great contrast to the good that Batman and Dent try achieve. In the end, there comes a choice, Lt. Gordon must choose the fate of our hero and we are left hoping he made the right one.

p.s. If there is another film in this series I would hope they do one based on the series Knightfall, which would really cap of the trilogy with a bang.

DVD review: The Hammer

2008-07-09T23:50:00.004-04:00

***Note***

In this corner, no spoilers!

***EndNote***

Washout, Wannabe, Neverwas, and Ne’er-do-well, all these adjectives describe Jerry, a former golden glove winning boxer who did not have the heart for boxing and has ended up as a day-laborer on a construction site. Though he never turned pro, he teaches a recreational boxing class at a gym to a group of eclectic characters, a job that he has a tenuous hold of. Just as Jerry seems to be settling into a comfortable life of apathy, several turns of fate thrust him onto a new path that rekindles his competitive spirit.

The film was written and stars Adam Corolla, you may know him from The Man Show or his radio talk show, with Oswaldo Castillo and Heather Juergensen backing him up. He did a good job balancing the weird circumstances in the movie with some excellent dialog and rapid fire jokes.

This being said, you have to appreciate Corolla’s self-deprecating sense of humor to allow the jokes to develop. There are quite a number of clichés that the movie employs, but it does so in a light and humorous way.

The film is short, which leads to the denouement being very quick and kind of disappointing, though all the loose ends get tied up. The story is lean but it’s more than enough to keep the viewer engaged.

Corolla is built for these kinds of buddy comedies, his cynical, sarcastic sense of humor makes him a perfect wall to bounce zany characters off of. Castillo is a perfect example of this - his English is pretty sketchy but his heart shines through.

This film was released on a shoe string budget, appearing on about 40 screens, and just recently came out on DVD, so pick it up if you like underdog stories with a some heart.

Source: The Hammer

DVD review: In Bruges

2008-07-05T23:54:00.003-04:00

***Note***

I am one happy spoiler

***EndNote***

Bruges is in Belgium, it’s the best preserved medieval city in Belgium, and this is where we meet Ken and Ray, the hitmen. They’re in Bruges awaiting a phone call from their boss Harry, but they get sidetracked by a woman and her skin-head boyfriend, a dwarf movie star and seeing the many sights around town.

Out of context, this sounds like some kind of screwball comedy, and from the trailers, it looked like it was going to be a shoot ‘em up type film with little to no plot. But once the film gets going there is a distinct sense of calm and purpose.

The film is much more about the how the city effects the two hitmen, strengthening their friendship and causing a crisis of conscience. The writer-director of this film, Martin McDonagh, is a playwright who has clearly mastered the flair for dramatic and skillfully crafted a film that is, at times and all together, funny, human and bloody violent. There are some excellent shots of the town and it’s attractions, so if nothing else this is a great movie to watch if you’ve always wanted to see what medieval Belgium is like.

The three main characters, Ken, Ray and Harry are played by Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes, respectively. Both Gleeson and Fiennes were built to play roles like this (Gleeson as the fatherly, veteran hitman; Fiennes as the mildly psychotic but highly principled mob boss). The image of Farrell pulling his sad puppy-dog face is literally burned into your retina because he pouts for nearly half the movie. This being said, Farrell does put up a good performance as the pouty hitman (We even start to believe that he isn’t such a bad guy).

The crisis of conscience part of the film comes in the second act. After we’ve seen the two guys romp around the city, we finally get to what the point of the story is, the hit. Though it may not be what you think it is.

In Bruges is a great film with some excellent performances from the stars aswell as the supporting cast, excellent cinematography and has one of those ambiguous endings that makes you think about it (I love this sort of ending). Though I had some preconceived notions about this film before picking it up, I was pleasantly surprised by what I got. Enjoy this film because it’s worth it.

Source: In Burges Trailer

Dvd Review: Wristcutters

2008-07-02T23:22:00.003-04:00

***Note***

Nothing will be spoiled.

***endNote***

Approaching this review, I cannot escape the fact that this film is a romantic comedy about suicide and the “life” that comes after. It’s not an afterlife, because this implies that there is some closure to your previous life. In Wristcutters, it’s a little different. When you off yourself, you don’t go to heaven or hell, you end up living another crappy life in a world that is just bad enough to make you pine for your original crappy life.

To mirror the degraded, copy of a copy nature of the land of the dead, director Goran Dukic, puts the colours out of phase, the film looks like a pair of worn-out, acid washed jeans. Furthermore, no-one cares about anything: jobs, responsibilities, etc. We mainly see people getting drunk or just standing around. Which leads to a somewhat strange question: where does all the food, electricity and everything come from?

We meet Zia, living his unremarkable life and subsequently killing himself. But instead the release he desires, he’s even more pent up: he works a do nothing job at a pizza parlor and constantly fights with his roommate. He meets Eugene, an eastern European rock musician, who has a unique view on this strange new world. Soon, Zia finds out his former girlfriend is also a suicide case, so he and Eugene set out on a road trip to find her. Enter the second love interest, Mikal, the sexy hitch-hiker, who may or may not be where she is supposed to be. Apparently, the people in charge of running the show are sloppy in the record keeping.

The story develops some real heart as the trio form some chemistry and reaches a crescendo when they run into Kneller and his band of happy campers. As Kneller reveals the nature of the land in weird riddles, Zia and Mikal realize that they both long for the same things in this life and their last.

Though the characters talk about their deaths, they don’t try to explain their actions. They mostly lament how things haven’t changed in any particular way. When Zia complains that going out makes him depressed, Eugene quips “So what are you going to do? Kill yourself?”

This film has is pretty heart-warming despite its morbid nature. It’s a little heavy at times but a sense of gravity does bring an appropriate air of drama. It’s a interesting concept and it’s pretty fun to watch.

As a footnote, the music that is featured in the film comes from a band called Gogol Bordello, a self-proclaimed gypsy-punk band. Their songs really bring an eclectic, rustic feel to the film and I liked that very much.

Sources: Wristcutters online , Gogol Bordello

Wall*e

2008-06-28T22:26:00.003-04:00

***Note***

No spoilers here, man!

***EndNote***

Disney-Pixar, who pretty much carved out the landscape of 3D animated film and coming off two of their weakest pictures (Cars and Ratatouille had none of the heart of The Incredibles or Finding Nemo or the reckless abandon of Toy Story or Monsters, Inc.) has created a media frenzy over their new film, Wall*e. Universally, hailed as a masterpiece, Wall*e can apparently do no wrong: animation – perfect, story – exquisite, marketability - awesome.

I, too, was eagerly awaiting this film, pouring over the press releases and snippets from all the media outlets. I’ve read so much that I pretty much know how the film is going to go even before stepping into the screening. (Note: Even this didn’t ruin the picture!)

Our hero is Wall*e, a trash compactor that looks like the Muppet Babies version of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, is the last of the planetary clean-up crew. Over the seven hundred years that he’s been cleaning up our messy planet, he’s become a little lonely. One day, a space probe arrives, this is when Wall*e meets Eve. Their relationship starts off pretty cold but warms up rather quickly even though there are fewer than 5 words exchanged.

Wall*e decides to follow Eve out into the cosmos and has quite an adventure where the fate of humanity is revealed. Wall*e’s humanity rubs off on many of the characters, but especially the humans and they realize that the tiny robot is living the life they yearn for.

I have to admit this film is incredibly cute, looks wonderful, and doesn’t let down in the writing department either. I always feel a bit ripped off when I see a movie and it looks great, but the story is half-baked because the target audience wouldn’t know any better.

This film is pretty much impervious to criticism, save a few miniscule, barely noticeable niggles about details (physics don’t seem to be internally consistent). I whole-heartedly recommend this film to everyone to see in the theatres and then to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

DVD Review: The Beast With a Billion Backs

2008-06-25T23:45:00.003-04:00

***Note***

The spoilers are a lie

***EndNote***

Futurama is back for a second instalment of their direct-to-DVD movies, the first was last years’ Bender’s Big Score. Taking cues from their more dramatic episodes of the television series, the writers have crafted a story about love and loss without too many character compromises. The story may be a little more heavy than usual, but there are laughs throughout.

We join this story already in progress, a rip space-time has opened and the planet express crew has won the exploration rights, through the scientifically approved method of Death Ball. Meanwhile, Fry and his girlfriend move in together, but he is disappointed with the living arrangements. Having lost Fry as a roommate, Bender pines for social acceptance and joins a club for robots. Amy and Kif’s relationship gets knocked up a notch when he proposes.

The film is laden with great voice acting from new comers like David Cross, Brittany Murphy and Steven Hawking, as well as veterans like Maurice LaMarche, Dan Castellaneta and Phil LaMarr. The complete regular cast is back and are still comfortable in their characters.

According the hive-mind of the The Infosphere, the title, The Beast with a Billion Backs (BBB), is a reference to a passage from Othello: “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs”, as well as being a send up to a 1950s sci-fi horror film The Beast with a Million Eyes.

In the same way none of the episodes of the television show really follow each other, neither do these films. Though the first film left and excellent little avenue to bridge the gap, they opted to go back to pre-film storylines.

The trend for all these tv-shows-come-feature-length-projects is to include several stories with varying degrees of coherence to the main plot line and BBB is no exception. There are four or five (depending how you parse) subplots that bring some depth to the story, again with varying success.

I would argue that the Futurama formula, which is much more character and story based could easily succeed in extending the plot lines to feature length with little or no losses, where a weaker formula would fail (e.g. Family Guy movies). But the length does seem to hinder many of the jokes and feels pretty forced at times.

I was and still am a big fan of the series, so this was right up my alley. The film has plenty of gags, but it’s a love story so it’s not really balls to the wall funny. It has also been tailored to a sci-fi enthusiast crowd and existing fans of the series.

Sources: The Infosphere

American Film Institute's Top 10 of Everything

2008-06-20T23:44:00.004-04:00

The AFI has just published their top ten lists (no-one likes to read real articles anymore) for the summer. They’ve pretty much broken film into ten main genres and spit out a list for each.

There are quite a few interesting choices but there is an equal amount of puzzling ones. Is Field of Dreams more a Fantasy movie or a Sports movie? The AFI classes it as Fantasy. Regardless, these lists are filled with some of the greatest American films of all time, though Citizen Kane is no where to be found.

My all-time favourite film, Lawrence of Arabia, tops out the Epic category. Other familiar titles taking their respective top spots are: Disney’s Snow White for Animation, The Godfather part 1 for Gangster, Raging Bull for Sports, Vertigo for Mystery, 2001 for Sc-fi, To Kill a Mockingbird for Courtroom Drama, Wizard of Oz for Fantasy, City Lights for Romantic Comedy and The Searchers for Westerns.

Take a gander over at the AFI’s webpage.

From Print to Screen: The Incredible Hulk

2008-06-19T23:36:00.004-04:00

Since The Incredible Hulk was released last week it’s not exactly timely writing yet another review of a film that’s had so much coverage. Also, pitting this new Hulk versus the old Hulk(only five years older) has also played out in every major film outlet imaginable. So, I’m going to look at the actual comic character to find out why it’s been such a long road to get a palatable version of him on the big screen.

Origin: Bruce Banner, a physicist working on a Gamma bomb, is accidentally exposed to the blast when he tries to pull someone from the test range into the protective bunker (or push them into a ditch, depending on which comic era you’re looking at). The Gamma radiation transforms Banner into the Hulk and the Jekyll and Hyde story begins.

Problems with origin: Nothing really, except we wouldn't really feel as bad as we should when a weapons designer is hurt by his own invention. The way that the new films characterize Banner as being such a nice guy (or unaware of the true nature of his experiments), we should feel terrible that he’s being used and he gets hurt. Both films really lay it on thick with this point.

Personality: Banner is a quiet, humble man, but after the accident, he becomes emotionally withdrawn and to some extent paranoid (about his affliction and what may happen to people he cares about). The books really deal with two main personality conflicts: emotional isolation and anger management.

Problems with Personality: Characterizing emotional detachment and paranoia are hard things to do. So, I bet both directors tried their damnedest to get one or the other on film. Ang Lee’s version tries to tackle the former as much as possible, straining the isolation aspect of the story. But sweaty fan boys want more action and less touchy-feely stuff. Louis Leterrier touches on this, but in a way that makes Banner look more like a rebellious teen rather than an emotionally racked adult. Furthermore, the Leterrier version is more about managing the rage and focusing it. Neither film really captures both aspects of Banner but the Leterrier approach makes for a much more exciting summer movie.

Conflict resolution: Hulk Smash!

Problems with Conflict resolution: Since Ang Lee’s film was about isolation and emotional detachment, the fight scenes were shorter and uninteresting, the relationships that Banner had between his father and Betty were wooden and forced, and there was little or no time devoted to the sheer magnitude of the Hulk’s rage. Leterrier took the film in the exact opposite direction. None of the relationships really mattered ( Is it just me or is looking at Liv Tyler in this movie like staring at the sun for a couple of hours? She was so very pale in this film!) and there was constant movement and things happening. We really see the raw power of the Hulk and it is pretty good.

Denouement: Banner decides to try to use the Hulk’s power to solve the problem, usually with plenty of collateral damage.

Problems with the Denouement: There should not have been any problem getting this point across on the big screen but both films left me wondering where it went. Ang Lee’s picture ended up with Banner using the Hulk’s power to escape a trap which is okay but not very Hulk like. Also, Nick Nolte’s character was incoherent and possible the worst tacked-on villain of all time. The US armed forces are nearly transparent in this film even though they are one of Banner’s arch nemeses. Leterrier’s Hulk almost exclusively uses his powers to beat up on the US army. Banner spends years of his life evading the army’s keen eye. And with Abomination, Hulk really goes all out in beating him into a writhing heap.

I find that the more I look at the new film it kind of reminds me that the older one really tried hard to pull away from the comics to explore banner as a person and tried to be something more about humanity rather than cartoon violence. The new film on the other hand was a pleasure to watch because it’s nothing but a pure popcorn movie with thrills and chills but unfortunately, nothing more. If you’re a hulk fan you’ll probably get angered by this film but if you have no such predilection, you’ll appreciate this up-tempo film.

Young People Fucking

2008-06-19T00:00:00.003-04:00

***note***

Always practice safe spoiling.

***endnote***

If you happen to live in the sexy, sexy province of Ontario and keep up with the Canadian film scene, you’ve probably heard about Young People Fucking (YPF), which opened last weekend. It’s the film that nearly got the Canadian Film Tax Credit Program restructured into what artists and filmmakers suggest would be a little Minitrue.

A brief description of what happened is that YPF deals with a subject that some find offensive, so they formed a coalition to make sure the government would not give tax credits to filmmakers that happen to trod over the line of decency, and thus Bill C10 was born. Though the thought of the government regulating tax credits doesn’t seem too invasive, couched in the smaller print is an amendment that would allow the government to re-appropriate funds from films they had already given. This would certainly give precedent to get all kinds of money back from terrible films, new and old, that probably wouldn’t have been made if not for these tax credits. So, there were protests with angry movie stars and directors marching on parliament hill chanting anti-censorship and "shame on you for your conservative principles" slogans.

With the stage set, let’s talk about the movie. Starting with the title, which probably drew most of the ire because not only is it right in your face, there is no denying what this film will be about. It has the same sort of blunt honesty that Snakes on a Plane had.

After seeing the film, the title should have been “Young Sexy People Fucking: No Uggos Allowed!” which would have been apt because the people in this film are so attractive, any veiled attempt to be “real” is automatically cut down.

I felt that a juxtaposition had occurred between the reviews and the trailer. The reviews mostly stated that this was a frank dialog about sex but the trailer set the film up as a comedy of sorts. So, there was no telling what I was getting into, except that my current Canadian celebrity crush, Carly Pope, was one of the stars.

The film follows five couples through five stages of coitus and no matter what your hang up about sex the filmmaker has you covered. There’s the voyeur, the foot-fetishist, the all-too-willing-to-please girlfriend, the players (male and female), the boring-in-bed boyfriend, the innocent-but-closeted-dominatrix girlfriend, the maybe-maybe not exes, and the two friends who just need a lay.

For all the hubbub this film created, I would have thought that something would happen, but nothing really did. You could see the exact same thing if you took the complete series of Dawson’s Creek or some other angsty teen drama, stripped away everything that wasn’t about sex and spliced a story together. I was shocked.

The dialog wasn’t any more raunchy or vulgar than a Kevin Smith movie, pre-Jersey Girl, or a Tarantino flick and the sex was on par with American Pie, it even has an awkward pegging scene that rivals the infamous pie-sex scene. I wasn’t expecting porn, I was expecting something more. Perhaps C10 should have been about not giving money to films that aren’t commercially viable.

Regardless, this was an interesting look at how Canadian politics can quickly devolve over some silly movie about sex. If you have a chance, I would recommend as an academic exercise but if that isn’t your thing, this wasn’t a particularly interesting film.

Please allow me to re-introduce myself...

2008-06-17T22:48:00.002-04:00

Hello, World.

I know it’s been a while since my last post and barring any new life-altering events, I can now make some time to write about films.

The main sticking point of my previous endeavor was I was writing far too frequently about the same kinds of movies and repeating myself. So, I am going to make a concerted effort to step out of my box and see a broader spectrum of films and hopefully, this will lead to some better writing for me and reading for you.

I’ll go back to my very old updating schedule of Wednesday and Saturday (starting this week on Saturday, because I'll be updating everyday this week). Please enjoy the reviews and I promise to mix things up and try to bring you some new stuff when I can.

Check in tomorrow for my take on the media firestorm that is “Young People Fucking”!

____________________

Two Docs about Quacks

Apple trailers recently released teasers for two documentaries about men who have made their names by stirring up controversy in their respective fields.

The first is Gonzo, a Hunter S. Thompson biography, which tries to unravel his weird, wonderful and twisted life. Almost everyone knows Thompson from his two most famous books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. The second is Trumbo, the biography of one of the most outspoken of the Hollywood Ten, the McCarthy-era Blacklisted-as-Communist screenwriters. Having written such films as Johnny Got His Gun, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Spartacus, Trumbo was a much lauded screen writer prior to his blacklisting. He even won an Oscar, for The Brave One, under a pseudonym after being blacklisted and that Oscar remains the only one never claimed.

Though their battles were disparate, both men loved the idea that they were David to the world’s Goliath. They fought for what they believed in and have become icons. Both films look terrific and if you have a chance to catch them you should.

Gonzo found here:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/gonzo/

Trumbo found here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/trumbo/

2008 Academy Awards

2008-02-24T18:13:00.004-05:00

It's been quite some time since I last posted, the real world has really intruded into my blogging habits. Without further delay here are my picks for this years Academy Awards. In previous years, I've batted about 500 on these picks, so take this list as personal preference rather than predicted winners:

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis - There will be Blood
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Best Animated Feature: Persepolis
Achievement in Art Direction: Sweeny Todd
Best Cinematography: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Best Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Years
Best Director: P.T. Anderson - There Will be Blood
Best Documentary feature: No End in Sight
Best Documentary Short: La Corona
Achievement in Film Editing: No Country for Old Men
Best Foreign Film: The Counterfeiters
Best Make-up: Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End
Best Original Score: Atonement
Best Original Song: That's How you Know - Enchanted
Best Picture: There will be Blood
Best Short - animated: I Met the Walrus
Best Short - live action: Le Mozart des Pickpockets
Best Sound Editing: Ratatouille
Best Sound Mixing: Ratatouille
Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean - At world's end
Best Screenplay - adapted: Away From Her
Best Screenplay - original: Juno

I'm sure that the marked lack of "Juno" nods on the list is probably going to put a crimp in the accuracy, but as much as I liked the film is was too cute and fluffy to really have any lasting effect on me.

If you haven't seen the trailers for these films, Apple was kind enough to post them all in their Oscar section here so you can check them out.

And here are a couple Ecards that I thought were pretty good:

Happy Halloween!

2007-11-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

I should say that I had a cozy, uneventful Halloween. I watched several horror flicks and so I have prepared a grab bag of horror related topics for discussion.

Zombies: “slow” vs “fast”

It’s easy to say I grew up with slow zombies so that’s the zombie I prefer but I’d like to believe I’m a little more sophisticated than that. This debate can be boiled down to a simple analogy: Would you prefer to be shot in the face or the stomach? In either case you’re dead, but the facial is a quick way to go and the tummy is a gruesome way.

To me fast zombies are like a pack of wolves or another kind of high predatory mammal, they stalk their prey and run them down. You may have a chance against them if they pass you by. On the other hand, the slow zombies are like a swarm of locusts. No matter where you go they have the numbers and the siege like tactics to break even the most steely of heroes.

The strength of the zombies seems to vary between the slow and the fast. The slow zombies are pretty indestructible. They will continue swarming with limbs removed and gunshot wounds. Fast zombies appear to be much less robust, getting tripped up if they get shot or lose a leg.

So, in the end I feel that the slow zombie can build more tension, create more opportunities for danger and overall be more entertaining but with the popularity of the fast zombie from such films as 28 Days Later and the new Dawn of the Dead, I’m certain they are here to stay.

I Miss Jason, Chuckie, Freddy, et al.

Seriously.

Modern villains are more cerebral, more into torturing their prey rather than killing them and are far more forgettable. Jigsaw would have been totally out of place in the 80s with Freddy and Jason or any of the other killers during that period. Just as Freddy and Jason can’t and don’t draw in as many people today. There’s something about an over the top psychopath that lives to chop people up that just makes a horror film feel right.

Halloween Costumes

If Charlie Brown taught me anything, it’s that a crummy costume earns you a goodie bag full of rocks. Now, I saw plenty of Harry Potters, Pokemon, and Hannah Montanas (apparently Billy Ray Cyrus has offspring who sing and dance). When did costumes get so lame and what happened to the classic witch, pirate or Batman? Anyone who came up to my place in one of the aforementioned lame costumes got a fist full of those crappy caramels. Everyone else, Reese’s Pieces.

30 Days of Night

2007-10-21T22:06:00.000-04:00

***Note***

No, no, master! I wasn't going to spoil anything

***EndNote***

Vampires on film usually take one of two character types: the aristocrat, who dresses in haute-couture and torments the audience with long-winded pretentious dialog, and the nihilist, who spouts angst more readily than a flock of emo-kids. 30 Days of Night takes the vampire and brings it to a gritty, feral level. Like a pack of wolves, they descend onto the arctic town of Barrow, Alaska, to use the month of darkness to slake their thirst for blood and violence.

Adapted from the critically acclaimed, eponymous graphic novel, the film uses an almost film noir style to capture the unique visuals from the source material. At times the director’s approach is bang on, it looks great, but his vision becomes tainted as he needs a broader palette to accentuate the gore. Like in every comic book movie, there were some creative shortcuts taken to shorten the narrative and jazz up the action but the film doesn’t suffer that much because the original story was rather sparse and action oriented. Another benefit for the using this particular comic, is that the general public is not entirely aware of the original so any discrepancies would go unnoticed.

The film opens up with a mysterious stranger arriving in Barrow, whose residents are preparing for the winter darkness and snowstorms. A rash of vandalism introduces the main characters of the film: the pragmatic hero, Sheriff Eben Olesen (Josh Hartnett) and the love interest/estranged wife, Fire Marshal Stella Olesen(Melissa George). The rest of the cast are introduced half heartedly during Eben’s final patrol before darkness floods the town. Without warning, the power is cut, the phone relay station is destroyed so, the already darkened town is further isolated from the outside world. The townsfolk pour into the snow covered streets to find out what’s going on and then the vampires pounce. Within minutes, dozens of people are brutally killed and the survivors are trapped in their homes, waiting to die as the vampires ransack each house looking for them.

The acting is wooden, but we’re not really supposed to care for these people, are we? They get eviscerated seconds after their names are announced. The only really good piece of acting comes from Danny Huston, who plays the lead vampire. He seems to wrestle with the fact that vampires have tried to remain covert over the centuries but now they are blatantly casting the spotlight on themselves.

The film’s action peaks and crests as the story takes leaps and bounds, chewing through days without notice. The time line in the film is all over the place, the first few days flow rather well and then cut to day nine, or 12 then 25 then 29 with little more than some text popping up on screen to give reference. It would be boring to see the people do all the mundane things they need to do to survive, but at least give us an idea of what they are doing to avoid the patrolling vampires to get food or something.

Most of the dialog is terrible and makes the characters, especially Stella, seem like Chester the Terrier from the Looney Toons, always yapping, “I’ll come with you” or “You’re not going without me”. At one point, one of the nameless survivors suggests a hiding spot in an attic “that’s pretty well hidden. You’d have to be looking for the door to find it”. When the group arrives at the house with the secret attic, we see that It’s not as hidden as advertised: it was one of those hatches with the ball dangling on a string. Come on, in a life or death situation, would anyone consider that “well hidden”? Both of these are the sort of thing that could have been written out with ease but they left them in, probably for giggles.

30 Days of Night, the graphic novel, was such a stylized piece, I had hoped that they would keep in that same vein for the film and they tried but ended up producing a generic two hour splatterfest. Even though it delivered plenty of violence and the best decapitation scene since Dennis Hopper’s in Speed, the film floundered with the story and tried to slick it over with tight editing and visual effects. This is certainly a decent vampire film for a Halloween viewing, but with a promising film like “I Am Legend” coming in a little over a month, I would pass on 30 Days. I’d give this film a 4/10 or two stars out of five.

Shoot 'Em Up

2007-09-11T21:48:00.001-04:00

***Note***

This movie is encased in spoiler proof carbonite

***EndNote***

If you happened to miss 90s action films, then the well oiled machine that is Shoot ‘Em Up is for you. Fast shooting, groan inducing zingers and a huge pyrotechnic budget have merged to create a film so perfectly suited for that era, that now it’s kind of quaint like an MC hammer single or crystal Pepsi.

The frantically pieced together “story” is made up of about 97% action scenes, 2% naked Monica Bellucci and 1% crying baby. Clive Owen plays the wrong place at the wrong time anti-hero, Mr. Smith, who in a moment of conscience saves a pregnant woman from what appears to be an abusive boyfriend. Little does he know this woman is part of a larger conspiracy and by the time he realizes the baby’s importance, he is swept up by the torrent of combat. With the woman inadvertently shot and unable to properly care for a new born baby, Smith turns to Donna, Monica Bellucci, a hooker with a heart of gold and mammaries of some other exotic precious metal. And that’s all it takes to segue into a ninety minute shoot out.

This is truly the brain child of someone who the cornball post mortem one-liner. In true Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone or Bruce Willis fashion, Clive Owen takes on an army of Assassins, street toughs and an assortment of warehouse workers single-handedly. Smith is not only brutally lethal, he also dispenses some wretched lines: “Eat your vegetables” after impaling a goon’s throat on a particularly pointy carrot, “So much for seatbelts” after he kills a van load of men who cannot react fast enough because of their seatbelts and the list goes on. The first few are acceptable but when Smith uses them as thoroughly as he does then they just get lost amid the shooting.

Michael Davis steps up from teen comedies like, Eight days a Week and 100 Girls, to the action-comedy in a pretty average way. He doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but he also doesn’t deck them out with chrome and spinners so even though his film is nothing special he doesn’t really try to hide it. Dare I say, this kind of no holds barred approach is kind of refreshing.

To put it simply, this film is ridiculous and peculiarly charming. It’s not very different form the hordes of rotten, stinking action movies that are produced (Crank, Ultraviolet etc.) but it hits some chords that resonate. The cast, made up of some very talented actors, look like they are having a blast in the film and play their roles with ease. Paul Giamatti as a cartoonish super villain is much better than expected. There are also some reflexive moments that put the over-the-top scenes into perspective and get a few laughs.

But it’s hard to really like a movie like this because there isn’t much to hold onto. The characters don’t grow, learn or change, so in the end, they are doomed to continue in their respective patterns. The story is wholly forgettable. There are a few scenes that scream “freeze frame, fanboy!” but for Bellucci fans there are much better films in her catalog.

Shoot ‘Em Up is the kind of movie to watch on Tuesday night after wings and beer, not the sort of thing you watch for artistry or for provoking thought. The loose take on characterization and plot doesn’t quite anger the blood because the gun play is great and it’s kind of weird to see “serious” actors in such a goofy film. It’s a conditional 6/10 or two and a half out of five stars.

Interview

2007-09-04T19:08:00.001-04:00

***Note***

Ask me no questions, and I'll give you no spoilers

***EndNote***

With all his experience in independent film and his reputation of finding really interesting projects, Steve Buscemi has taken the next step by writing and directing his own film, an adaptation of Theodor Holman and Theo Van Gogh’s Inteview.

Critiquing the give and take of celebrity journalism, Buscemi, who must have experienced similar situations first hand, guides the viewer through what should have been a quick interview. The film doesn’t openly attack the proliferation of celebrity news or gossip, but it heralds a warning that the facts acquired from such interviews are always manipulated by either the interviewer or the subject.

Pierre, played by Buscemi, is a political journalist who gets called in from the field to write an entertainment piece about Katya, the flavor of the month tabloid queen, played by Sienna Miller. Pierre is annoyed that he has been put on an unimportant assignment and when Katya is late to the interview, the questions he asks her are all condescending and their discussion ends abruptly. While pulling into traffic, Pierre’s cab rear ends a truck because the driver is distracted by Katya, who then feels “almost responsible” for his injuries and invites him to her loft. So, their discussion restarts and what begins as sugar coated pabulum slowly evolves into a two-way personal investigation.

Buscemi’s performance as the uptight and at times desperate reporter is very good, even though Pierre is an ordinary guy compared to the weirdos he normally plays. What he is great at is being able to dive into a character fully and show the conflicting impulses of his character. For example, Pierre’s desperation is hidden behind charm in the hopes that Katya may offer him a nugget of gossip which he could turn into a scoop.

The really great part of the film is that Buscemi’s performance is pretty well matched by Sienna Miller’s performance as the seemingly vapid, self-interested actress. We can also see that Miller has infused the character with her own disdain for the paparazzi. As Katya’s personality is explored we see her develop into quite a complex character and Miller doesn’t miss a step.

Where the film is at its weakest is during the introduction, where the characters haven’t been defined and it’s hard to watch because they come off as such terrible people, and during the big reveal at the end. But even though the mechanics of the ending are a little sketchy, the meaning is clearly shown and is fitting.

The evolution of the characters is the meat of this movie and there is a feast in this movie. Both characters, though vastly different, work in industries that thrive on wits and out righting lying. Buscemi succeeds in adapting Interview retaining key points from the original and mapping out a few new twists of his own. This film was enjoyable and even a little thought provoking, so catch it in theatres or rent it in a few weeks. It gets a 7/10 or a three and a half out of five.

Balls of Fury

2007-09-02T01:04:00.000-04:00

***Note***

The spoilers within are for your self-defense only

***EndNote***

Recently, a rash of atypical sport movies have been popping up with varied success, Dodgeball was both pretty funny and box office success and Kickin’ It Old Skool was neither. If a sport like figure skating can inspire a comedy, ping pong can surely do the same.

Balls of Fury doesn’t have the star power of a movie like Dogeball or Blades of Glory so it rolls out a few tried and true dick/fart jokes and cameo after cameo to stumble along. There is a laundry list of character actors in this picture: Christopher Walken, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, Jason Scott Lee, Aisha Tyler and many more. If only they had made with The Funny, this movie could have really improved.

Director Ben Garant, who directed Reno 911!: Miami, has several off the cuff comedies under his belt and this film seems to be his bid for a more mainstream audience. His strong point from his previous films is that he let the actors really take on the characters and move them in different directions. In this film, on the contrary, it feels like he reigned in many of the actors who would have been better off ad-libbing. This could have been one of those R-rated comedies that seem to do so well these days but they went the other way and toned everything way down.

Dan Fogler stars as the unambitious, former child ping pong Olympian, Randy Daytona, who is recruited by the FBI to enter the table tennis equivalent of Mortal Kombat hosted by Mr. Feng, played by Christopher Walken. Being 19 years removed from tournament play, Agent Rodriguez, played by George Lopez, shakes the rust off Randy’s game by enrolling him in Master Wong’s ping pong academy. A few “Wax on, Wax off” jokes later he’s ready to go.

All the important actors’ performances, like Fogler’s and Walken’s are hit or miss and the supporting cast isn’t much better. There were a ton of jokes that were delivered really awkwardly and it makes me wonder if the writing was weak or the actors just phoned in their performances. At least Fogler really made a strong effort to be funny and tried to sell the weak punch lines.

Balls of Fury does have a few laughs though at times you can tell that the actors wanted to make more satirical or blue jokes but were hamstrung because the director wanted a PG rating. With the wealth of comedies that are family friendly and still pretty funny, this one is at the middle of the pack. If you have a craving for Walken or you have a passion for table tennis, this may be the film for you but the humor wears thin quickly.

It earns a 5/10 or a two out of five star rating.

Paprika

2007-08-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Das Ich, das Uber-Ich, das Es...das spoiler

***EndNote***

Imagine a world where you could experience someone else’s dream world as vividly as they can, where doctors could dive into your subconscious to treat your neuroses – this is the world that Paprika explores.

Dr. Atsuko, the primary researcher, and her partner, the genius engineer Dr. Tokita, have created the DC mini, a machines that act as a gateway into the dream world. They quickly realize that their creation has great potential for both good and evil. Unfortunately evil is afoot, so Atsuko, Tokita, and their coworkers become unwitting pawns in a plot to hijack the dream world. In order to restore the balance of power, Paprika must separate the malevolent dreams, which are poisoning the dreamscape, from the normal dreams.

The film is plentiful with references to psychodynamics and dream analysis. The three main characters can be seen as the three divisions of the Freudian psyche: Atsuko as the super ego - the conscience, the moral center; the villain as the id – the instinct, the impulse center; Paprika as the ego - the mediator. (If you think Freud is bunk, then Maclean’s Triune Brain model also works.) The secondary characters can be parsed along these lines as well, in both real and dream worlds. Through the extensive use of the DC mini, a collective unconscious is created between the users and, as time passes, everyone. This development allows Atsuko to dive into the unconscious to figure out what may be causing the problems.

Throughout this film’s run it has garnered high praise from pretty much every critic and anime fan. The juxtaposition of two distinct playing fields, the structured hustle and bustle of Tokyo and the freedom of the dream world, allows the director, Satoshi Kon, to use contrasting tempos, styles, animation techniques to create visually captivating film. Another facet of the film that is outstanding is the soundtrack, which is a mash-up of an orchestral score with electronica.

The problem with eye-popping visuals is that they can distract from a lack of story depth. Though this particular film is rather good, there were some loose ends at the end of this film that I would have liked to seen tied up.

Paprika pushes the boundaries of traditional animation to new heights and shows how intricate, imaginative and intellectual the medium can be. The animation, the music and the imagination of the director all mesh perfectly and the result is nothing less than awesome. This film is a 7.5/10 or three and a half stars out of five.

1408

2007-08-15T21:59:00.001-04:00

***Note***

Here's the Spoiler!

***EndNote***

Stephen King fans rejoice because yet another title from the master of horror has been moved from the pages to the screen. Cut from the same cloth as The Shining though not as menacing or foreboding, 1408 tells the story of a paranormal investigator/author Mike Enslin (played by John Cusack), who is writing a book on America’s famous haunted houses. When Mike receives a postcard about room 1408 at the Dolphin hotel, he decides that this would make an excellent final chapter. Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) is the manager of the Dolphin specifically in charge of handling all inquiries about room 1408. Mike remains steadfast in his skepticism, but as the movie progresses, he experiences events that defy all rational explanation.

This film certain earns a place among the good Stephen King films. The director, Mikael Hafstrom, does an excellent job crafting a cohesive film that harkens back to a more classic style of suspense. It balances exposition, tension and horror to hook and hold the audience. Hafstrom paid close attention not to include anything that wasn’t important to the tone or the suspense. It could have benefited from a little longer run time for more in depth, psychological look at the protagonist but in this shorter form it keeps attentions on alert.

Though it is a PG-13 film, this should not deter even the most seasoned of King fans from seeing it. There is a fair amount of horror but not the bloody mess that passes as horror these days.

Cusack plays his character well, but it’s pretty much the same kind of character he has played in many of his other films. He shows that he has mastered the brooding, cynical outcast. Jackson, who shows glimpses of his performance in Unbreakable, tones down his usual style and excels with this character. Cusack and Jackson have a great chemistry in this movie. When they first face off, you know there’s going to be trouble.

This film was surprising – with recent King films being lukewarm at best - it really delivered. I really enjoyed the film though the dialog was clichéd, not so much to take away from it, and a few of the visual effects and cuts were disjointed. It wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as The Shining or as creepy as It or Misery, but it was a great piece of film. It rates a 7/10 or a three and a half stars out of five.

Review - The Simpson's Movie

2007-08-01T22:56:00.000-04:00

After 18 years of televised success, the Simpson’s has made the jump to the big screen. I wasn’t all together excited to see this movie because the formula for a twenty two minute show doesn’t translate well to feature length (see the Family Guy movie, Inspector Gadget, Scooby-Doo, etc), but I saw it on the big screen to see what all the fuss was about.

The movie is made up of three plots: Homer/Marge’s accident prone marriage, Homer/Bart’s father son relationship, Lisa’s newest cause (Global Warming). Throw in some bit character cameos (knowing that the writers had hundreds of them to work with, many would only get one-liners), special guests voices (like Greenday), lots of jokes that they couldn’t possibly get away with on television and let the fun begin.

The film is about the length of four episodes and was crammed with more jokes than you could shake a stick at. There were a few references to the older episodes, they dropped a few of the more annoying developments of some of the secondary characters (Moe wasn’t the “head in the oven” depressed Moe, he was the more gruff and sleazier Moe of yore.) and they added much more physical comedy. We are treated to an extended theme song, though there wasn’t a couch joke at the end of the theme. With the Simpson’s I wasn’t hoping for high art, I was hoping for a few decent laughs and the film succeeded.

There were a few changes to the characters that seemed unnecessary, such as Homer’s shift from ignorant boob to arrogance prick and Bart’s change from rebellious to a little more conformist. Furthermore, there were a frightful number of terribly stale jokes rekindled with violence that rang hollow.

The majority of the film used what looked like Hypnovision from “Futurama” to provide the long sweeping shots of the town and other establishing shots. The animation looked great and the detail that they added with some intricate backgrounds was excellent.

From my point of view, a long time Simpson’s fan who had stopped watching the series several years ago, this film does bring back some of the hilarity from the show I loved. I’m not a fan of the new tactic of using quick cutaways and extensive flashbacks to deliver a joke. So, overall this film gets a 6/10 or two stars out of five. Watch the film and prepare to crack a smile, at least.

p.s.- If the internet buzz is any indication, the old school Simpson’s fans are hating the movie but the newer fans seem to love it.

A Case of the Summertime Blahs....

2007-07-31T21:44:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I last posted, but since I haven't been to the theaters in a little while I haven't had anything to write about.

In order to get out of this rut, I'm going to see the Simpson's Movie tomorrow and I will post something right after I get back from the screening.

Furthermore, I've got a pile of DVDs that I have to watch. I'll get on top of those by the end of the week.

Thanks for sticking around and be sure to check tomorrow for my Simpson's review.

-Dan

Dvd Review: Night Watch

2007-05-15T21:24:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Tough on spoilers

***EndNote***

Mix a story about supernatural forces, a talented Russian director with a tiny budget and you get a great action/fantasy picture that even the most jaded Matrix special effects fan can enjoy. At the time of it’s release, 2004, Night Watch became the highest grossing Russian film. It spawned a sequel called Day Watch, which is being released in North America through Fox Searchlight Pictures June 1^st.

The story follows Anton Gorodetsky who sells his soul to a Dark witch, which leads him to be immersed in the world of the occult. Anton decides to join the Night Watch, an organization that hunts down the Dark Others who violate The Agreement.

The Others are all the supernatural beings in the world: vampires, shape shifters, witches/wizards etc. Theses groups are broken down in Light Others and Dark Others (very much like the light and dark Jedi from Star Wars). As a solution to the unending war, the Light and the Dark create a pact called The Agreement, which states that neither side will forcefully recruit new members, use their powers to influence human affairs, or even draw a drop of blood from the opposing faction. In order to monitor their enemies, each side creates a secret police: the Light Others have the Night Watch and the Dark Others have the Day Watch.

Night Watch is a more realistic action film where the line between the heroes and the villains is blurred. The heroes aren’t pure, wholesome peacekeepers and the villains aren’t blood thirsty (except for the vampires) maniacs. Both sides are just as ambitious as the other - they lie, cheat and bend all the rules in The Agreement to get the upper hand on their rivals.

The film has particularly dark undertones and many scenes of graphic violence so this isn’t a movie that will please all audiences - especially those who don’t approve of witchcraft, voodoo and other devices of Satan.

The special effects in Night Watch are incredible and extensively used. The Gloom(also known as the Twilight), the limbo outside reality that the Others use as an escape from the living, is especially impressive. These effects on par with many of the big budget action films and they were done on a scant 4 Mil USD budget.

The film aptly follows multiple storylines, which is an interesting twist in itself, because having such a tightly written story in an action movie is rarely seen. Two of the storylines are cliché but there are enough interesting elements that make them seem fresh.

The characters are portrayed by a cast of very capable actors, who make their characters believable and mostly human.

With everything that this film has going for it, it has a lot of rough edges: Some of the secondary characters are so over the top that it really breaks the mood of their scenes; Many of the combat scenes are done in a frantic tangle of quick cuts which can be difficult to follow; Russian humor was tricky to “get”.

This is a solid film that has all the bases covered: good effects and story, decent actors – 7/10. You may need to hunt around for this film because it wasn’t widely released.

Bambi vs. Godzillia: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet

2007-05-13T22:37:00.000-04:00

***Note***

This is a book, not a film.

***EndNote***

Over the weekend, between hockey games, I read Bambi Vs Godzilla (BvG) which is a collection of short essays about the film industry. From the set designers/prop guys to the corporate bigwigs, from concept to final product, BvG shines light on some of the intricacies, pitfalls and general craziness that happens in Hollywood.

The reason I picked up BvG is because it had received some excellent press from the New York Times and Variety, as well as film critics, Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin, even though there’s a whole section in the book about how critics ruin films. Furthermore, Mamet is a veteran in the biz who has written several solid films (Wag the Dog, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables), so I was interested in seeing what he had to say.

Though the topics are rather varied the main thread of the collection is about the artistry and the craftsmanship involved in producing motion pictures. Mamet begins his journey at the ground level with set designers, artist and the rest of the production crew, who he anoints the unsung heroes of the industry. Then, he moves on to criticize everyone else involved with the film making process: young writers for not appreciating the essence of writing; studio script readers for debasing creative writing because the result may not be profitable; producers for being the product of nepotism and greed; directors for introducing unnecessary clutter to stories; critics for being critics.

Interspersed in his tirades against the machine that has made him famous are nuggets of advice to people wishing to break into the industry, a few opinion pieces about the roles of females/jews/the audience in Hollywood and why violent summer films are so profitable.

Mamet’s name dropping and references to his own works read rather pompously and the constant injection of French and Latin phrases draw away one from the book’s casual style. Even still, if you are a fan of his work or just want to get a little bit of a flavour of how the business works, then BvG is well worth reading.

(edit: the title comes from the animated short, Bambi Meets Godzilla, in which Bambi is stomped into shoe custard by Godzilla. Found Here)

Spiderman 3

2007-05-08T23:41:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Wealth and fame, he's ingored,
Spoilers are his reward!

***EndNote***

So here’s a nugget of my personal history, as a kid I was a huge Spiderman fan and I still am. I don’t collect the books anymore though I do have a sizable collection that can only increase in value if this movie is a huge hit. (Edit: While not a huge critical hit, it did rake in a tremendous chunk of cash). Moreover, Venom is one my favourite super-villains of the series and I was excited to see how Sam Raimi would create the character.

Unfortunately, knowing the lore casts a long shadow on the film version. I understand that on film everything needs to be tightened up because they don’t have as much time or freedom to explain a story like the books do, so allowances must be made, laws of physics broken and caution thrown to the wind.

You like tangled webs? This film has them in spades. With three Peter Parker stories and two Spiderman plots, this film overflows with new characters and exposition. About an hour an a half has elapsed after getting through the introduction of all the characters and their distinguishing traits.

There’s the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) running amok, Harry Osborn (James Franco) attempting to avenge his father’s (Willem Dafoe) death, the symbiotic Venom suit’s terrible curse, the relationship highs and lows between Peter and Mary Jane, and the rivalry between Peter and Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) at the Bugle. The film is a five car pile up – it’s a horrible mess, but it’s hard to look away.

The film is visually stunning. If only the story had been streamlined the film would have been excellent. The Sandman and Venom are rendered superbly and web slinging shots have been brought to a whole new level. Unfortunately, these extras are like slathering gravy over a rancid pork chop.

The first problem with the film is the opening credit roll. Yeah, I know it’s pretty rough when the credits are messed up. Similar to the previous installments, Spiderman 3 uses a CGI montage during the roll call for the cast and the characters they play, but not all the names and the characters were synched up. This would have made sense if the montage was just of Peter and Mary Jane, but most of the characters appear and many of them are mislabeled.

This small miscue was followed by dozens of others, the uncaring scientist who turns on the particle accelerator with a man standing in the beam’s path, a meteor crashing into central park going unnoticed, two terribly overdubbed musical numbers performed by Dunst, etc. They are small things but when you’re having trouble suspending your disbelief already, these obstacles only make the experience worse.

I doubt this is going to hit home for fans of the first two films. There are plenty of action scenes, lots of explosions and more villains than you can shake a stick at but this is clearly a case of too much, too fast. For the fan of the comics, this is another film that you’ll probably watch just to see where they had to change the story and come out of the theatre with a burning desire to flame this film all over the internet. I’m giving this film a 4/10 by virtue of the Venom scenes, the excellent visuals and Bruce Campbell’s cameo role as the swarthy French Maitre D’.

Sony has announced that it is going to be developing more Spiderman films regardless of Raimi, Maguire or Dunst’s involvement. Hopefully, they pick a more self contained comic story to make into a film.

Preview: The Valet (La Doublure)

2007-04-26T23:31:00.000-04:00

***Note***

This devil wears spoilers

***EndNote***

Opens April 27, 2007 --- I saw a subtitled version, but a dubbed version may be available for the wide release.

The Valet seems like the kind of movie that would have a syrupy aftertaste that could turn the stomach of the biggest sweet tooth. There’s the whole Beauty and the Beast vibe happening so there’s bound to be some sort of moral to the story or maybe a musical sequence, right?

On the contrary, the film is a rather humorous take on a stereotypical guy’s fantasy of being romantically entangled with a supermodel while being paid for it. The story is about maintaining appearances, false perceptions of perfection, and surmounting personal shortcomings. And there’s also a bit of fashion show.

Through a paparazzi photograph, Francois (played by Gad Elmaleh) enters the world of haute couture and lavish dinner parties, when a billionaire, Pierre Lavasseur (played by Daniel Auteuil), tries to cover up his affair with supermodel, Elena (played by Alice Taglioni). Underneath the chaos brought into Francois and Elena’s lives, a true friendship develops and they end up helping each other extricate themselves from their respective problems.

This is a classic “nerd and popular girl become prom king and queen” type flick. It’s really been done to death but it’s hard not to smile when the nerd gets the courage to get up on that stage and dance with the girl.

Though the plot is thin but this doesn’t stop the actors from being excellent in their parts: Francois is relatable, Pierre is sleazy and Elena is beautiful and intelligent. I was unfamiliar with the cast save Kristin Scott Thomas, but a quick look through IMDB reveals that all these are well established, veteran actors.

The Valet sets out a simple framework with a couple of interesting characters and finds a way to perk up a tired old story. It’s a “date movie” through and through. It’s a hard movie to hate because it’s not too sappy, there’s a decent moral and there’s a boob joke but it’s just as hard to really like this movie because this isn’t anything new. So, this film gets a 5/10 or a two out of five star rating.

Hot Fuzz

2007-04-22T21:07:00.000-04:00

***Note***

No spoilers this time

***EndNote***

This quirky British comedy, brought to you by the writers and director of Shaun of the Dead, is certainly the most entertaining and funniest film of the year thus far. Where Shaun poked fun at horror, Hot Fuzz takes aim at the action.

Sgt. Angel (Simon Pegg) is a model police officer, but his job takes over every aspect of his life. When he is reassigned to Sanford, the village with the lowest crime rate in England, his over-zealous attitude causes problems for his new boss, co-workers including his naïve partner Danny (Nick Frost) and the villagers. As Angel begins to investigate crimes in his new village, he finds that things aren’t always as they seem.

The director, Edgar Wright, hits all the marks of a typical cop movie: an overly ambitious officer, the bumbling sidekick, the hard-ass detectives, a car chase, a huge explosion and a Mexican standoff, it’s all there. It’s also similar to an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus with a series of short sketches tied together by absurd segues.

The two lead actors, Pegg and Frost, have excellent chemistry together which makes their performance all the better. The cast of secondary actors, like Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman and Jim Broadbent, was terrific as well.

There wasn’t anything to complain about this movie except for the two hour run time. There were several secondary stories about the crimes of the village that were funny but could have been removed to speed up the movie.

There were a few jokes for the Shaun fans (the garden fence jumping scene, the various pub scenes and some of the dialog) though these references are funny in their own right and don’t require knowledge of the previous film.

This really has been the best film that I have seen this year, so I’m going to give it an 8/10 or four out of five stars.

300

2007-03-11T00:53:00.000-05:00

***Note***

Corrumpo ergo sum

**EndNote

300 is the latest film translation from Frank Miller’s brilliant catalogue. The story is based on both historical accounts of the suicidal battle of Thermopylae but more specifically, the film The 300 Spartans. In 480 B.C., a small contingent of Greek warriors stood against Xerxes’ army of Persians, which lead the city-states of Greece to unite in order to defend their freedom and democracy.

Frank Miller brought us Sin City, a noir styled series of stories about redemption and love that was aptly adapted from the pages to the screen. Would 300, a period piece about honor, glory and freedom, achieve both the same fidelity to the source material and the stunning visuals?

With the exception of a handful of comic book movies, there have always been alterations of the material to better suit the screen, so if you are a fan of the comic, which was rather sparse in detail but glorious with the battle scenes or the previous film, which was based more on the political in-fighting between the city states - be warned, twists and turns ahead.

The film departs from the source material in two distinct ways (among a myriad of smaller adjustments), the introduction of the family life of the King Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler, and the addition of secondary plot line involving political corruption in the Spartan city council.

The family life side of the story was interesting because it was a new angle and it allowed for more character development. But many of these scenes dragged on, perhaps over-humanized the rugged Spartan lifestyle or just seemed out of place.

The city council subplot was utterly ridiculous and did not serve as plot advancement or character development. The only things that this subplot brought to the table were an non-consensual sex scene and a disemboweling. I guess these scenes were added because Lena Headey, who plays the Queen Gorgo of Sparta, was on the cast and she needed more screen time to show off all those tiny costumes. Furthermore, the resolution to this subplot was utter trash. Without giving it all away, if you were being bribed, would you carry around your payoff in a gigantic sack around your waist?

The last thing about the movie that was absurd was the amount of slow motion and high speed shots. It got to a point where any scene that was in regular speed was a relief, but oh, the irony, the majority of the scenes in regular speed were in the city council plot line.

The way that director Zack Snyder shot the film really captures the comic book’s style though it lacks the books hard edge when it came to the blood and gore, which was probably impossible to bring to the screen. The digital effects don’t break any new ground like Sky Captain or Sin City did, they work very well and most of the visual effects look spectacular, especially the scene where at the boats are being battered by the rough seas. Lastly, the monsters in the film are incredible: Ephialtes (the hunchback), the Giant and the Executioner are all awesome.

The dialog was where the film took direct cues from the comic book. Though the inclusion of two narrators was strange, but once you got to know each of the story teller’s styles it followed seamlessly. Accents were another small trouble for some of the actors including the veterans like Butler.

The acting was rather minimal, but the characters were successfully embodied by the cast. Dillios, the storyteller, was played excellently by David Wenham (Faramir from Lord of the Rings), Stellios, the brash youngster, played by Michael Fassbender and the Captain, played by Vincent Regan, are all stand outs from the cast.

In my case, being a fan of the comic and having seen the previous film, I left the theatre feeling a let down. I didn’t feel like this film lived up to its potential, though it was fairly entertaining. From all the problems with the slo-mo, the accents and the pointless city council scenes, this movie gets a 5/10 or two and a half out of five stars.

The Golden Rasberry “Winners” Are…

2007-02-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

Three films last year pretty much swept the board at the Razzies this year. Basic Instinct 2 (dubbed - Basically, it stinks, too! with 4 trophies), Little Man(with 3 trophies)and Lady in the Water (with 2 trophies) all had multiple “wins” and they were certainly deserved. The other films that were dishonored Saturday night were: RV, Date Movie and Scary Movie 4. Here’s the list of Razzies for 2006. Enjoy!

Worst Picture:
Basic Instinct 2 - Sony/Columbia

Worst Actress:
Sharon Stone - Basic Instinct 2

Worst Actor:
Marlon Wayans & Shawn Wayans - Little Man

Worst Supporting Actress:
Carmen Electra - Date Movie and Scary Movie 4

Worst Supporting Actor:
M. Night Shyamalan - Lady in the Water

Worst Director:
M. Night Shyamalan - Lady in the Water

Worst Screen Couple:
Shawn Wayans & either Kerry Washington or Marlon Wayans – Little Man

Worst Remake Or Rip-off:
Little Man - (Rip-off of the 1954 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Baby Buggy Bunny")

Worst Prequel or Sequel:
Basic Instinct 2

Worst Screenplay:
Basic Instinct 2

Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment: (New Category, Saluting the Celebs We're ALL Sick & Tired Of!)
RV

Oscar 2007 Picks: Yet another list...

2007-02-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

Here's my list of Oscar picks and dark horse contenders. Let's hope Ellen can keep the show rolling and on time so I can have something for you on monday (knock on wood).

Performance by an actor in a leading role

My pick: Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” (Fox Searchlight)
Dark Horse: Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” (THINKFilm)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

My pick: Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Dark Horse: Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

My Pick: Helen Mirren in “The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
Dark Horse: Penélope Cruz in “Volver” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

My Pick: Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Dark Horse: Adriana Barraza in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Best animated feature film of the year

My Pick: “Cars” (Buena Vista) John Lasseter
Dark Horse: “Monster House” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Gil Kenan

Achievement in art direction

My Pick:“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
Dark Horse: “The Prestige” (Buena Vista)

Achievement in cinematography

My Pick: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) Guillermo Navarro
Dark Horse: “The Black Dahlia” (Universal) Vilmos Zsigmond

Achievement in costume design

My Pick: “Curse of the Golden Flower” (Sony Pictures Classics) Yee Chung Man
Dark Horse: “Marie Antoinette” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Milena Canonero

Achievement in directing

My Pick:“The Departed” (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese
Dark Horse: “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Alejandro González Iñárritu

Best documentary feature

My Pick: “An Inconvenient Truth” (Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
Dark Horse:“Jesus Camp” (Magnolia Pictures)

Best documentary short subject

My Pick: “Recycled Life”
Dark Horse: “The Blood of Yingzhou District”

Achievement in film editing

My Pick: “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Dark Horse: “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

Best foreign language film of the year

My Pick:“Pan’s Labyrinth” Mexico
Dark Horse: "The Lives of Others” Germany

Achievement in makeup

My Pick: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) David Martí and Montse Ribé
Dark Horse: “Apocalypto” (Buena Vista) Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

My Pick:“The Good German” (Warner Bros.) Thomas Newman
Dark Horse: “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight) Philip Glass

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

My Pick:“Love You I Do” from “Dreamgirls”
Dark Horse:“I Need to Wake Up” from “An Inconvenient Truth”

Best motion picture of the year

My Pick: “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Dark Horse: “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated short film

My Pick:“The Danish Poet” (National Film Board of Canada)
Dark Horse: “Lifted” (Buena Vista)

Best live action short film

My Pick: “The Saviour” (Australian Film Television and Radio School)
Dark Horse: “West Bank Story”

Achievement in sound editing

My Pick: “Apocalypto” (Buena Vista)
Dark Horse: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)

Achievement in sound mixing

My Pick: “Apocalypto” (Buena Vista)
Dark Horse: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)

Achievement in visual effects

My Pick: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)
Dark Horse: “Superman Returns” (Warner Bros.)

Adapted screenplay

My Pick: “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
Dark Horse: “Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (20th Century Fox)

Original screenplay

My Pick: “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Dark Horse: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)

Oscar Picks!

2007-02-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

Oh, how the time flies! This will be the second Academy Awards that I cover ( last year, my accuracy at picking the winners was approx 50%) and to mark this occasion, I am going to be making two lists, one of my picks and the other of dark horses that may just squeak in. I’ll be posting a more comprehensive list later but for now, here are the picks for the big five categories:

Best Actor:

Actors that can realistically portray human frailty and dramatic personal growth usually win this award.

My pick: Forest Whitaker

Dark horse: Ryan Golsing

Best Actress:

Actresses who play strong female role models that have both a sensitive and an authoritative side usually win this award.

My pick: Helen Mirren

Dark horse: Penelope Cruz

Best Director:

This one usually goes to the director of the film that is the runner up for the Best Picture.

My pick: Martin Scorsese – The Departed (but not out of pity for Scorsese, this really was his best since Casino)

Dark horse: Alejandro González Iñárritu – Babel

Best Foreign Film:

This category is wide open. Sometimes, art films win, other times, films that generate large box office revenues win. This one is a crap shoot at best when it comes to patterns.

My pick: Pan’s Labyrinth

Dark horse: Water

Best Picture:

Usually, Films picked for this category has had some impact on film making or the film industry in general, but this year the nominees are smaller indie type films.

My pick: Babel

Dark horse: Little Miss Sunshine

Here Come the Oscars/The Razzies!

2007-01-31T21:31:00.000-05:00

With the major award season half finished (Golden Globe winners here, Screen Actors guild winners here [you'll have to scroll down to find the list]), only two of the major awards of the year remain – The Oscars and the Razzies.

The Oscars have been the crown jewel in Hollywood since1929. Over the years the awards have tried to maintain the same quality but occasionally there have been some blips – some awards have been given to people and films of lesser quality because their better ones have been overlooked (e.g. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).

For some unknown reason, comedies are usually overlooked for this particular award, but this year that trend has been soundly broken. There are four comedic films that have been nominated for various, and key, awards:

Little Miss Sunshine – Best Picture, Best Original Screen Play, Best Supporting Actress
The Devil Wears Prada – Best Lead Actress
Venus – Best lead Actor
Borat – Best adapted Screenplay

With about 61 films vying for 5 spots for best foreign film this year, a Canadian film made the cut. Water by Deepa Mehta, in which Hindi is spoken throughout, premiered in 2005 at the Toronto international film festival and went on to becoming the highest grossing foreign feature film in the US in 2006. In a group of films that have had significantly more press (Pan’s Labyrinth and The Lives of Others), Water is going to have a tough time breaking through and taking home the award.

The second award ceremony has less history but just as much enthusiasm. The Razzies, started in 1980, are the creation of John Wilson, who wanted to dishonor all the terrible movies of the past year. In the beginning, the categories mirrored the Oscars, but with time irreverent categories like the Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property and Most Tiresome Tabloid Targets arose. Unlike the Oscars, whose judges are kept anonymous from the public, the Razzies depend on the public to nominate and choose the “winners”. Moreover, those who sign up to vote secure an invitation to the awards ceremony that takes place in Los Angeles, a day before the Oscars.

The Academy Awards take place on February 25th and the Razzies on the 24th. To see the lists of the nominees, you can check out these links:

The Oscars

The Razzies

Smokin' Aces

2007-01-28T22:57:00.000-05:00

***Note***

I spoil movies like butter spoils popcorn

***EndNote***

Magician/mobster, Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven of Entourage) is looking to make a deal with the FBI to sell out his ‘family’. All he needs is the call from his lawyer saying that the FBI will be placing him in protective custody and the witness protection program.

If there’s one thing the mafia knows, it’s how to make a body disappear, so it’s a race against time and an army of hitmen for FBI director Locke (Andy Garcia) and agents, Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Messner (Ryan Reynolds of Waiting). Meanwhile, four teams of assassins, lured by the one million dollar bounty on Israel’s head, set their plans in motion.

Along with the FBI and the assassins, there is a group of bail bondsmen/bounty hunters, lead by Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), who are on the job to bring Buddy in on a bond that he ditched in Las Vegas.

When a movie, like this one, has so many marquee actors, individual points of view, and action sequences none of the characters get the time to really flesh out, with exception of Carruthers and Locke. This wouldn’t have been a problem in another action movie because they don’t bother with character development at all, but director, Joe Carnahan, dedicated the first hour to the back story of the assassins, the mafia and the feds only to let it all go when the action starts.

Once the action begins, the director’s mastery behind the camera becomes apparent. The story rolls right along and aptly reveals all the facets of the shady dealings in the mafia and the FBI. Since there are six points of view and they all intersect at Buddy’s hideout, the penthouse suite at a casino in Lake Tahoe, tight editing and smooth transitions from one to the next help in sorting out what is going on.

Liotta and Garcia play their characters impeccably and with palpable conviction. Being veterans with the subject matter, they know exactly how to make use of their limited face time to bring out their character’s personalities. Alicia Keys, who plays Georgia Sykes, makes her big screen debut as a femme fatale who is contracted to deliver the hit on Israel. She plays her role as cool and composed as many of the more senior actors. The rest of the cast seem to just go through the motions in delivering their characters.

Unfortunately, the one word that best describes this movie is: stock. There is nothing novel to this picture. We’ve seen it before in every mob film where some stooley is about to squeal and the cops rush in to meet the assassins with guns blazing. Everything that has come to be cliché in a mobster movie is included in this picture: The stake-out outside the godfather’s mansion, the nervous snitch, the pair of FBI agents with a father-son type relationship, the drive-by killings, the mysterious lone gunman, et cetera. The cherry on the top of the sundae would have been that this was agent Carruthers’ last day on the job before retirement (I was waiting for this line to come but it never did).

Though this is a plain mobster movie, it had enough action and a little comedy, provided by Jason Bateman, to make it watchable. This was a 6/10 or two and a half out of five stars film because it doesn’t maintain the story, as bland as it was, or come at the genre with a new or interesting perspective. The film scores points on the action: there are some great scenes with double crosses, the plans that the hitmen use are rather good, and there are a few plot twists that are decent. Fans of chase scenes, gunplay or Alicia Keys in revealing outfits will enjoy this film but otherwise it’s a disposable action film which can be left until it’s available for rental.

Interview with a Filmmaker: James Rolfe

2007-01-23T19:55:00.000-05:00

This is a first for The Movie Buffer! The very first interview with a filmmaker is with James Rolfe and as you can see (from above) he doesn't look to happy. Please note that the videos that I have linked contain coarse language so they are not safe for work or for younger audiences.

With the advent of online communities like MySpace and YouTube, directors, professional and amateur, have the potential to reach vast and constantly expanding audiences. If their videos resonate with viewers, distribution of the material may turn ‘viral’ extending the network of viewers and creating a source of celebrity.

In the world of online videos, eye-catching, humourous and sometimes painful material exerts the strongest pull with viewers, as seen in the Badger Badger video, the Numa Song and the hordes of Jackass-style stunt videos.

James Rolfe is on the brink of such notoriety with his series entitled The Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN), in which he lampoons video games from the late 80s and early 90s. Based at ScrewAttack.com and available through Cinemassacre.com, the AVGN has spread rapidly and has become a hit. I asked James about his films and the wave of popularity he is enjoying.

Danny Smooth: Hello, James! According to your webpage, you've recently got a surge of hits (over one million in October 2006) because of your series of videos entitled The AVGN. Why do you think these videos have stuck a chord with the online community?

James Rolfe: Yeah, it's crazy. I got 3 million hits during December. When I first created the Angry Nintendo Nerd[now known as the AVGN] in 2004, it was just an in-joke for my friends. I had no idea that so many other people would find it so amusing. These are targeted at mature gamers, people my age who grew up in the time of NES [and] SNES, but I guess everyone's interested in the past. Somehow, it just spread like wildfire. I abandoned most of my other film projects for the meantime, to try and keep up with the nerd videos, since people keep wanting more of it.

DS: How does it feel to be that well received?

JR: I love that I'm entertaining so many people and that my comments on the games are being embraced by everyone, but being only one person it’s hard to keep up with it all. Twice a week, I have to sit down for many, many hours at a time to answer emails and MySpace messages. It’s crazy. I appreciate the fanbase, but I just hope everyone knows how busy I am.

DS: What are you working on now?

JR: I'm working on a 2-set DVD compilation of all the AVGN reviews. I also just moved and am seeking a new job with more flexible hours. That's why it's taking a while to get another video out. I'm really dependent, at the moment, of getting some money, because it’s very hard to make these videos on the side of a full time job. So, that's my goal, to make the nerd my source of income so I can make more videos.

DS: What do you see in the future for the AVGN?

JR: As far as content goes, I have a lot planned. My list of games I wanna review is endless. What I hope the future holds is simply that I don't have to work a job, and get to keep making ‘Nerd’ videos on a bigger scale and get back to some other film projects.

DS: Any Non-AVGN projects in the works for the near future?

JR: I have tons of films planned. Some short, some feature length. All different. I have some goofball comedies I want to make, another zombie splatter flick and a pyschological horror film. I hope to get started on one of them within the next year.

DS: Thanks for answering my questions!

JR: Thanks for the interview, Dan.

DVD Review: The Oh in Ohio

2007-01-18T21:55:00.000-05:00

***Note***

Forget it, Jake. It's spoiler-town.

***EndNote***

When film about sex hit the mainstream, even in an indie pic like this, they tend to be overly sexualized co-ed romps or overly dramatic liaisons dangereuses. But The Oh in Ohio takes a more subtle and quirky look at sex and it’s role in relationships.

Jack Chase (Paul Rudd of The 40 Year Old Virgin) is a high school teacher, who is growing more frustrated, depressed and cynical every day. This is no midlife crisis - this is the culmination of years of inability to please his wife Priscilla (Parker Posey of Superman Returns) in bed. The school’s gym teacher/guidance councilor Coach Popovitch (Keith David of Dirty) notices the change in his attitude and tries to help the guy out with a few personal tips and tricks. Another witness of Jack’s descent into depression is one of his students, Kristen (Mischa Barton of The OC), who vows “fix” him. This plot line leads into a morally challenging avenue. While Jack is dealing with his “help”, Priscilla takes matters into her own hands and with a little help from Wayne, the pool guy (Danny DeVito of Deck The Halls). Through a series of life altering situations the pair of characters find what was missing in their relationship and realize that their “perfect” life wasn’t at all what they wanted.

This film is constructed in a very concise and quick paced manner. Each of the elements of the plot get a good amount of time to develop and the viewers get to connect to with the feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty that the characters have. Sophomore director, Billy Kent, also the co-writer, has made a nice film about an interesting topic that people have a hard time talking about.

Rudd plays his character with great enthusiasm and flair. His talent in comedy does not outshine is ability to slip into dramatic roles. His ability to be so flawed but also such a good everyman is outstanding.

Posey, who plays a career centered business woman, steps into her role entirely and shows us that she has evolved since her days in Dazed and Confused. She gives this very ordered but very quirky character some great personality. And even though she looks like a supermodel in most of her scenes, her character, like Rudd’s, is flawed, human and ultimately likeable.

The crew of secondary characters is also very strong with Keith David and Danny Devito. David, who is really a bit character designed for a few laughs, plays his part to perfection. He plays the “comic” to Rudd’s “straight man”. His often silly dialog add some nice touches to the comedy of the film. Devito plays the second male lead who teaches Posey a good lesson about life and loss. Though his character is rather sedate, his ability to liven the scene is amazing.

Barton plays the role of a young temptress with the poise of a young starlet. She doesn’t really do anything except dress up like a high school student, take off her clothes and talk about penises. Though her performance was sketchy, the character was a necessary addition to push Jack further into his realization that something was wrong with his relationship with his wife.

The conclusion of this movie leaves much to the imagination of the viewer in stark contrast to the style of the rest of the movie. Jack’s plot line is left dangling without mention and Priscilla’s plot is thickened with an ultimatum from Wayne. This was not a cohesive conclusion, and at eighty-eight minutes total run time, they could have wrapped things up if there was an extra five to ten minutes.

Though there is this hiccup at the end of the picture, the film remains a clever and humorous look at sex. The main characters are easy to relate to, human and funny. They all have problems and try as they might they can’t and don’t fix everything. It’s a laugh to watch and it gets a 7/10 or three stars out of five.

Dvd review: Battle Royale

2007-01-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

Bloody and Barbaric, Battle Royale is a Slasher Nightmare

***Note***

Up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A- Spoiled!

***EndNote***

Overly violent and uninteresting sum up this gruesome picture, which seems to be based on "The Lord of the Flies" and the short story “The Lottery”, that tries very hard to be gritty and provocative but ends up tepid. Billed as an action packed, adventure movie, it quickly devolves into a mindless “shoot ‘em up” flick. With nary a coherent plot device during the length of the film, it chugs along as it’s cast of about 50 gets mowed down.

In the near future, in an effort to curb teen violence, a randomly selected class of grade nine students is forced, by the militaristic government, to brutally fight each other until only one remains. The kids are dropped off on a deserted island with food, water, one weapon and explosive necklace, to deter defectors. The kids quickly form up into groups and attempt survival by either eliminating the other teams, disassembling their necklaces and running or simply bunkering down in one of the many empty warehouses, huts and underground caves that are present on the island.

Now, you may be wondering why the government thought that this is a good idea and the film provides a brief explanation – “ ‘cause we said so”.

Given the previously stated point, why would the government have to ship these kids off to an island to fight? A school yard with broken bottles and knives seems just as apt. More and more questions like these ones crop up all over the film and there is little to no explanation of how an uninitiated viewer, like me, should answer them.

Like many films these days, this one is based on a series of books of the same name. The books garnered plenty of media attention when Japanese censors tried to get them banned from book stores for being too violent and racy. The books were never pulled and enjoyed more success from the attention than anyone could have imagined.

The director, Kinji Fukasaku, clumsily darts from fight to fight, unable to keep the story on track. The cast is made up of many well known Japanese television and film stars. The North American viewers will probably notice, Beat Takeshi (Vic Romano from Most Extreme Elimination Challenge; Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman), as the embittered ex-school teacher-turned-military-man and Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo from Kill Bill), as the one of the school girls. Takeshi is a great actor but he seems to be type cast as the angry villain lately. He was the one ray of sunlight in the otherwise blackened movie.

Even taken as a disposable horror flick, this film cannot be watched and unfortunately it isn’t one of those films that’s so bad that it has a sort of charm, it’s just utter garbage. The violence isn’t even that interesting because we’ve seen this sort of thing in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “The Running Man” and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Hard Target”. I wish that Godzilla had popped up and finished off all the kids to end our misery. For Beat Takeshi fans, he’s on screen for about 16 minutes, he’s violent and unfortunately he can’t save this film. 1/10 or zero stars.

p.s. Surprisingly, this is one of the highest grossing films in Japan, having earned 3.11 billion yen domestically (source).

Three Legged Legs

2007-01-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, I received and email about a triumvirate of “dangerous” animators from California, the Three Legged Legs.

They merge traditional 2D animation with computer generated imagery to create a visual style that’s very eye catching (check out “Humans!”).

Tomorrow in the ‘feed’ section, you’ll find “Samurai”, the newest addition to the trio’s porfolio. There is a contest for spotting all the ninjas in the short film. The prize - a necktie.

These guys have the talent, a good sense of humour and I wish them luck in the future.

Top 10 Digital Effects from Popular Mechanics

2007-01-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

Popular mechanics has released an interesting list of the top 10 revolutionary digital f/x projects in film history. The top five are undeniably influential on film and still play a large role in how films are made today. The other entries in this list have that “Oh, yeah! ” feeling to them.

The list is as follows:

Star Wars – Motion Control Photography via computer
Tron – CGI light bikes
Terminator 2 – T1000 liquid metal effects
Cliffhanger – Deleted safety wires
Jurassic Park – Realistic dinosaurs with movement
Forest Gump – Inserting Gump into archival film
The Perfect Storm – Realistic Water
Lord of the Rings – Artificially intelligent Uruk-hai sprites
Polar Express – Large scale motion capture + photo realistic acting
The Day After Tomorrow – Photo realistic New York City

Four of the titles they mention deal with photo realism, so I think they missed the ball in that respect. They should have put in Toy Story and The Matrix, which have had a far larger impact than the visuals in The Day After Tomorrow and The Polar Express. Especially Toy Story because without it a movie like The Polar Express would have been done as well or at all for that matter.

For the entire article click here.

The Motel

2007-01-12T21:33:00.000-05:00

***Note***

All work and no spoilers make Jack a dull boy.

***EndNote***

Trailer Found here.

This indie gem focuses on the awkwardness of puberty and how it overwhelms or is overcome by the young main character, Earnest. Living with his mother and grandfather at the family’s rundown hourly rate motel, Earnest finds himself misunderstood, isolated and without help in his time of need. That is, until Sam arrives. Sam pulls into the hotel, located on a deserted stretch of highway in the wooded areas of northern California, and befriends the lonely kid. Through a series of escalating shenanigans, Sam bestows some life lessons on to Earnest, who tries his best to apply them to his current problems, like impressing the young waitress at the local restaurant, dealing with his terrible job at the motel and trying to express himself to his overbearing mother.

Director, Michael Kang, made a huge splash with this movie at the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film festival. The film is crafted in such a way the even though the story revolves around an Asian family, it still rings with truth for everyone. Though the pacing may put some people off, the slow build up and the crashing, chaotic events suit the topic of the film perfectly.

The actors, especially the main lead, Jeffrey Chyau, and the female lead, Samantha Futerman, play their roles very well. Chyau has acting skills far beyond his age, holding his own with the far more experienced cast members. Sung Kang (Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) plays the charismatic and delinquent, Sam, with poise and vigor. The duo of Chyau and Kang are great on camera with each other. Not only do they have a brotherly relationship but they each learn something about themselves from the other.

This movie is great fun and painfully realistic. It didn’t enjoy a wide release, but smaller theatres may have it for a short run. Overall this movie gets a 7/10 or three and a half stars out of five. This is a touching coming of age story that down plays a lot of the baggage that comes with the genre.

Dvd Review: Blackballed: the Bobby Dukes Story

2007-01-11T23:22:00.000-05:00

***Note***

No transfats or spoilers!

***EndNote***

Rob Corddry steps into his first starring role in this picture and he really shines with the all the attention. In this fictional documentary, Corddry plays Bobby Dukes, a former champion paintball player who was served a ten year suspension for “wiping” (wiping paint off one’s jersey during play), who returns to the game yearning to recapture some of his former glory.

Brant Sersen, the director, takes on this mainstream comedy with hilarious results. Most of the humour in the film comes from awkward silences and general weirdness so it doesn’t exhume belly laughs, but from time to time they come through. With a cast of eccentric friends and silly rivals, this movie is sure to bring a smile to your face.

The film is shot in a faux documentary style with talking head interviews and shaky handicam shots of the action. Unlike many other sports movies, this one doesn’t get jammed up with secondary plot lines, love interests or anything like that. The scenes move briskly from one to the next and really focus on the character development of Dukes and his team.

Along with Corddry, Ed Helms, Rob Riggle (both from The Daily Show), Paul Scheer, Dannah Feinglass, Curtis Gwinn (all from BurlyTV) and a legion of other sketch-com actors round out the cast. They all play rather human characters with all the minor flaws and subtle (but sometimes not so subtle) sense humour that real people have. The onscreen chemistry is decent with Dukes as the father figure character teaching his team the ins and outs of championship paintball. One problem I found was that the actors break the fourth wall and interact with the camera crew at times to ask to get out the of way or to hold a jacket. It was out of place and it added to the overall absurdity of the film, in the end.

This is a sports flick, so there are a few typical elements: a sport training montage, the coach, in this case Dukes, giving rousing pep talks and the arrogant current champion that shoot his mouth off once too often. Though these are rather elements are rather cliché, in the context of the film they end up being very funny.

I wasn’t expecting this movie to be as entertaining as it is. There aren’t any really big names attached to this film but everyone in the cast put out great performances. I would have liked a bit more adversity for Dukes and his paintball team but the story was strong none the less. I didn’t notice this one in theatres but Blockbuster has it for rental now. It’s got a lot of heart and plenty of balls, Blackballed gets a 7.5/10 or three and a half stars out of five.

DVD review - DOA: Dead or Alive

2007-01-10T21:12:00.000-05:00

***Note***

This review contains 100% of your daily required spoiler intake.

***EndNote***

*Though this DVD is not available North America until April, I was able to lay my hands on Japanese Region 2 copy of the film.

Every couple of months there’s an outrageously bad film that’s released - the kind of movie that could turn someone off of movies entirely. It’s usually a crappy horror flick or a b-grade adventure or, in this case, a video game adaptation.

The Dead or Alive video games have been much maligned because of their attention to gravity and how it acts on the female form (what is casually called “jiggle physics”). Beyond that, the game is a clone of the wildly popular Street Fighter series.

The only thing that this particular film needs to have to be a good translation is a quartet of starlets willing to run around in bikinis and punch things. But they strayed from that approach by trying to fit a terrible story, with a love triangle subplot no less, in with the eye candy.

The DOA tournament is a world wide event that highlights the greatest champion of every combat sport. Each participant is matched up in a single elimination fight to determine the greatest champion of all. Throw in a megalomaniacal tournament arbitrator and a volleyball game and that sums up DOA.

This film is awful and instead of just letting everything hang out and having a fun time with the bad material the director, Corey Yuen, took everything very seriously. Even the dick and fart jokes come off as forced and pompous. The film has an awesome tropical backdrop which soothes the brain until someone starts doing something and then it’s rapid-fire cuts from place to place without slowing down.

Since all the characters in the video game are such cartoon-y caricatures, the cast tried to fit their roles as much as humanly possible. Tina (Jaime Pressly), Christie (Holly Valance), Helena (Sarah Carter) and Kasumi (Devon Aoki) are the four female leads in this picture. They look good strutting around in bikinis throughout the film but when they open their mouths it’s hard not to laugh at the horrible dialog that comes spewing forth. Kevin Nash (from WCW wrestling) seemed to be the only actor that recognized that this was a trashy B-movie so he made his character over-the-top goofy.

There is nothing good about this movie - it’s creatively void, the only reason it got made was to try to wring more money out of the prepubescent male teen demographic, and when they tried to add some substance to the story none of it fit with the characters. Terrible game, terrible movie and there’s nothing more to say about that. 1/10 or zero stars.

Dvd Review: Scoop

2007-01-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

***Note***

A good critic never spoils the movies

***EndNote***

Woody Allen is at it again, writing and directing a subtly humorous romantic comedy, but this time it’s in England. Surrounding himself with two of huge stars, Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman, the movie was destined to be a hot ticket. Or was it? Fans of Allen’s work lamented that this film doesn’t take place in New York, as most of his work does. Critics ranted about how Allen himself had lost his comic touch and that he only nervously paces across the screen as a tribute to his famous neurotic characters.

The main plot line is that there have been a string of murders in London and the police haven’t identified the killer but they have nicknamed him “the tarot card killer” because of his unique MO. Johansson’s character, Sondra, is a keen journalist looking for her big break and it comes when she is attending a magic show, hosted by Allen’s character, Sid. Sondra volunteers to be a stage assistant for Sid’s disappearing trick and while in the magic disappearing box a specter of a dead investigative reporter outlines who the tarot card killer is. Using this lead and some help from Sid, Sondra attempts to track down the killer. Eventually, she lands in the lap of Peter, Jackman’s character, who seems to be entangled in the murders too. As the investigation progresses, tensions between the trio force Sondra to chose who she is going to hurt when she publishes her story and who she will stick by afterwards.

Like every other Woody Allen movie, the film is rather minimalist, but in the new city of London everything seems fresh and alive. Allen may have been phoning this one in to avid fans but it’s interesting to watch and it’s well put together, though the formula is simple. Don’t expect much in the way of plot twists or hard thinking for this movie, it’s a romantic comedy after all.

The acting is all over the chart, Jackman was good as a snooty british aristocrat, Johansson was trying hard to be the plucky young journalist but ended up being a Jekyll and Hyde between an airheaded teenager and a sultry vixen, and Allen played himself yet again, the neurotic, though outgoing, magician. Much of Johansson’s part in this film was to play the deadpan to Woody’s nervousness, but she’s far too emotive to do so. It always seemed like she was playing a caricature of someone trying to deadpan a line, she threw in a wry smile, a near laugh or a lip bite which broke the scene. Otherwise, the acting was great and there was great chemistry between Johansson and Jackman.

I didn’t know that the supernatural was going to play such a large role in the plot development, but it was a welcome twist from Woody’s usual fare. Overall, this movie is a 6/10 or a three out of five stars because it is a plain and simple story told in an average way. Though there were some annoyances throughout the film, it was not the fluff that I had expected from Allen. It’s a decent romantic comedy and with it’s few twists and turns is worth viewing.

DVD review: Who Killed The Electric Car?

2007-01-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

***Note***

This review is a powered by a low spoiler engine

***EndNote***

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a critically acclaimed but poorly received documentary about the conception, life and death of General Motors(GM) electric vehicle program (which produced the car known as the EV1) that took place in the early 90s. With the oil prices soaring, the auto industry promoting larger, less efficient trucks/SUVs and a general public that is becoming more environmentally conscious, this movie points out that a fully electric vehicle is not the fevered dream of a madman, but a viable solution to these problems.

Rookie director, Chris Paine, casts light on several key players that lead to the eventual demise of the electric car, from consumer to automaker, from hydrogen fuel cell researchers to oil company executives. Though highly critical of what big business did to the EV1, this film is not just a rant. He shows that the advances that the EV1 made helped fuel the imaginations of some smaller engineering firms, which now retrofit older and current model cars with “plug in” hybrid systems(gas/electric engines that you plug in at home to charge) or convert them to fully electric vehicles.

The film’s style is of the “talking head” variety, in which interviews with former employees of GM, celebrities and regular folks that owned the EV1, and industry insiders make up the bulk of the film. Some of the celebrities that get some face time and lend their support are: Tom Hanks, Phyllis Diller, Mel Gibson, Alexandra Paul, Martin Sheen, among many others. The dialogue doesn’t get bogged down with any technical jargon or otherwise, the film moves along at a decent pace and if you haven’t heard of the EV1 project then this is a great introduction how it got started.

When the film renders it’s verdict on who has killed the electric car, it pays close attention to the consumer. The director, the auto industry executives and the engineers all blame the buying public as the largest contributor to the demise of the project. Even though the engineers stated that this particular car cannot operate in below zero conditions (which cuts a least half the American market), GM only produced approx. 1200 of the vehicles and after the cars were returned the owners were willing to donate nearly 2 million dollars to keep the project going.

The film's message comes through loud and clear and gets rather preachy by the end of the picture but it’s well worth watching. Though I don’t agree that the consumer is the main reason that the electric car died, I think it’s our duty to understand the issue and take reasonable steps to solve the problem. It took laws to get seat belts in cars, it took laws to regulate emissions, so it will require laws to get auto manufacturers to produce an electric alternative to the internal combustion engine. This was an interesting movie with that was expertly constructed, though it gets preachy, it ranks a 6/10 or a two and a half stars out of five.

Rocky Balboa

2007-01-08T00:48:00.000-05:00

***Note***

I ain't no spoiler, Mick. I ain't no spoiler.

***EndNote***

Sixteen years have passed since Rocky last “threw hands” with his protégé Tommy “The Machine” Gunn and essentially ended one of the most famous underdog stories in film. Most fans found that the last film lacked the emotional punch and a satisfying conclusion so Stallone wrote and pitched this new Rocky installment to cap off the series with a triumphant blow.

Making a sequel like this one isn’t a cake walk through a tea party: Sly is much older now (no one else could play Rocky), there are an army of studio nay-sayers (who, according to Stallone, have been stonewalling the production) and what kind of story could wrap up all the loose ends without speaking over the heads of those who aren’t Rocky fans.

Though there are legions of hardcore fans, nostalgia alone does not make a movie a blockbuster. A movie needs heart, guts and some great dialogue to go the distance.

There were a few signature elements to Rocky sequels that I was looking for: A “catch-up” montage of what has been happening with Rocky since the last film, the inspirational speech that gets Rocky motivated to train, the training montage and an expertly choreographed fight.

The only missing element from my list was the “catch-up” montage but I think the reason that they didn’t put one in was that they wanted to distance themselves from Rocky V(For the same reason that the title is Rocky Balboa instead of Rocky VI). Though they don’t want us to forget about the events from that movie either, Rocky still lives in South Philly, he tells the tale of what Mickey’s angel told him to his customers at his restaurant and several references to conversations like “careful, I’m brittle” and “home team”. Though there are some flashbacks to Mickey and Apollo, there should have been more, maybe to stretch out the very short training montage. These two guys were pivotal in Rocky’s life and they barely get mentioned.

Written and directed by Stallone, this film succeeds in being quick paced and emotionally motivated, based on several well constructed and executed speeches. As a mirror to the first in the series, this film doesn’t have much fighting in it and deals with the inner turmoil of the characters. There isn’t much in this film that hasn’t already been said in the other Rocky movies, but that is hardly a knock against this film. We expect Rocky to fight with all his heart and he does. He shows the world that even the little guy should get a chance at the big time.

Along with Stallone, Burt Young (Paulie) and Tony Burton (Duke) come back to play their iconic characters. Their acting is good though their characters have seen better days (the actors have also seen better days). The other main characters in the film are played by Geraldine Hughes, who plays Marie (a bit character from Rocky, who yells out “Screw you, Creepo!”), Milo Ventimiglia, who plays Rocky’s son Robert, and Antonio Tarver, who plays Mason “The Line” Dixon (the main rival in the film). The new comers were rather good, even Tarver was convincing as a pompous boxer who’s more interested in image rather than sportsmanship. Marie’s whiny voice gets annoying by the end of the picture when she just keeps shouting and shouting. But that’s a small price to pay to have a likeable female character in the film that isn’t Adrian.

The budget of this film was an estimated 24 Mil USD, and it shows where they spent their money, the boxing match. There were flashbacks, digital effects, pyrotechnics, and Mike Tyson. It was also filmed by an official HBO broadcasting team to get that “true to life” feeling. They even got Michael Buffer to recite his trademarked saying “Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!”.

This movie doesn’t disappoint as the bookend of the series. Though it lacks some of the low budget charm of the first it trims the fat that lined the later incarnations. It pays homage to where the series has been and the journey it has taken us on. It probably won’t win any awards but it was entertaining and done well. Rocky Balboa gets a 7/10 or a three and a half stars out of five.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

Hello, faithful readers! Please forgive my laxness, the holidays and advancing my career have caused the delay. But fear not! I have been blessed with several DVDs and I made 2 trips to the theatre so there will be daily updates this week so I can catch up with the new releases. Hooray for everything!

Golden Globe Nominees Announced

2006-12-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

With all the pomp and splendor that the precursor to the Academy Awards should have, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced this year’s stable of Golden Globe nominees. A press conference was held this morning at The Beverly Hilton where the announcements were made by Jessica Biel, Rosario Dawson and Matthew Perry.

Babel aimed high and was rewarded with seven nominations, including best picture-drama and best director. In direct competition with Babel is Martin Scorsese’s, The Departed, with six nods. Rounding out the top three is Dreamgirls with five nominations.

In the television categories, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Showtime’s Weeds share the top spot with four nominations each. Not to be out done by these two relative newcomers, veteran shows like 24 and Desperate Housewives still pulled in 2 and 3 nominations, respectively.

The Award Ceremony will take place on January 15, 2007 at the Beverly Hilton

For the full list of nominees: Click Here for the HFPA’s web page

Blood Diamond

2006-12-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

***Note***

To avoid spoilers, keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times

***EndNote***

Blood Diamond is a film that has been a hot topic in the newspapers over the past few weeks. With a chilling message, big budget and good reviews backing the film (New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune among many others), it seems to be Academy Award material. Though, it is not without a bit controversy, according to a press release by the New York Post, Warner Bros. withheld the extra’s prosthetic limbs, which was part of their payment, to coincide with the release of the film. The studio denies the report.

The movie opens with a montage describing the problem of conflict “blood” diamonds. The situation in Sierra Leone is also described during this montage and sets a bleak tone for the film.

The film really begins when Leonardo Dicaprio, who plays gun-runner/diamond smuggler Danny Archer, and Djimon Hounsou, who plays Solomon Vandy, meet in a detention center in Sierra Leone. Danny has been caught smuggling diamonds out of the war torn country. Solomon’s village was burned to the ground, his family separated and he was forced to mine diamonds for the R.U.F (Revolutionary United Front). When the labour camp is raided by the government, all the workers get thrown in jail as rebel sympathizers.

During his time in the fields, Solomon found a diamond the size of a raccoon’s brain (approximate size of raccoon’s brain 30 grams, which equals 150 carats). This piques Danny’s interest and fuels his ambitions to leave the West African coast forever. Danny offers to use his smuggling contacts to reunite Solomon’s family in exchange for the diamond. Solomon only cares about his family, so he accepts the deal.

The acting is first class all around in this film. Dicaprio, though is accent has annoyed many critics, Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly all make their characters complex, interesting and human. After the performance Hounsou gave is this film, he should be promoted to the “A” class of stars. His deeply emotional character is a perfect counterbalance to Dicaprio’s cold and calculating smuggler. Connelly is there as Leo’s love interest and as fifth business to the story. Arnold Vosloo(the mummy from The Mummy) is another familiar face in the film, he plays a corrupt army colonel, who smuggles on the side.

Throughout, the director, Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, The Siege), takes great pains to describe how this illegal trade is very hard or impossible to distinguish from the legitimate business, how large jewelers purchase vast amounts of diamonds to store in vaults in order to keep supply down and price way up and how the consumer could already have blood diamonds in their jewelry cases. He also highlights the atrocities that are occurring in West Africa, child soldiers, forced labour and mass murders, which continue to this day (the film is set in the 90s).

The movie isn’t without faults: Leo’s accent is hard to listen to and it bends and cracks when he barks orders or yells. He also has a penchant for saying “yeah, huh” at the end of every sentence. Connelly could have used more screen time to develop her character. The film is pretty fat at almost two and a half hours. The pace was rather good but there were many side stories that sucked up a lot of time. By the end of the film, the anti-smuggling sentiment is utterly palpable by the audience and a final text splash page montage appears pointing the finger at the viewers stating that consumers should demand conflict-free diamonds.

The film rates a 7/10 or a 3 out of 5 stars for the great acting, excellent main story and overall enjoyment. Though Hounsou is a veteran actor, this may become his “breakout” performance. It lost some marks for the excessive use of text splash pages, lack of Jennifer Connelly and the unnecessary side plots. I enjoyed the film, the message was strong but brought up some extra questions and all the stories gets wrapped up.

Casino Royale

2006-11-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

***Note***

Small spoilers, shaken not stirred

***EndNote***

This is the latest in a slowly declining franchise, which hopes to “reboot” the series and re-invent Bond as more uncontrollable, rough around the edges secret agent rather than the sly Bond of the past. Bond flicks do well at the box office but the leaps and bounds in production costs have hurt the series(When they began there were eight movies in ten years and if you add the budgets of those eight you get a third of what Casino Royale cost [est. 150 mil]).

Martin Campbell, who directed GoldenEye, takes the reigns as director of this film and his experience with the characters really shows. The story moves along at a good pace and even at two hours the movie never gets bogged down. The story is rather straight forward, a criminal organization has something that MI6 needs, they send 007 to retrieve it, things get complicated by the female lead and Bond a saves the day. There are a few hiccups along the way: Instead of having a car chase sequence, the director opted for a footrace, which just drags on an on, the only spy gadget bond has in this film is his car which only gets used once, and by the end of the movie, the stone faced reaction shots of Bond do get very repetitive, nearly to the point of laughter.

If you have problems with aggressive product placement in films, then avoid this movie. The main benefactors in this film, Ford and Sony, are all over the place. Bond drives a Ford Mondeo during the opening sequence, he hacks around MI6 database with the new Sony Vaio, and Sony Handy-cams, digi-cams and cell phones are in everyone’s pockets.

Most of the film is set in Montenegro, but being an international man of mystery, Bond bounces from Madagascar to the Bahamas, from Miami to Venice. The locations are as gorgeous and opulent as expected, with only the most lavish environments and toys for Bond to play with.

Though there has been much controversy around the selection of Daniel Crag (as seen in Munich and Road to Perdition), he does embody the classic stern gaze and womanizing attitude that bond requires. So what was the big deal? I don’t know. I guess it’s because he’s blonde. As Bond’s Nemesis, Mads Mikkelsen plays, Le Chiffre, who launders money for crime syndicates by playing the stock market and entering poker tournaments. Le Chiffre is a target of MI6 because of his intimate knowledge of the most notorious criminals around the globe, so Bond is called in to recover him for questioning.

The “Bond Girls” in this film are Eva Green, who plays tragically named Vesper Lynd, and Caterina Murino, who plays Solange, the wife of a terrorist who is part of Le Chiffre’s money laundering crew. Both women carry on the tradition very well, though Green plays a slightly more sophisticated and intelligent character than was expected.

I’m giving this move a 6/10 or 2.5 our of 5 stars because the acting was pretty good all around, the brash impulsive new Bond was interesting to watch, and the story with the few twists it had was rather good. On the downside, some of the reaction shots were laughable, the chase scenes were on foot and far too long and where are the all the delightful toys?

Like the other movies in the series, the viewer needs to accept a few dubious flubs and outrageous situations, the crowd I saw it with was rather pleased by the film and I heard many people say that this movie should have a sequel made (which is on the way, opening in 2008).

DVD Review - LoudQuietLoud: a film about the Pixies

2006-11-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

***Note***

No Spoilers! Hooray!

***EndNote***

Being a fan of the band and having attended the tour that this film documents might have biased me to this film but it did not focus on the music, it was about the band’s chemistry on stage and their apparent lack of chemistry off stage.

When this film was screened at the South by SouthWest (SXSW) film festival, they sold out immediately. Even though the band had abruptly dissolved in 1992, the fans were still clamoring for more and this film delivers a great snapshot of the people, the places and the relationships in the band.

The directors of the film, Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin, have created a film that is not only appealing to the Pixies uber-fan but also for a general audience. The pacing is quick, the cuts are clean and there isn’t much fat on this film (It clocks in at 85 minutes or 90 minutes if you watch the video that plays along the credits). During the audio commentary, the directors say they wanted the film to be cinema verité, which means candid camera with shaky angles, and they succeed in giving us some quality moments with the band. They also had Kim’s twin sister, Kelley, as a backup camera operator so she did some of the behind the scenes camera work.

The documentary follows the band as they go on their “Pixies Sellout” tour in 2004 (it was named this way because they sold out at practically every date but we all know what it really means). Before the film dives into the tour, the directors catch the viewers up with the lives of the band members: Charles “Black Francis” Thompson has been writing albums ever since the Pixies broke up, Kim Deal formed the Breeders with her sister, got addicted to drugs and spent some time in rehab, Joey Santiago went on to composing scores for films and television shows and David Lovering became a magician.

Being years removed from playing their old songs, when they first meet up to rehearse Kim had forgotten how to play her parts and Charles had forgotten some lyrics. The viewer sees how human the band members actually are. They note that being in the band was their job, they were regular people just doing their job, and they were giddy to see all the fans being so receptive to their music.

The film-makers stress that the film is formatted like one of the Pixies’ songs: The anticipation and the anxiety of the first shows is loud, the re-visiting of past tensions is quiet and the fabulous success of the tour is loud. Through triumph and tragedy, the Pixies roll through their tour and the viewer gets a rare backstage pass.

The only complaint about the film is at the end of the director’s commentary when they went on to say that this would probably become the definitive Pixies documentary because the band would probably never tour again. I thought that was a little presumptuous seeing as how the film didn’t deal with the music.

If you’re looking for an interview heavy documentary about the pixies check out “Pixies” (released 2004) but if you want a portrait of the people behind the music that would go on to influence bands like Nirvana and Radiohead get a hold of a copy of LoudQuietLoud.

News tidbits, enjoy!

2006-11-13T20:15:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long delay on the updates. I haven’t been to a movie worth writing about in a while. I do have a few tidbits that may interest you:

Simpsons movie trailer (Found here):

It aired last night during the Simpsons broadcast and I have to admit that I laughed - something that the show hadn’t accomplished in years. The screenplay was developed by all the big names from the television show. As far as the trailer goes, it looks like a good movie with some great laughs.

I was apprehensive of this concept to begin with because the show has such a strong formula that adding length could end in disaster, like the Family Guy movie. A notable addition to the animation is hypno-vision as seen in Futurama. You’ll notice it right away in the scene with the wrecking ball. I also like that they have continued to use hilarious signs during pans and sight gags.

Transfomers: The Movie – 20^th Anniversary Edition!

Well, one of my favourite childhood movies has come to DVD in a special commemorative package. And if you have some extra cash, some places like Future Shop or Best Buy have a special Optimus Prime figurine that you can buy. The DVD includes digitally re-mastered sound and touched up graphics as well as a few interviews with the production crew of the new Transformers film (release date 07/04/07). The new packaging is fine but I prefer watching the movie as it was when I was a kid, so I put away the new copy away and put on my BetaMAX tape.

LoudQuietloud: a film about the Pixies

This is a documentary about the Pixies reunion tour (casually known as the “pixies sellout” tour). The viewer gets a glimpse into the strangely normal lives of these alt-rock icons. With old tensions resurfacing and the pitfalls of instant success, the band tries to keep it together to complete one of the most successful reunions of all time. The film focuses on the band members rather than the music so it doesn’t give you a complete picture of the Pixies.

For more info: Click here.
(As soon as I make some time a full review will be written.)

Bobby – couldn’t have come at a better time.

The uber-cast of Laurence Fishburne, Anthony Hopkins, William H Macy, Harry Belafonte, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Christian Slater, Helen Hunt and many others, under the watchful eye of Emilio “Mighty Ducks” Estevez is primed to make a splash at the box office. A good story and a great cast can help a movie succeed but in the case of Bobby, perfect timing and a perfect political climate assure that this film is going to be huge. The press has been very kind to this film and it has been accepted well at festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival.

For more info: Click here.

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj

National Lampoon has been making great comedies for decades, but how the mighty have fallen. They started with Animal House and moved on to the Vacation series, both classic comedies, but then Loaded Weapon, Last Resort and Pledge This (A movie so bad Paris Hilton, who starred in the film, won’t watch it!). In this sequel the student has become the master and goes out into the world to spread the word. ‘Nuff said.

"Shaun of the Dead" Team Back in Action

2006-11-02T22:02:00.000-05:00

The men behind the outrageously funny Shaun of the Dead (SotD), Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, are teaming up again to bring us a police comedy called Hot Fuzz. The general plot line is that Pegg plays a super-keen cop who gets transferred from the big city to a small town precinct.

Familiar faces dot the screen: Nick Frost, Rafe Spall, and Bill Nighy (all from Shaun of the Dead), Timothy Dalton (of James Bond fame), Jim Broadbent (Gangs of New York and Art School Confidential) and Martin Freeman (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

From what I can see the humour is very much like SotD. In the trailers, found here, they make some references that fans will recognize. It looks like another interesting take on an American movie staple, the buddy-cop comedy. I’m looking forward to seeing this one when it’s released in March of next year.

There isn’t an official movie poster out yet, but the pic above was taken at The Comic-Con.

For more info, downloads (they made video journals during the filming which are pretty good) and pictures check out the Hot Fuzz Webpage, found here.

More hype for the Transformers movie

2006-10-17T22:59:00.000-04:00

Trying to take advantage of the internet hype that Snakes on a Plane enjoyed, the crew of the new movie Transformers (to be released July 4^th, 2007) has opened a contest to include a fan submitted line into the movie. The winning line will be spoken by the chief robot himself, Optimus Prime. Seems like a great idea, right? Here’s the list of lines:

http://206.220.43.61/primespeaks/votePrime/

Many of them, like “Megatron must be stopped – No matter the cost”, “One shall stand …One shall fall” and “First, we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside”, though this one was one of Rumble’s lines (who was ready to stomp Perceptor and Blaster in the com station), are lifted directly from the Transformers animated movie or other movies, “I’ll be back” (Terminator) and “I must break you” (Rocky IV). Others are far too long or would be awkward, in my opinion, for Prime to utter (Would a four million year old, robot truck really say “It’s prime time!” or “Do a barrel roll”? That’s almost as strange as having him say “What-chu takin’ ‘bout, Megatron?” while making a pouty face). But there are a few stand outs that make this thing worth while. Unfortunately, the one line that would have been really easy to put in, the final line in the animated film “‘Til all are one” with all the Autobots, Junkions and humans working together, was left out. Unless, it’s already included in the script.

The submission contest was restricted to US residents only but as far as the voting process is concerned anyone that signed up for the site is eligible.

As for the designs of the new characters being non-congruent to the old series, you have to keep in mind Transformers was created to sell toys to kids and by using the old designs, though they were very good, Hasbro would not be gaining any new buyers. It would just be us old suckers looking to replace our collections with the newer stuff. Kids today wouldn’t want to own an Ironhide figure that’s a mini-van, he has to be a Hummer or an Escalade. Same thing with Optimus Prime, cab-over trucks are out and tough looking semi-trailers are in.

The Transformers webpage can be found here.

Where are the TIFF flicks?

2006-10-11T21:09:00.000-04:00

Since I was unable to attend any of the screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), though I doubt any tickets were available for purchase 15 minutes after the showtimes were announced, I am looking forward to catching a few of the films at the Bytowne Theatre here in Ottawa.

It’s a great theatre especially if you’re into old-timey, one-screen theatre houses. Not only do they have the regular projectors for 35 mm film, they have the equipment for 70 mm film, as well. Some of the great classic films, Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: a Space Odyssey for example, are shot on 70 mm, which has a sharper image and better sound quality compared to 35 mm.

Unfortunately, so far the only film that was at the TIFF that’s being screened at Bytowne is Shortbus, which looks like a more graphic and less interesting version of The Oh in Ohio. I was hoping for films like American Hardcore (limited release Oct. 13), Death of a President (limited release Oct. 27) and Pan’s Labyrinth (Release Dec. 27 release size not indicated) to pick up some steam and break out of the festival to wide releases. I guess I have to wait for the DVDs.

Shortbus kicked up a bug fuss at the TIFF for the provocative nature and graphic depictions sex in the film. I guess the filmmaker, John Cameron Mitchell, succeeded in grabbing some attention away from the bigger named films at the Fest. It also brought down a firestorm around CBC radio hostess Sook-yin Lee, who was going to be fired over participating in the films un-simulated sex and orgy scenes.

The use of un-simulated sex scenes has been used in other films to varying degrees controversy: British director Michael Winterbottom used this technique to underline a tempestuous young love in 9 Songs and in Lukas Moodysson’s A Hole in My Heart, graphic portrayals of sex are used both to shock and to enlighten a young man to the world’s morality and human nature.

I know there are people who are going to check out this film because of the sex scenes but for me the prospect of seeing Sook-yin naked and writhing around turns my stomach. My curiosity to see what the hubbub was about always brings me back to this point. I’m sure that makes me sound prudish, but it’s certainly the truth.

But hey, different strokes for different folks.

DVD Review: Kinky Boots

2006-10-03T23:32:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Area is hot, small spoilers, reading you five by five!

***EndNote***

“What would you do?” is the pivotal plot point and source of moral dilemma in the quirky British comedy, Kinky Boots.

Charlie Price (played by Joel Edgerton), who has tried to extricate himself from the family business by getting a job in London, is the last in a line of shoe makers. After his father’s death, Charlie is forced to manage the factory he has worked hard to leave behind. While diving into the business’s finances, he learns that the business has been going under for a long while and his father was covering it up. As the new manager, he has to fire a third of his staff, but not before asking each of them “what would you do?” and having a more than a few dirty looks shot his way. Charlie has to make some hard decisions - he needs to find a way to help his employees, who are his friends, and save the family business but no one is ready to help except for the charming Lauren (played by Sarah Jane Potts).

After a short stay in a pub, Charlie stumbles out into the street and he notices a woman being harassed by three large men. Being a nice guy and wanting to be a hero, he tries to stop the men but is quickly knocked down. This is when he has his epiphany: He is semi-conscious on the ground staring at a boot with a broken heel and a light bulb goes off.

The story about the boots is the first part of the movie, but it also has a more complex secondary story about acceptance and dignity. The foil to this otherwise plain story is that the woman, Lola (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), that was being harassed was actually a drag queen, whose life has been filled with hard decisions and obstacles. When she accepts Charlie’s offer to build a better boot for her, she again struggles to change the minds of the small town workers at the shoe factory.

Julian Jarrold is the director of this picture and though his pedigree lies in television his fluid style of transitions and his use of still shots was an excellent touch to add to the movie. Some of the shots were overly complicated and these shots would lead to confusing re-establishing shots. But as a whole the movie was directed with finesse and didn’t let the viewer down very much.

Not only were the characters well written and conceived, they were portrayed brilliantly by the actors.

Joel Edgerton (From Star Wars Episode 3 and King Edward) played the proud, anxious, good-hearted Charlie Price with both confidence and sensitivity. The way he tried to control is emotions in attempts to remain prim and proper makes the viewer both laugh and cry.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (from Serenity and The Inside Man) plays the drag queen Lola/ the man named Simon. The part required him to wear a huge wig, wear what appear to be 7 inch stilettos and act in two very distinct characters, all of which he succeeds in doing without making it look forced or cartoonish. Though, I bet the blooper reel was absolutely hilarious.

Sarah Jane Potts (from television shows like NYPD blue, Felicity and Keen Eddie) is a perky comedic consultant to Charlie’s new scheme. Though she wants to see Charlie succeed, she is always quick enough to knock him down a few notches if he needs it.

The notable cameo in this film was Nick Frost, of Shaun of the Dead fame. He played a rough around the edges steam-press operator, who is the first to take exception to the arrival of Lola and the first to fully accept her/him in to the factory brotherhood.

There were a few song and dance scenes but they all included lots of jokes and really added some context to Lola’s character.

Overall this movie was a great laugh, had enough back story to make the characters interesting and was thoroughly entertaining. There were a few flaws in the presentation of the film but nothing too displeasing or disruptive. This movie ranks a 7/10 or three and a half out of five star rating.

You're looking at the newest BlogCritic!

2006-09-28T21:25:00.000-04:00

I was recently accepted into a sinister cabal of online critics known only as BlogCritics. It's a pretty keen site. I'll still be posting here, because they don't want articles that just shoot the breeze. You can reach them here:

www.blogcritics.org

So, this site may be getting an influx of new readers and more comments on each post! As a side bonus to joining this team, I'll be able to get press releases and perhaps review copies of upcoming movies.

The only difference between my postings here and the BlogCritic.org ones will be that in the BlogCritics.org versions I am required to link to related items on Amazon.com.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science News

2006-09-26T20:01:00.000-04:00

Here's some news that have happened over the the past few months:

On july 5, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released their new member invitation list in all its glory. Found here.
* Note: Dakota Fanning is on the list. Trying to get them young, just like the tobacco companies.

A month later, they invited 83 foreign countries to submit films, in the category of foreign language film, to be judged for their prestigious awards. Found here.

Afterwards, the IRS wants to tax the pants off anyone who accepts the gift baskets. Peaceful resolution found here.

Ellen Degeneres was chosen to be the host of the awards ceremony. Found here. Chris Rock or Jon Stewart would have been my picks to reprise their roles as host.

Yesterday, the contest for average-joes to win tickets to see the fabulous award ceremony from the red carpet closed. Hopefully, my entry is picked so on a frigid February morning I would be boarding a plane to sunny Los Angeles. Found here.

Azumi 1 and 2

2006-09-25T22:14:00.000-04:00

*** Note ***

Do you think your small spoilers can defeat my wu-dang style?

***EndNote***

These movies were released in 2003 and 2005, respectively. My friendly neighborhood, mom and pop video store in china-town had copies for rental. The versions I got were the Japanese cuts, there certainly will be different editions for North America. Azumi is slated to be released on October 6.

These movies are based on a particularly graphic comic book of the same title. The movies are set at the beginning of the feudal wars in Japan – a tempestuous time when no one had any control over of the country and the future seemed as bleak as the hard times of the past. What does this mean for the casual viewer? Lots and lots of ninjas.

A former army general rounds up and trains a group of children to be master assassins. As the kids grow, their expertise surpasses any regular warrior. Once their training is complete they finally learn the truth about their mission. Then they realize that war and killing is a complex and ethically ambiguous endeavor. Azumi, who is the female lead and the heroine of the story, is very conflicted about all her actions, whereas some of her teammates approach the debate with cold, mechanical efficiency and others absolutely break down. As the mission continues, more and more of the Azumi’s friends are killed off, leading up to a final confrontation and battle.

The first movie flows into the second without missing a step. It would seem that they made the movies simultaneously. But, I should warn you that they weren’t actually shot by the same director. Azumi was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and Azumi2 by Shusuke Kaneko. Once the second film pulls away from the end of the first movie, this becomes rather apparent because Kaneko does not have the same level of artistry or expertise with creating the shots and maintaining the action.

The movie stars Aya Ueto, a well known Japanese Idol, meaning she acts, sings and is very cute. This was not a very complicated part to play but she did it as well as anyone could have expected from a martial arts movie. The other actors can’t stretch their acting skills because their characters are one dimensional. There are some notable cameos in these two films: In the first, Video game designer Hideo Kojima (Metal gear Solid Series) appears as a wild, staff wielding ninja. In the second, Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo from the Kill Bill series) appears as a temperamental traveling performer.

Azumi was a fun filled ninja movie with plenty of action and enough backstory to make the viewer care about the characters. Though there are flaws, the production values of the special effects was pretty low, the acting was suspect and there wasn’t enough character building to make the characters very interesting, these are all present in every other action film.

Azumi 2: Death or Love, on the other hand, was brutally difficult to watch because the director tried retcon all kinds of new information into the previous movie. Since the separation of the films is non-existent, it cheapens watching the first movie because none of the details remain. An example of this in the he first film, Azumi buries her fallen comrades and in the second film some of them have escaped their graves and again walk the earth.

The first film was an interesting film with a few plot holes but as a whole it worked for me. For the great fight scenes, the interesting if not goofy side kicks and overall enjoyment of this film it gets a 7/10 or 3 out of 5 stars.

The second film was a dreary attempt to recreate the first movie without any consideration of the logical evolution of the characters, the story or the action. There are many fight scenes but they are haphazardly pasted together with a with a paper thin plot. For the terrible new additions to the story, the unpolished looks of the shots and a general failure to build on the framework that was left by the first movie, this film gets a 4/10 or 1.5 stars out of 5.

Crank

2006-09-11T00:37:00.000-04:00

***Note***

If you read under 50 words a minute, this movie will be spoiled.

***EndNote***

Putting aside all the other Speed pot-shots that can be made…well, maybe just one more - Crank is even another name for speed. Okay, with that out of the system on to the review.

This is a simple, summer flick but that is little excuse for the huge shame this movie is. I was surprised at how bad this movie was all I was expecting was an angry British guy, some soccer hooligan-type violence and a couple explosions.

Crank revolves around an assassin Chevy Chelios (Jason Statham) getting poisoned and his last wish to get revenge on the man that has essentially killed him. The poison is supposed to work into his heart, over the course of one hour, and cause it to implode. Cue the chase music, lights, camera, pyrotechnics and we’re off to the races.

This film was written and directed by a duo of fresh new film makers, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. With two guys working on this film they definitely should have found a better way to spend 87 minutes. There was nothing about this movie that attractive of eye catching. They really should have watched some other pictures in the same vein to see what works and what doesn’t. I guess they tried to eyeball lots of the shots and it ended up being sloppy.

Statham (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Transporter) and Amy Smart (The Butterfly Effect and a bevy of Teen flicks) are on autopilot throughout this movie. Statham, who I know can play desperate and angry, should have channeled far more into his part. Smart just had to look good and play innocent but she didn’t even do that well, but she did get naked for the part. The directors tapped, Efren Ramirez (Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite) to lighten up the film as a drug-addled raver. As funny as that sounds, it doesn’t come off like that on film.

The single ray of light from the actors in this film is Dwight Yoakam, who plays a Hunter S. Thompson-like mob doctor. His was the only character that didn’t utterly phone their performance in. Unfortunately, he appears for only about 5 minutes.

To put it simply:

This movie is excrement.

Save Yoakam and Ending scene, everything was terrible. There was nothing to make the viewer care about any of the characters, there wasn’t an interesting villain and no comical one-liners. When a car chase was running long they just threw in something like, the hero needs to say goodbye to his girl-friend, to break the monotony. The poison could have incited some interesting visuals effects but they relied on boring, blurry slo-mo graphics. After an hour of utter failure I was dreading the ending, but it surprised me: they finished the movie in a logical way!

Rather than watching this film you should watch Speed and The 25^th Hour and then imagine them combined. Now that would be a great movie! This piece of junk gets a 2/10 or 0.5 star out of five. The greatest relief in this movie is that they didn’t tack on a Disney ending where everyone is happy, and some dancing bears show up and the music swells.

Preview: The Protector

2006-08-23T23:24:00.000-04:00

Release Date: September 8 (Wide Release), August 25 (Limited Release)

The cut that I watched was the original Thai version, a new North-American cut brought to us via The Weinstein Company, who hired the one and only, RZA to write the score for the film. It’s too bad because the Thai music is pretty awesome.

***Note****

Bam! Thwok! No spoilers!

***EndNote***

The team that brought us Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, is back with another action packed adventure, The Protector. The story is about Kham (Tony Jaa), a descendant of the elite Muay Thai warriors who guarded the King and his elephants in ancient times, and his quest to retrieve his family’s rare white elephant from poachers.

The director, Prachya Pinkaew, maintains the same philosophy as Ong-bak in this film, not relying on camera tricks and wires to deliver his vision. The movie looks and feels a lot like “Rumble in the Bronx”, not only in plot, the underdog takes on the whole triad by himself, but in the fight choreography and some heavily accented English lines uttered by the actors.

This movie pays tribute to the Kung-fu genre not to mention a few shout outs to masters like Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The martial arts displays are awesome to watch because of the many styles that are incorporated: classic Chinese Wushu, Brazilian Capoeira, American style WWF wrestling and, of course, Muay Thai.

With many action movies, the acting is suspect and the story is as limp as a wet noodle but this is redeemed by continuous fight scenes, high speed boat chases, and funny dialog. Once the frame work of the story is laid, the action kicks in and doesn’t stop. The film boasts the longest continuous shot fight sequence ever - at approx. 4 and a half minutes, this scene is quite impressive. The fight scenes are much like the ones in Ong-Bak, but instead of only fighting the goons there are bosses that are masters of their own martial art, so the fights are a lot more interesting.

This is a typical Kung-fu movie with all the same excitement and all the same flaws as all films of the genre. Some of the fight scenes are ludicrously over done, such as the body guard fight, and the story goes limp as soon as the violence begins. It’s certainly a 6/10 or a 3 out of 5 stars. I have to say that it’s rather refreshing to see a Kung-fu movie without that ridiculous wire-fighting.

Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-19T13:19:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Spoilers? Never!

***EndNote***

Well, there’s not much more to describing this film than a quick glance at the title won’t reveal. Snakes, a plane, snake-plane interaction – it’s all here in this film. With such a Shakespearian concept and title, New Line Cinema is banking on the huge internet following to draw it’s target audience. When I went to see the film the place was packed solely with college aged guys, who hooted and hollered, whenever some campy one-liner was uttered. And you’d better to believe that this movie is rife with sassy retorts and bad puns.

The story revolves loosely around a surfing, dirt-biking Sean James (Nathan Phillips), who witnesses the murder of a state prosecutor by a Chinese mafia boss. James is escorted by Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) from Hawaii to Los Angeles to testify against the mob. To ensure that the witness doesn’t reach his destination, mob goons place a crate of snakes on the plane.

Samuel L. Jackson is the big name associated with this movie but there are many recognizable faces in the cast: David Koechner (from Anchorman, 40-year-old Virgin and Talladega nights) plays the chauvinistic co-pilot, Julianna Margulies (from ER) plays a plucky flight attendant and Kenan Thompson (Fat Albert and Saturday Night Live) plays a portly bodyguard. The other travelers on the plane include, a Paris Hilton type debutant, a Kayne West type rapper, an Asian guy who happens to be a professional kick boxer, a pompous European guy, a flamboyantly gay straight guy, and a rambunctious pair of newly weds. All around the acting is rather good for a movie that is not a work of art but mindless pabulum. The only thing that was required of the cast was the build up Jackson’s inevitable line “I’ve had enough of these Motherf***ing snakes on this Motherf***ing plane!”, which was greeted with cheers and laughter.

The low-budget feel of the film was only enhanced by the ghastly computer generated snakes. They all shone as if made of plastic, they grew pixilated when they lunged to snag their prey and they tripped all the right circuit breakers to cause utter chaos for the flight crew. They looked terrible but I think this was the goal of the film makers. Would better animated snakes have made this movie more appealing to the audience? Probably not. Would more realistic snake movements have brought more terror to the screen? Not really. Would real-life snakes have cause so much havoc on a plane? Hell, no!

This movie is going to be hit or miss with the viewers, though no one can be tricked into watching this movie with the promise of something other that pure summer escapism. As an experiment of internet petitions on film I think that it succeeded in garnering enough interest to make this a viable strategy to making movies more audience accessible. Though I doubt this strategy would work in many genres, in the horror environment it will probably do well. In addition to fan submitted ideas and lines, some of which were included, there was a contest to write the closing theme song which plays over the end credits. The song is pop-rock with the back up vocals in just the right places and a hilarious hook line.

People who choose to see this movie will not be disappointed, there are plenty of snakes and gruesome deaths, there is Sam Jackson swearing about this and that, and there’s some nudity for the kids. But for sophisticates that want to analyze and dig for deeper meaning or for art film critics, they will find nothing but utter fluff. I liked the movie but I would warn people it’s hokey, and thus is gets a 6/10 or a 2.5 stars out of five.

A Scanner Darkly

2006-07-26T00:15:00.000-04:00

***Note***

I can spoil it for you wholesale!

***EndNote***

Robert Linklater takes Philip K. Dick’s eerily possible police state, paranoia stricken psychological thriller, “A Scanner Darkly” and brings it to the big screen. Dick wrote this novel, while on a drug binge, many of the characters were friends of his during this time and he had first hand experience with the ravages of drug abuse. This is just another in a long line of Dick’s classics to be brought to the big screen. The film is presented in “interpolated rotoscoping”, a technique that the director first used in one of his other films, “Waking life”.

The story revolves around Robert “Bob” Arctor/Agent Fred/Bruce, played by Keanu Reeves, and his drug addicted friends: Barris (Robert DowneyJjr.), Freck (Rory Cochrane), Luckman (Woody Harrelson) and Donna (Winona Ryder). Agent Fred is an undercover cop, who is assigned to spy on Bob and his friends in order to find out the origins of a particularly addictive drug called Substance D. Agent Fred and his superior, Officer Hank, and many of the agents of law enforcement, wear scramble suits, which project false identities, to protect their cover, but they complicate knowing who is working whom. Through a series of drug induced conversations, Fred/Bob realizes that his grasp on reality might be slipping after being undercover for such a long period of time. As his undercover life comes undone, cracks appear in his regular life and Bob finds that his “normal” life may be just as screwed up as his fake life.

The director effectively uses an animated format to show the mind altering effects of Substance D and the shifting realities that come crashing down around Fred/Bob. In general, I’m not a big fan of rotoscoping but done in this fashion and with this material it really looks pretty good. Though there are going to be people that just can’t stand the shakey shots and the cell-shaded look of the actors.

The movie flows from one scene to another with relative ease and does not get hung up on any one plot point for too long. The idea of spying on yourself in a heavily authoritarian state is pretty interesting. Two things bothered me about this film: The first thing was the way they patronized the viewer so much with the key plot points. We didn’t need to be hand-held throughout the film. The second thing is that the paranoia and the madness that the characters should be feeling and battling against is pretty much non-existent. Much like in “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”, “A Scanner Darkly” deals with what is real and what is not and the movie doesn’t make an effort to show us a world gone crazy.

The acting is this movie is pretty bad. The actors lazily get through their lines, not investing too much of themselves into the story. Reeves is unconvincing as an undercover cop and as a drug addict, though he plays the brain damaged, nearly comatose Bruce, well. The rest of the cast coast along on the verbose dialogues and wacky facial expressions, which were probably put in during post production.

This limited release film was definitely targeting a small demographic and doesn’t deserve much more that a 5 out of 10 or two out of five stars. The story had a lot of potential but the director didn’t find a way of bring it to life. Fans of Dick and rotoscoping may find this movie worthwhile but everyone else will feel ripped off by the ineffective acting and lackluster storytelling.

Clerks 2

2006-07-22T02:45:00.000-04:00

***Note***

I assure you, no spoilers inside!

***EndNote***

Kevin Smith was the king of independent film and pop culture when his film debut, Clerks, hit the screens. Armed with fast paced dialogue, skewed visions of the world of retail and utterly unknown, perfectly average actors, Smith showed us that just because they serve us, they don’t have to like us. Actually, it’s far more probable that they hate us.

Now, more than a decade later, Randall (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Hallaran) are still working minimum wage jobs striving to recapture the good times. This is the logical progression for these characters, who, by the end of the first movie had made no progress in changing their lives though they had decided that they had to do so.

The first was like a hungry, young Rocky Balboa, prepped to make a big splash in Hollywood. It was ambitious, unrefined and trimmed of all fat. This installment was the rich, decadent Rocky, resting on giant pile of money. Whether it was Smith’s intention or not, the movie does feel like it in it’s thirties and is starting to lose some of it’s edge.

Smith has grown up and has had more training in shot structure and pacing, features that needed work in his early films, so the movie looks great. The dialogue, Smith’s forte, fits well in the film but lacks cleverness that made him famous. Though he addressed the fact that sequels lack in all kinds of areas compared to the originals, it didn’t keep him from bringing back some of the classics such as “The Wrangle”, “I Eat Cock” and “Milkmaids”. The jokes and the situational comedy in the film are great so the crowd let out some huge laughs. The vulgar humour and the crass language remains true to the original and thus helps the weaker story keep it’s head above the water. As for the use of colour, picture the wizard of Oz and how quickly that film switched from black and white to colour. The same mechanism is used in this film and it flows rather well. The overall story takes the same form as the first Clerks movie, but it has a cleaner finish and a better balance of character development and resolution.

The acting was good, though it’s not complicated to act out a Smith script, you just need to be able to deliver the lines rapidly. O’Hallaran and Anderson have aged a lot since their last appearance together but it seems like they never stepped out of their clerk uniforms. Their witty repartee is not as tightly written but they deliver a human performance. Rosario Dawson (Becky) and Trevor Fehrman (Elias) provide a great cast of secondary characters. Smith (Silent Bob) and Jason Mewes (Jay) provide some slap stick comic relief but feel a little out of place. Jay and Silent Bob are funny when they take whatever idiotic idea they have seriously. They try too hard for laughs and it got annoying by the end of the film. Another newcomer to the cast is Jennifer Schwalbach Smith (Becky), Kevin Smith’s wife - who is not an actor, is there to bring some of that rawness to the picture like everyone did in Clerks. There were many, many cameos in this flick, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, to name a few of the bigger named stars. Of course, there were cameos of other characters from Smith’s previous movies: the Gum Salesman, the milkmaid, and the pot smoking kid Jay and Silent Bob strike back.

I give this movie a 7.5 out of ten or three and a half stars out of five because the characters continue to be likeable, though the venue and the humour is different, it’s still great. Where the movie came up soft in several areas: The clerking parts of were minimal, these were the hilarious parts, the story was more based around coming of age rather than menial labour. Becky’s character was poorly portrayed and flip-flopped from an alpha-personality type to an incompetent dolt. The movie was about a bunch of 30-somethings who hadn’t done much with their lives so some of the conversation wasn’t as aggressive or as sharp as a 20-something’s who were angry at everything.

I really liked this film and I think that if Smith stopped making films today, Clerks and Clerks II would make excellent bookends to his career.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest

2006-07-08T00:07:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Fifteen spoilers on a dead man’s chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

***EndNote***

To start this review, I need to reveal that there is a big plot twist in this movie and I’m going to try my damnedest to skirt the issue as it arises.

A pirate-y adventure on the high seas that include a mysterious voodoo lady, a legendary sea captain and a monkey - it all sounds very much like a video game or at least a tourist attraction, doesn’t it? But in this case, it’s the newest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Dead Man’s Chest. All the actors from the first one come back for the, contractually obliged, sequel, so we get another dose of the merry band of pirates, misanthropes and scallywags.

The story for this part of the series revolves around a debt that Jack Sparrow (Depp) needs to repay to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), infamous, fishy pirate-captain of the Flying Dutchman. In order to pay back his debt he tricks, deceives and lies to his ‘friends’, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), in the way only Jack can. Apparently, the key to resolving all their problems lies within the Dead Man’s Chest, a treasure that Davy has buried and protects (I was hoping that they would have taken the Maltese Falcon “the stuff dreams are made of” explanation of what the chest held, but they lay it out for the kids, it’s a PG-13 flick). With mayhem at their boot heels and certain death staring them in the face our brave heroes have to choose, a life on the lamb or a fate worse than death, becoming a crewman under Davy Jones. There’s a love story under that muck and it pokes it head through it all, once in a while, only to disappear from whence it came (Macguffin’d!).

This movie is really half a movie, it doesn’t really explain anything in an coherent way. People just pop out of nowhere to save the day, things fortuitously fall into our heroes laps and those red herring we were following, they weren’t red herring at all. Maybe that was the goal, I can’t say for certain. The movie feels and looks exactly like The Curse Black Pearl but with more everything, including plot holes.

Gore Verbinski, also returns to navigate this movie through all it’s twists and turns. On the whole the directing is average and there are a few telling scenes that not only clue the viewer into the twist, but bludgeon them with knowledge, that should have been shed. The film was definitely fat, at two and a half hours for an underdeveloped story, it’s a good thing that the action and the comedy fills the gaps nicely. Personally, I really liked the interplay between the stout, cockney pirate, Pintel, and his tall and skinny friend, Ragetti, as they wax philosophical about things like rowing technique and “salvaging” treasures. They had some solid “Ha-Ha”s. This movie really needed an editor to trim off about 45 minutes of film and then it would have been an acceptable length for the project.

The acting from the stars of the flick was a par for the course, no one really shined in their roles because it was exactly the same as the first. One of the new comers to the series, Naomie Harris, is an excellent Jamaican Voodoo lady, with the accent, the chicken bones and the like. Stellan Skarsgard’s character, Bootstrap Bill, shows a more human side to himself now as one of the damned on the Flying Dutchman. Depp, Bloom and Knightley are at the center stage but are often over shadowed by the brilliant special effects of the movie.

The best part of this roller-coaster ride is the graphic department at Disney. They do an excellent job at making all the non-existent characters look real and act real, from Davy Jones’ appearance to the crew of the damned who have all taken on icthyoid features to the villainous Kraken that torments wayward ships. It was a great looking film and it’s too bad they didn’t d much with it.

In essence this is a children’s movie, though that doesn’t mean it can be crap without reprimand. Because of it’s stellar special effects, it’s humor and it’s decent pirate-y theme, this movie gets a 6/10 or a 2.5 out of 5 stars. The movie lacks in the story telling: the resolution, if you can call it that, of this movie is shockingly bad. Also, it really doesn’t add to much new content into the Pirates of the Caribbean mythology. After sitting in the theatre for that long you want to be saying, “Wow, so that’s why…” rather than persistent question asking that I heard after the screening.

Superman Returns

2006-07-01T18:46:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Small Spoilers Aren't Kryptonite

***EndNote***

Being a big Superman fan, I was really looking forward to seeing this movie and I hoped that Bryan Singer could bring his X-men magic to Superman. This film is a spectacle – plenty of pretty special effects and a decent amount of action. Singer has made a name for himself in the action genre so he tried to flex the heart muscle this time. Does it capture fun and excitement as Superman I and Superman II did? No, not really. Did it really disappoint like Superman III and Superman IV? No, it’s fairly entertaining. According to Singer, this movie is a sequel to the Superman II so you can forget about the events of those two bombs.

Superman/Clark Kent returns from hiatus/soul-searching to find that Metropolis is a much different place. Intrepid reporter Lois Lane has a child, Lex Luthor who was incarcerated in the original movie has been released, Jimmy Olsen is all grown up and everyone seems not to need a hero. But as the viewer soon learns, the world needs a hero more now than ever. With knowledge stolen from Jor-El’s, Superman’s biological father, library in the Fortress of Solitude, Superman’s arctic hideout, Luthor sets in motion a plan to conquer the world. And there’s only one guy that can stop him.

A Superman story is a no brainer, all he needs to do is wear the suit and fly around and you’ve covered all your bases. But Singer really wants to make this movie more emotionally involved than any other superman film so the love triangle between Superman, Kent and Lois is really played up. This is an interesting angle of the story but is ultimately futile because the viewer learns the outcome very early on.

The main problems with this film come from the pacing and the script. As the movie grinds along, suddenly a sequence of quick cutting scenes appears and shocks the movie back up to speed. At 2 and ½ hours, the movie is just too long for the content.

The script had two distinct parts to it, the first half, the re-introduction of Superman, and the second half, the love story climax/resolution and the villain appears. The first half was everything I wanted this movie to be, Superman stops a bank robbery thanks to his bulletproof skin, he stops a plane from crashing with his super strength and he sees through walls with his updated X-ray vision, which works like an MRI rather than an X-ray. The second half of the movie is where all the problems occur. Singer is well known for his accuracy when it comes to the details and knowledge of the mythology of the characters but in this case he seems unprepared to tackle Superman.

Superman is supposed to have super strength but the only example of it is his lifting ability: he lifts a plane, he lifts a boat, he lifts another plane, he catches a huge globe and he lifts a giant rock. Sure, lifting is important but it’s visually uninteresting after a few times. Have Superman punch something really hard or throw something into the Sun or bend a gun or something that isn’t lifting. Since this is a sequel to the first two Superman films, do they expect us to believe that Superman doesn’t remember what Kryptonite is and what it can do to him? Our hero seems so perplexed that there is a substance that will rob him of his powers.

The Kryptonite effects are also random in this movie, the sight of it takes may take with powers away from him but a chunk of it lodged in his side does not and when he stands on an island made entirely of the stuff he doesn’t realize he’s powerless until he’s told, “you’re standing on Kryptonite”. Bryan, what went wrong?

The acting is fairly good, Brandon Routh as Superman was a great choice. One detail that was out of place was whenever there was an accident Clark would strike an almost heroic pose before he leapt into his suit to save the day as Superman. Though his Clark Kent isn’t as strong, it still has many great Clark Kent moments of nerdy naïveté and country boy charm. Routh also plays the “at home” Clark pretty well, he wrestles with his double life and wishes things could be easier. Kate Bosworth played Lois Lane with some pizzazz. The actor that stood above the crowd in this picture by far was Kevin Spacey. Very much like Gene Hackman did in his role as the ruthless business tyrant, Spacey took the character and made it his own, not quite a cartoon supervillain but a very crafty and cunning villain. The humour in the flick is derived from Jimmy Olsen, played by Sam Huntington, Kitty Kowalski played by Parker Posey, and Lois’ new boyfriend Richard played by Cyclops himself, James Marsden. Some well timed one liners and some dead-pan reactions break up the heavier material of the movie.

On the visual effects and the sound front, the movie is average. The visual effects are impressive at times and dreadful at others. People who don’t particularly like the Superman theme song will not like this movie because it pops up all the time. There actually doesn’t seem to be much music in the movie other than the Superman theme. I like the song but some variety helps a lot. Marlon Brando’s voice makes a brief appearance in the movie, as the disembodied head of Jor-El. This touch really reached back to bring the spirit of the old movies alive.

Overall, this movie gets a 6.5/10 or 3 out of 5 stars. Superman saves the day like he should but his action sequences become a bore after he lifts the second large object. Though he is a big blue boy scout, this movie delves into his morality but doesn’t quite get there.

p.s. For famous newspaper reporters, no one seems to know how to pronounce Pulitzer. Say it with me, it’s “PULL”-itzer, not “PEW”-litzer.

Uno Gets Played By Penny Arcade

2006-06-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know it's self-centered and idiotic, but I get played by Penny-arcade. Linkage

The double whammy: Nacho Libre and Click

2006-06-26T23:57:00.001-04:00

***Note***

Spoilers are my bread and butter

***EndNote***

This is a double issue since I saw two films last week and was equally disappointed by both. Nacho Libre and Click both looked like niche market films and after viewing them my suspicions were correct. One was for Fans of Napoleon Dynamite and the other was for fans of non-threatening comedies.

Nacho Libre, the story of Ignacio/Nacho, the friar cook/luchador, could have been a light hearted comedy with a moral and some good characters but a few major annoyances render it impotent. The story is solid enough: Nacho, who has no skills as a cook(he blames the poor food), tries to earn some extra money to make better meals for the orphans under his care bye moonlighting as a masked wrestler. As he rises through the ranks of the wrestling world he takes on more and more colourful characters and is able to provide for his kids. In the end, Nacho helps his orphanage, meets a bunch of interesting friends and shows that you can do anything you put your mind to.

The annoyances come from the delivery of this film. Jared Hess, the man that brought us Napoleon Dynamite, brings his eclectic and almost stream-of-consciousness style of film making to this project. Though in Napoleon Dynamite, it helped package a day in the life of a nerd, in Nacho Libre it hurt the story’s development. It was quirky, it was kitsch and it was campy but too much so. The second is Jack Black’s poor performance as the leading man. Black has recently become an A-list comedic actor for a string of tepid roles in movies like King Kong and School of Rock. Though he is a great character actor as seen in High Fidelity and Mars Attacks!, he has not yet developed as a leading actor like Adam Sandler or Eddie Murphy have. Furthermore, his Mexican accent was an idea that should have been pulled because this was asking for too much from the audience. He should have a Mexican accent but the writers, director and Black himself should have figured out a better way to demonstrate it. The last of the major offenses is the “love story” aspect of the film. The relationship between Nacho and Sister Encarnacion isn’t dynamic at all. There is a bit of tension between the two but it never comes to a head and the viewer already knows the resolution to this problem. Though disappointing the film does have a few moments and interesting shots – The Mexican state of Oaxaca is prominently shown, some of the fight scenes were funny and the cast of secondary characters was pretty good.

This is a movie for fans of Napoleon Dynamite and Jack Black. It has moments but they are few and far between, so I’m giving this film a 5/10 or 2 stars out of 5.

I wrote an article chastising the writer of Jumanji about his second attempt at the film, Zathura but at least he waited for 10 years and a new generation of viewers to grow up. The team of Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe waited a scant 3 years to redo their movie Bruce Almighty again in Click. Adam Sandler, Michael Newman, is an average guy, who by chance inherits a truly universal remote. He uses the remote to “fix” his life so he can be a better person: He ducks through traffic, he rewinds to important points of his life, he fast forwards through the dull/ “bad”/boring parts of life, and he pauses the world when someone needs to be smacked down. Like Bruce Almighty, things aren’t always as they seem and problems with the powers go on the fritz.

Sandler delivers a good performance, indulging in all the things that an average guy would do if he could control the universe – Smacking your boss around, putting bullies in their place, never forgetting any detail about your wife or children, and putting the world into to slow-mo to live out an episode of Baywatch – it’s good to be king. Kate Beckinsdale plays the hot wife perfectly and on occasion emotes! Sandler and Beckinsdale have great onscreen chemistry which really gets truly shows the relationship their characters have. Walken is the brightest star, as the mad scientist who delivers the universal remote. The rest of the secondary characters are portrayed by actors that do a decent job: The child actors, David Hasselhoff, Henry Winkler and Sean Astin.

Since this movie is clearly recycled, the actors do the best they can with the material and in the end produce a movie that isn’t offensive but it is not attractive. This movie takes no risks, makes no promises that it can’t deliver and is basically a plain movie. Like Nacho Libre, I was left disappointed with this film, it deserves a 5/10 or 2 star out of 5 rating because it’s easily forgettable with characters that you can’t love or hate and a resolution that can be telegraphed from the beginning.

DVDs on computer

2006-06-19T23:21:00.000-04:00

One of my pet peeves about playing DVDs on my computer is the fact that so many of them require a proprietary player. I understand that the studios are just protecting their investment from piracy but does this actually keep people from copying the movies.

My problem with proprietary players is the fact that most of them are just play and stop buttons. The floating control display that cannot be minimized or moved off screen is annoying. Some even try to stretch my nice widescreen DVDs to fit my non-widescreen monitor. Arg!

Some of you are probably wondering why I’m watching DVDs on my computer rather than my television. I watch the movie for the first time on my TV and re-watch the key scenes at my computer. The benefit of watching the movies via computer is the ease of writing up the review and watching the film in tandem.

So I end up having a bunch of crappy players installed on my computer, none of which I use more than once or twice. I’d like to see some standardization on the part of the distribution companies, at least. Come on, guys, get your gear squared away!

Quick Update!

2006-06-19T16:04:00.000-04:00

So, it’s my B-day. Hooray for me! Hey, Death, get a life! I made another year!

Combine that with my sketchy work schedule and my parents’ Wedding anniversary, I haven’t been able to get to the theatres lately. But fear not, I’m going to make up for some lost time this week – Nacho Libre on Tuesday and probably Click or Cars on Friday. Yeah, three questionable movies but they as I see them, they all have potential.

What’s coming up, Superman! Which I have read, on Joblo.com, doesn’t live up to some critics expectations. But from the trailers and the previews available via http://supermanreturns.warnerbros.com , it looks great.

On the DVD front, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party was releases in an excellent unrated version which all fans should see immediately.

And as for more content other than this small post, I’m going to upload a new article tonight.

Banlieue 13 (District B13)

2006-06-06T12:26:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Cette revue contient des indices de l’histoire et peut gâcher votre expérience cinématographique. (Small spoilers within)

edit: to the french readers sorry for the mistakes!

This movie is in French and it has subtitles! The theatres are doing everything they can to tell viewers that this movie is in French short of raising a French flag and playing the national anthem of France.

***EndNote***

District B13, also known as, District 13 and The 13^th District, is a movie that was poorly advertised and thus not very recognizable when heading to the theatre. Though you have probably haven’t heard much about this film it would be a shame if you missed out on this great foreign action film. The movie was made in France, by first time director Pierre Morel, and Luc Besson, the producer of The Transporter films and Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior.

In an action film the key to the directing is keeping the story's pace matched with the up-tempo action scenes. Where some directors flounder, Morel deftly progresses the story, develops his characters and builds some reality into his film (all with only a small amount of time available). There was a clear secondary design in this movie to highlight the extreme sport of parkour, which is a time-based obstacle course running in an urban setting, not to be mistaken for free running which emphasizes style and artistic flourishes, like The Fast and the Furious did for the world of street racing. This movie revolves around two characters, Leito, a resident of district B13, who is trying to reform his crime hardened neighborhood into a respectable part of the city, and Damien, a by the book cop that is trying to recover a bomb that was hijacked from it’s convoy through the district. In order to infiltrate the crime syndicate’s headquarters in B13, Damien recruits Leito as a partner and then action begins. Both of these men are superb traceurs, participants in parkour, and they narrowly escape capture several times using their skills. Out of the 103 minutes of this film I would estimate that only about 20 minutes of the movie was non-action dialogue, otherwise the two heroes were jumping from rooftop to roof top, sneaking through underground tunnels and fighting the gangsters with a mix of Capoeira and Muy Thai.

Since there was little time for character development and dialogue the actors do the best they can, with lots of intense facial expressions with close ups and acrobatics to highlight their real skills as traceurs. This film is of the same school as Ong-Bak, no wires and minimal special effects, so everything looks clean and real. Cyril Raffaelli, Damien, and David Belle, Leito, both play their characters well and you really root for themby the end of the movie. The pretty face in this film is Dany Verissimo, who plays Leito’s little sister Lola, and she does a great job. Not only is she very cute, she’s got some sass and she knows how to deal with Mexican standoff situations.

With all action films, the story does suffer with no time to develop or come to a conclusion without the use of a few flights of fancy. There are several clichés that build up over the course of the film and a foreshadowed ending leaves the story resolved but not explained. There are a few continuity errors but not obvious enough to mention save the computer panel swap at the end of the movie.

This movie was a fun ride through a story that’s been done before but had enough fresh perspective to keep it interesting. District B13 gets a 7/10 or 3 out of 5 stars because it was great to watch, there wasn’t a dull moment, and even though the movie was French the comedy translated very well. Though there were a few mistakes, it was a thoroughly enjoyable action movie.

X-Men: The Last Stand

2006-05-29T02:05:00.000-04:00

***Note***

Warning! Achtung! Spoilers present!

***EndNote***

I’d really like to say that this movie was good. I really wanted to like it. I wanted to say that this was a great way to end the trilogy – a nice strong ending. But I was left out in the cold when I saw the film. Non-stop action rarely allows for story development and this was a movie that needed to be explained because there were bigger issues in this one that in the previous movies.

The main story revolves around a mutant antibody that can return mutated DNA back to non-mutated human state. The President of the United States calls for all willing mutants to come and get the drugs and the choice would be optional. Some mutants are elated to finally see a way of having a normal life and the others are angry that the humans are trying to control their superpowers. So lines are drawn, actually, the two sides of this debate even fractures the X-men, Storm violently against the drugs and Beast for the choice of using them. The villains from the previous films see the cure as a threat, so they decide to destroy the drugs in fear that the humans would in fact force the mutant population to take them. The secondary story is the memorial for the fallen comrade, Jean Grey, from X-2. Each character takes the loss differently and this brings about the easy introduction of a new character called the Phoenix. The phoenix is the most powerful mutant on the face of the planet and the X-men hope that she can control her powers whereas Magneto wants to unleash all of her destructive power on all humans.

In this incarnation, the directing is not good at all. I had your back Ratner, I thought you could direct a 100 minute action movie, but you let me down, man! You had the world’s most marketable superhero in Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and you couldn’t get it done. You had a huge budget and you couldn’t get it done. There was so much scrutiny after your arrival, didn’t you think people would notice that the movie was lackluster. The cutting from scene to scene was patchy, scenes looked like they were just thrown together for time. There were some really long establishing shots and at times when something was needed to ground the action, nothing was provided.

The acting was on par with the previous movies except for Halle Berry, who played Storm like an old fashioned school headmistress. Every scene she was in she was butchering her lines into some rant about how the issues are black and white, cut and dry, apples and oranges kinds of issues that there should be no debate. If Beast wasn’t there to chime in with the occasional reality check for her, she would have continued. I have to wonder what the writers had before Halle told them she wanted more dialogue. Vinnie Jones (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Swordfish) is a good tough guy but as Juggernaut, he was lacking. The Juggernaut is an over the top, cartoon super villain, you need to play it up, Vinnie! Also, “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”? Bad Chapelle tribute or a blatant rip-off of http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=15862. Everyone else gave their parts what they needed: the teens were filled with angst, Professor Xavier was introspective and calm, Magneto was strong and passionate and Wolverine was a loner.

This was a special effects movie and I have to say it looked alright. There were some lighting issues, incongruities when it came to the superpowers and a few terrible jump/flying scenes throughout the film. There was a good Danger Room simulation, which was promised by Singer for X2 but he didn’t deliver it, with a Robotic Sentinel. The weather animations and battle scenes were average. I liked the Golden Gate bridge scenes particularly because they successfully mixed both live action and animated scenes with few obvious flaws.

X-men: The Last Stand deserves no more than 4/10 or one and a half out of five stars. The action was decent, but the dialogue was a complete failure. Even in an action movie you need to stop and talk. The effects were just average because it looked like they ran out of money during some scenes. This was the Godfather pt.III of the series and we can only hope for better in the spin-off movies.

Preview - Xmen: The Last Stand

2006-05-25T23:23:00.000-04:00

Following in the shadow of the Da Vinci Code hysteria, X-men: The Last Stand has been building up some steam. There are now reviews of this film via critics and fans at the Cannes film festival where it opened on Monday. At Rotten Tomatoes (RottenTomatoes.com) they have certified it as “fresh” (which means the movies has been reviewed by 40 or more critics (including 5 critics from the Cream of the Crop) that score at least 75% or higher on the Tomatometer. A film remains Certified Fresh unless its Tomatometer falls below 60%. ) Ebert and Roeper gave the movie two thumbs up. They comment that this movie looks very much like a special effects extravaganza but it also shows some story telling elements like the arguments for and against genetic engineering. Devin at Chud.com, who pulls no punches when it comes to a bad movie, has given it a so-so rating. This movie may just have some legs. If I had to put money down, I would say this movie brings in 60 million $ in the US market and about 210 million $ worldwide.

From clips found at the x-men site http://www.x-menthelaststand.com/ , I fear that this movie may incur the wrath of the fans of the comic books as well as fans of the first two films. The scope of this film, versus the comic book series, is so large some might find it a little ludicrous, the fact that Storm sounds like a preachy after school special rather than an intelligent person, the rushed introduction of both Beast and Angel and the clumsy way the Sentinels are presented will certain grind the gears of comic fans. Not to mention all the edits that the film makers have had to make to convert the comic book into a movie. The Jean Grey resurrection story arc is immensely important in the mythos of the X-men and the anti-mutant serum story line digs deeper than the movie could want to go and galvanizes the heroes and the villains. Inevitably much of the ground work for these story lines will be left out of the movie which may leave a non-reader out in the cold. Furthermore, adding more mutants to the story doesn’t exactly guarantee success. Since there are so many mutants in this movie, how could anyone care is a couple of them get “cured”? Two more would just spring up in their place.

I'm excited, but weary to see this film. Sequels are hard to do well and should be taken with a grain of salt. Ratner, the director, has experience with big budget action movies so it should at least look really flashy. I'm glad that the series is ending before it wears out its audience, with two sequels in the works, Wolverine and Magneto, they have to keep a few of us to pay the bills next time.

The DaVinci Code

2006-05-20T20:18:00.000-04:00

***Note***

lSmla eSplosri eInisd

***EndNote***

You’ve heard almost every major film critic rip this movie a new one because of its poor pacing and the haphazard way it seems to have been put together but you would be wrong to miss this one if you are a fan of the murder-mystery genre. The critics are right in saying that the movie pace needs some extra editing but the fact remains that the characters need time to find clues, decipher the code and ultimately solve the riddle, which could not have been done if the pace had remained as quick as it was going in the beginning. Finally, when the Catholic Church gets portrayed in movie for you’d better believe there are going to be boycotts and controversy, it happened to Passion of Christ, Prince of Egypt and even Dogma. Priests, vicars and bishops have made the media blitz saying that the fictional book is indeed an utter fabrication and a blasphemous piece of garbage.

The DaVinci Code deals with a secret society, Opus Dei, and an even more secret society, The Priory of Sion, duking it out to cover up and destroy any evidence to or protect one of the most deeply held conspiracies known to the Catholic Church. Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon, an American symbologist, who on a trip to France gets tangled in this web of intrigue when the elderly curator of the Louvre implicates him in a murder investigation. Audrey Tautou (Amelie) plays a plucky young police cryptographer, Sophie Neveu, who springs Hanks from custody and they embark on the quest to break the code. Jean Reno (The Pink Panther, Ronin) who plays the chief of police, and Paul Bettany (Firewall, A Beautiful Mind) who plays the abino monk, Silas, are the principle antagonists of the story: Reno received a tip that Hanks was involved with the murder and is attempting to hunt him down; Bettany is sent on a quest supposedly passed down by the Lord through the Opus Dei to assassinate anyone that has any information about the DaVinci Code. Along the way, Ian McKellen’s character Leigh Teabing, comes into prominence as Hanks’ friend and Christian history expert. After a few chases with the police, a fight with Silas and some verbose explanations of the Knights Templar and other such church secrets, the code is deciphered and Hanks must figure out what to do with this information.

Ron Howard was the director of this film and he could have used a little more time and a little more finesse when it came to the editing of this film. The blurry shots during the chase scenes took away from the chase. Throughout the film the cuts where very abrupt and made the movie feel rushed. The other elements of the film of this film were brilliant: The locations where beautiful, the shots were well composed and music fit perfectly together.

Hanks plays his character well but he was not the sort of guy I had imagined Robert Langdon. Reading the book, Langdon comes across as more of a book-worm type guy wearing a bad tweed suit. Langdon, in the movie and the book alike, solves every puzzle that is put before him. In the film the use computer generated visual representations of his mental process of deciphering the codes which was an excellent touch. Hanks rarely does a bad job in any of his movies an he doesn’t disappoint in this one.

Audrey Tautou’s performance as Sophie is filled with confidence and flair but lacks in credibility. She’s supposed to be a genius code breaker, but she seems perpetually lost in the mathematical clues. When McKellan is explaining the history of the Last Supper, she keeps chiming in with lines like “I don’t understand”, “You lost me” and “slow down”, which slows down the exposition even more. Some of her dialogue seems forced or just something the character would never say. Despite these flaws, she performed well.

These two are played up to have some connection but in the end this storyline ends flat. When the story is constructed in this fashion, you can assure viewer disappointment.

For Reno this part must feel familiar, a police officer with his own agenda hunting down a fugitive. We’ve seen him play this part many times before and he knows exactly what to do and say to make his character a likeable every-man.

Bettany seems like the perfect man to play the albino monk but his performance is lacking in most respects. For a serious drama, his character is too “cartoony” to be frightening. He should have played this character in one of two ways: the first way is to play him with an unflinching belief in what he is doing is right, the violence and lies all lead to a better world. The other way would be to have him wrestle with the fact that the deeds that he is doing are against the teachings of the Bible and he needs to come to terms that he cannot be saved but he is sacrificing himself for the greater good. Bettany’s character has the most character flaws. The viewer is lead to believe that he wear a cilice, a barbed metal band worn around the thigh for a few hours to suffer like Christ suffered, all the time and after every sin he switches which leg he wears it on. In the first scene, it is shown that this apparatus attached to his leg severely restricts his movement, he limps and is only able to walk at a slow pace. As the movie progresses, Silas forgets which leg the cilice is on, he doesn’t limp at all and he runs, jumps and kicks people.

In all this movie deserves a 6/10 or three out of five stars because the puzzles were interesting and the acting was decent. The movie losses marks for the strange pacing, the long run time at 2 and ½ hours and the directing. Having read the book and not having been utterly entranced by it, I was not too anxious to see this movie. I was hoping that the visual medium was going to jazz it up a bit and it did but there were just as many flaws as there were benefits. It’s an entertaining movie but it won’t have you talking about it after you leave the theatre.

Mission Impossible 3

2006-05-06T22:46:00.000-04:00

***Note***

May contain spoilers

***EndNote***

Think what you will of Tom Cruise’s off screen antics, personally I think he’s two Cocktails away from a Legend if you catch my drift, but this movie has plenty of other features that make it appealing. Not only is it by tv-director extraordinaire, J.J. Abrams, it has Philip Seymour Hoffman as the principle villain and a few very interesting secondary characters played by Ving Rhames, Lawrence Fishburne and Simon Pegg. Yes, the story is old, tired and exactly the same as the last two movies but you need to expect this from the MI franchise just like you would expect it from the James Bond series, the Rocky series or the Terminator series. It’s not good or right but it happens. The story revolves around two main plot points: a witch hunt for an agent gone bad in the IMF, Impossible Mission Force, and an elusive weapons dealer.

J.J. Abrams is an accomplished television director with such hits as Alias and Lost under his belt. A lesser known fact, he also acted in Six Degrees of Separation with Will Smith and Donald Sutherland. His style of directing fits well with the hour format but shows some faults when this timeline is stretched to the feature film length. The pacing of the film was great for the first hour but then things start to ramp up to a faster pace and the story telling became secondary, the details were blurred and the main plot lines start to come apart (just like the other two films). The story was filmed in the style of starting with the ending and working the viewer back to this point throughout the film which works out nicely for getting the story back on track after much of the action. This being his first feature length film and knowing his pedigree on television, Abrams gets a pass on this movie, there’s nothing outstanding about it and there aren’t enough flaws to bog the whole thing down.

Cue Captain Amazing, Tom Cruise, as irrepressible Ethan Hunt. Cruise provides the same cut and dried performance we’ve come to expect from the other MI movies and several of his other performances. It’s pun time - You could say he’s on cruise control! (Thank you, writers of The Critic). His performance leaves a lot to be desired; he lacks in intensity and most of all credibility. Cruise strides through all his lines giving them little to no emotional presence whatsoever. He delivers lines about his fiancée at his wedding party as cold and mechanically as he would direct his covert ops personnel. If there’s one thing that Cruise needed in this flick, it was great performance so when people talk about him around the water cooler they can add “…but he was great in MI:3” after “So Tom Cruise is plain crazy…”. I’ve seen interviews with “industry insiders”, critics and actors themselves saying that off-screen antics do not affect on-screen performances but I would starkly disagree. In a world that is based solely on perception, what an actor does off-screen affects how the audience sees them. Look at the box office tallies for movies with actors and actresses that have had bad publicity off-screen. Actions do speak louder than words in the world of motion pictures.

Playing opposite to Cruise is Philip Seymour Hoffman who, riding high on his Oscar winning performance in Capote, brings a good performance to his part as the intelligent villain, weapons dealer, Owen Davian. His character has foiled every attempt of capture that the IMF has thrown his way and thus has become the most dangerous man on the planet. Some of his files are captured in a botched mission and a trap is set as he prepares to sell the mysterious weapon code named “the Rabbit’s Foot” (which is never really revealed but is encased in a thermos covered in Hazardous Biological Material stickers, so think avian flu or something). Hoffman plays a villain very well and I giggled seeing Hoffman beating up Cruise. In the end, Cruise needs to win the fight and dispatches Hoffman in the least interesting way, he gets rolled in front of an on-coming bus.

Some of the better parts of the movie are the secondary characters: Ving Rhames returns as the clever tech specialist, Luther. Some of the best dialogue is in between Rhames and Cruise. The subtle jabs and witty banter as only Rhames can deliver. Laurence Fishburne plays the “by the book” superior officer in the picture and he plays it to perfection bringing authority and order to an otherwise rogue department. Finally, Simon Pegg, famous for his hilarious portrayal of slacker, Shaun, from Shaun of the Dead, is Benji, the nervous lab tech at the IMF. Pegg was instantly recognized by the crowd and effortlessly got laughs.

The technical features of this movie were exactly what you would expect from an action movie directed by the guy who did Alias as many of the camera shots and much of the scene construction was done in the same way. There was the requisite shaky camera shots, the car chase with explosion and the cg masks. This wasn’t as stylish as the Woo contribution or as tightly constructed as the De Palma original but it has a simple flair that lets the story flow with out ruining the suspension of disbelief.

Overall, this movie deserves a 5/10 or a 2 star rating because there was nothing new or exciting about it. That being said there was nothing particularly bad with it either. The acting on the part of everyone except Tom was great. The story was tired and predictable and the pacing was wrong so the good acting was wasted at times. It was an average action flick that will disappoint though looking for more and appease those looking for 100 million in stunts and explosives.

The Sentinel

2006-04-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

***Note***

If this review doesn't spoil the movie, it has failed

***/EndNote***

From some of the hype I was hearing this movie was supposed to be like a “24” style cop flick with twists and turns but it ended up a crummy action film with a few cops in it. The studio, 20^th Century Fox, fumbled what could have been a huge money maker and now, I predict, they won’t turn a profit. With so many cop shows being produced, the director should have hired someone as a consultant for this movie to say, “Whoa, whoa, now does this make sense? Does this help of hurt the story?”. If this had been the case, the consultant would have nipped this movie in the bud.

The director of this film, Clark Johnson, must be a fan of cop shows because this movie is stylized, framed and shot in exactly the same way ( * I looked it up and apparently he has done several for TV). The only innovation to the genre that this director brings to the table is a bit of fade in/out material with hand scrawled notes about murdering the president and the crazy talk of a madman that is telling us what his next move is. This movie is laden with all kinds of cop stereotypes: The wily veteran, the brash young officer with something to prove, the token black guy, the token Arabic guy, the hot and competent female lead, and the list goes on. Stereotypes like these are omnipresent in film so you come to accept them, but in this case they ring hollow more than ever. As the viewers, we quickly realize what’s what so when the story tries to switch tracks, which happens early and often, the movie comes to a screeching halt. This film was not constructed in a way that could sustain interest for almost 2 hours.

The actors in the film are unconvincing and over dramatic. Every line looks forced and sounds even worse. In terms of dialogue this was one of the worst movies, this year, for building up characters via conversation and interaction. Kiefer Sutherland plays a by the book Secret Service officer who made the lead investigator in a case that balloons from a homicide to treason/attempted assassination of the President of the United States. Sutherland’s foil in this picture is Michael Douglas as a seasoned Secret Service agent who gained prominence as being the guy that took the bullet for Reagan. Douglas becomes tangled in this story because he is having an affair with the president’s wife, played by Kim Basinger. There is apparently tension between Sutherland and Douglas over an event in the past but they never fully explain this or how it changed the character’s relationship other than it made them angry at each other. Eva Longoria plays a rookie agent who asks to be placed under the tutelage of Sutherland. Longoria quickly learns that he is a strict follower of protocol and her sloppy style does not impress him. Bless her pretty face and her courage doing this movie, but she’s just not good at this kind of role. As shown on her show Desperate Housewives, she can do dramatic type roles but in this action movie she barely gets her head above the water. The villains in this flick are a triumvirate of utterly forgettable ex-KGB officers and their mole in the Secret Service. They end up blending into the background noise of the movie.

There are two good parts of the movie, but they won’t impress everyone. The first positive in this movie was the panning shot of Toronto’s sky line. I don’t think I’ve seen a better one. They made the city look half decent. The next was the small section of the movie that was the introduction of Longoria’s character. Sutherland pokes fun at her inappropriate attire and her obvious bookish academic/professional career. It’s worth a giggle, maybe even a chuckle.

Overall, this movie was a dry, disappointing pseudo-action thriller, without the twists or flair of any of other movies in the genre. It deserves 1/10 or zero stars. I went into this movie expecting a more intriguing storyline, with some false leads, a red herring or two and a solid cast playing characters that are interesting if not entertaining to watch. I cannot recommend this movie to anyone on those grounds. Fans of the genre may be able to pull more out of it than I can but for the casual viewer, save your money for “The Inside Man”.

Dvd Review: A History of Violence

2006-04-12T19:45:00.000-04:00

I skipped this one in the theatres because it looked like the typical mobster type movie with the benefit of having David Cronenberg as the director. I agree that a big name director can pull in more viewers – Quentin Tarantino, M. Knight Shyamalan, Bryan Singer, these guys bring in people no matter what they make. But this sort of promotion puts me off seeing the movies because it seems like a parlor trick. After the Oscar nods and the critical acclaim that it garnered after it was released, I decided to give it a chance.

My fears were confirmed when I started watching the film, it was a typical mobster movie. Everything about this movie was standard. Cronenberg did put his signature touches in the film but they seem lackluster in the weak narrative. The story revolves around a man, Tom Stall(Viggo Mortensen), who kills two criminals to save his friends. This act of compassion draws the attention of a mob boss from Philadelphia and thus an unsophisticated story of intrigue begins. The mobster from Philly, played by Ed Harris, pursues Mortensen to get him to confront his past and make amends for it. As Harris drops more and more back-story in our laps, any interesting facets of Mortensen are utterly exposed. This movie was billed as a thriller but it spoon fed the viewer with all the pertinent details so that someone that had only a passing glance at the film could understand it. In this respect, the movie fails. Also, the pacing of the film hurts the story because it never gets a chance to build up any suspense.

Cronenberg doesn’t take any chances with this movie. He makes all the safe moves with the plot and he ends up leaving the viewer unfulfilled. It seemed like he really tried to make a stylish movie but he doesn’t succeed. The acting was equally dismal. Mortensen was stiff and unconvincing as the main character whose past is sketchy at best. Maria Bello looks like she’s aged about 10 years since “The Cooler”, which was made only 2 year before. Her portrayal of a concerned wife came off as clumsy and amateurish. I know she can act. She could have tried to make it look like she actually gave a damn. The whole section of the film that dealt with the kids was laughable. Sure, bullies don’t need a reason to pick on the nerd, so catching that ball is enough of a reason to set him off. The bully and his motivations bring up so many unanswered questions that it drags the whole movie down.

The only redeeming factor of this move was the cinematography. The shots were very well composed and conveyed the weak story in a straightforward way. The locations looked how I would imagine a small town in the heartland of America would look. The cuts between scenes and the mixing of the shots were done very well. It was a very good looking film.

This movie deserves about a 3/10 or 1 star mainly because there was nothing story-wise that was interesting, the characters and the acting were bad and the key to “twist” of the movie was brought up so early that there was nothing to build up. Though the cinematography was good, but it could not save this train from coming off the tracks.

Slither

2006-04-05T11:26:00.000-04:00

***Note***

'Tis a fine review, English but spoilers, thou hast.

***EndNote***

There are two approaches to viewing this movie and both are supported by the movie’s plot and tone. The first way to see this film is as a monster horror movie that doesn’t take the genre to seriously (similar to the Godzilla movies or any “lighthearted” horror flick). The plot is rigorous enough to support this premise easily. Monster maggots from parts unknown invade a small town and by using their mind control powers the maggots enslave or devour the townsfolk. Next, you can look at the move as a smart parody of monster horror genre (like Shaun of the Dead or any parody movie pre-Scary movie). The dialogue and the story are strange and clever enough to draw a few laughs. When the forced horror clichés start coming out, someone is ready to answer back with a piercing insult rather than the predictable “I’m okay and praise the Lord we survived”-type line. I went into this movie with apprehensions because the trailers had advertised this movie as better than the Shining and the Exorcist and how the aforementioned films were for pansies. So, when I clued into the “joke”, I laughed pretty hard.

Rookie Director, James Gunn, tells us the predictable story of monsters that invade and enslave the human population of a small town. Though the story may be old and tired he wrings out one last hoorah, if you subscribe to the first interpretation of the film, or he makes a masterful parody that incorporates many standard techniques from other monster movies. His range of influences are as wide as they are ludicrous – he made use the “Evil Dead” zooming through the forest shots, he makes the slugs fast like the “fast zombies” from 28 days later and he uses the “love conquers all” plot device that’s used in practically all comic horrors. His style is difficult to characterize using this movie because of the nature of parody; he may have inadvertently hit on some of these stereotypes without even noticing. But as far as the shot composition, cinematography and plot progression there was nothing to complain about nor anything great.

The actors that were cast in this film all come from the “cult” flick Hall of Fame: Nathan Fillion from “Serenity”/”Firefly”, Michael Rooker from “Mallrats” and “The Bone Collector” and Elizabeth Banks from “40-year Old Virgin” and the remake of “Shaft”. These three drive the story as a tortured love triangle. Rooker plays the rich old guy who woos Banks, the poor young hottie of the town, while Fillion plays the awkward best friend from high school who pines for her while drowning his sorrow in booze. Don’t expect any Academy Awards but you can see that these guys are really trying. The have an on-screen chemistry that brings out the comedy in all of them. The story was paper thin as any movie of this genre but it does the most it can with the scant details that lie within.

The movie deserves a 5/10 (1 star) pre-revelation of the true nature of the movie and a 6.5/10 (2 stars) post-revelation. Why the increase? Once you realize what is going on then you can look back and say well that’s why they did this and that. The main flaw was that the villain tried to be menacing but couldn’t with such a limited amount of time for character development. In the end the story ends up being warmer than I would have expected and I liked this movie more than I would have thought. It will be seen as a renter for some but those who go to see it on the big screen will not be disappointed.

Crash!

2006-03-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

There you have it, the best movie according to the Academy is Crash. Not my pick but a good movie nonetheless.

The rest of the winners are as follows:

Best Director: Ang Lee, Brokeback mountain
Best Actor: Philip Seymor Hoffman
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney, Syriana
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Best Animated Feature: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Best Original Screenplay: Crash
Best Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain
Best Foreign Language Film: Tsotsi
Best documentary short: A Note of Triumph: The Golden age of Norman Corwin
Best Documentary Feature: March of the Penguins
Best Film editing: Crash
Best Art Direction: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best cinematography: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Visual Effect: King Kong
Best Makeup: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Best Sound Editing: King Kong
Best Sound Mixing: King Kong
Best Original Score: Brokeback Mountain
Best Original Song: It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp, Hustle and Flow
Best Animated Short - The moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation
Best Short Film: Six Shooter

Which gives me an accuracy rating of about 54%.

Another Oscar List

2006-03-01T16:46:00.000-05:00

The 78^th Academy awards are upon us, this is when Hollywood turns in on itself to enjoy a bit of ego stroking and pompous strutting. I can’t complain too much, the industry gave us a few gems and a couple of good laughs this year.

Here’s my list with the old titles of the awards ( the new ones stink. Achievement in editing? What the hell is that?):

Best picture: Capote
Best leading actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best leading actress: Reese Witherspoon
Best supporting actor: Paul Giamatti
Best supporting actress: Michelle Williams
Best screenplay: The Squid and the Whale
Best adapted screen play: Capote
Best sound editing: King Kong
Best sound mixing: King Kong
Best score: Munich, John Williams
Best song: “It’s hard out there for a pimp” Hustle and Flow
Best animated feature: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit
Best animated short: One Man Band
Best short: Six Shooter (only one I was interested in seeing)
Best documentary: Murderball
Best documentary short: ***Have not seen any of these***
Best special effects: King Kong
Best director: Ang Lee
Best costume design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best cinematography: Brokeback Mountain
Best art direction: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best film editing: Crash
Best foreign language film: Paradise Now
Best makeup: Chronicles of Narnia

Dvd Review: Lord of War

2006-02-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

***Note***

L337 Spoilerz!

***EndNote***

Nic Cage is back in another movie that was poorly advertised and under appreciated at the box office. The title describes exactly the content of the movie: Nic Cage is a gun runner who finds himself providing arms to opposing forces in many of the conflicts around the world.

The director, Andrew Niccol, who directed Gattaca and S1m0ne, does a great job moving the story along and getting the right reactions out of the cast. The cinematography is excellent with many different locations around the world: Ukraine, Chechnya, West Africa, China and Korea. Some of the still shots of these locals were very impressive, though they may have been improvised behind the studio. The story isn’t as simple as it would seem, it has a few twists throughout to keep things interesting.

Cage is great as the as the wily arms dealer that evades capture at every turn whilst on his many illegal trips abroad, Yuri Orlov. He imparts much of his own squirreliness to the character and his unique style of restrained anger/explosive temper really gives the character a touch of reality. Jared Leto plays Cage’s indecisive, rambunctious younger brother. He doesn’t fit into the world of gun running because of his frantic demeanor and his unwillingness to remove himself from feeling for the people that the guns he is selling are going to kill. He is quickly left behind as he becomes a hindrance to Cage and ultimately his nature is his downfall. Ethan Hawke is an officious federal agent, who is tracking down Cage, in the hopes of cementing his job. Catching this arms trader is a career maker. He is unwilling to bend the rules to catch Cage. He will wait patiently until Cage makes a mistake to haul him in under a plethora of charges.

The flaws in this movie do get on your nerves. Bridget Moynahan, who plays Cage’s movie wife, did not give a good performance in this movie. She looked great but when the director tried to put great importance on family and the relationships between people she didn’t really fit into this movie. There wasn’t on-screen chemistry between Cage and her. The importance of family is brought up several times during the movie and seems to be a big part of Yuri’s life but in the end he makes a decision that doesn’t really fit his character.

Lord of War gets a 7 out of 10 or a 3/5 stars because the Yuri’s wife and kid aren’t likeable and the family ties that should mean a lot don’t. I liked the movie quite a bit. Especially, the shot with all the tanks and the warehouses full of guns. Apparently, the film makers had to warn NATO that they were doing this shot because otherwise it might have looked like they were actually conducting military exercises.

Firewall

2006-02-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

***Note***
Even the trailer spoils this movie
***EndNote***

Firewall promised to be one of those high tech caper movies but it ended up being a product placement showcase. IPod, Samsung (TVs, and other appliances),Chrysler, Swansons(Hungry Man Dinners) litter the screen for far too long. This was supposed to be an action-type film but the action sequences were anything but. Action movies aren’t food for thought but they should be entertaining.

Harrison Ford is yet again placed in a situation where he needs to sacrifice himself in order to save his family. Ford plays a digital security expert that some meticulous but absentminded criminals, who kidnap his family, extort to steal money from the bank he works for. The criminals don’t expect the meek, mild mannered Ford to fight back but to their surprise he does and he does his best to ruin their plans.

There’s not much to say about this movie because the story was paper thin, the characters were lifeless and the action sequences were bland. The blame rests on everyone involved in the directing, writing and editing. The cast was up to the task of playing each of the simple characters but since they had nothing interesting or important to say, they all stiffly recited their lines and picked up their pay checks. Other than Ford and Bettany, there were some decent actors involved in this movie, Virginia Madsen, Robert Patrick and Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O’Brian from ‘24’) but they were wasted on one note characters who should have been dropped because they added nothing to the picture. The air-headed wife and obnoxious children in the movie are terrible, if they wanted to make these characters totally unlikable and unsympathetic then they succeeded. I was hoping for a quick resolution to that situation when Ford said he wouldn’t work with the criminals.

This movie barely pushes a 1 out of 10 and deserves nothing more than a 2 thumbs down. This movie gets a 1 out of ten because I liked the final fight scene where Ford just wails the hell out of Paul Bettany and the MacGyver-esque contraption he comes up with to capture the bank account numbers.

Pros:
Ford beating up a pale-faced, pretty boy
Ford does an okay MacGyver impression

Cons:
Weak action
Lame characters
No attachment to anything
No resolution to the story

Shopgirl

2006-02-16T19:18:00.000-05:00

***Note***

Very few spoilers

***End Note***

‘Shopgirl’ was a movie that I was going into without expectations. It looked fairly similar to ‘Lost in Translation’ but I was happily surprised that it was rather different. I had heard that Coppola may have cribbed some of the content of this short story for her picture. The movie was good, though the third act was a pale finish to the story.

Though the director, Anand Tucker, is a relatively inexperienced, he does capture the fragility of relationships and love in general. This is characterized in the excellent performance he got out of the main cast. He maintains a good pace throughout the film not by adding complex shots but letting the story develop by itself. Tucker really gets the Los Angeles feel across with the shots of the city at night from the hills, the fancy shops and the expensive cars. Steve Martin’s screen play is pretty solid though it begins to show cracks near the end of the film. The resolution comes a little too quickly but this is forgivable because the build up was well constructed. The way the characters were written was very lifelike and believable. Alongside the love story there were plenty of laughs. It was a well constructed script that could appeal to pretty much everyone.

The acting in the film was excellent. Steve Martin turns in one his best dramatic performances of his career with this film. He plays an older tech millionaire who courts Claire Danes’ glove sales clerk. Danes fits the role of the introverted, humbly attired shop girl perfectly and we quickly learn that she has more depth than meets the eye. Jason Schwartzman plays an irrepressible, optimistic amplifier salesman who falls in love with Danes after seeing her at the laundromat. These three form a love strange love triangle, one side of which is heartfelt and subdued and the other is impulsive and messy.

Overall, the story is rather cute. We know, deep down, who Danes will end up but we want to see what happens next. This movie deserves a 7/10 or 3/5 stars. It’s an easy story to get into, but we have seen this thing before. The bookend narration was distracting, Martin being in the movie as one of the stars and the omniscient narrator struck me as odd. It’s mostly date movie fodder save one or two scenes.