Kino Club

The Secret in Their Eyes

2012-02-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

The Secret in Their Eyes catches up with Buenos Aires police detective Benjamin Esposito as he is a bit into his retirement. He’s writing a novel based around one of his more memorable, and unsolved, murder cases, from 25 years ago. He starts by looking up Judge Irene Menéndez-Hastings, who was a clerk on the case and was mad for Benjamin at the time. His showing up and poking around into this closed case opens up more than a can or two of worms. The film goes back and forth between the then and now in an attempt to fill out the cracks in the stories of the victim, the perpetrators and those involved in the investigation. Will they find the killer? Will Judge Menéndez-Hastings and Benjamin ever unite?

This film won the best foreign language Oscar, has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won a Goya. I say that to fully admit that I’m going to be in the minority in not digging on this flick. So, note that this is how it struck me, but keep in mind that most of the world loved this movie. To me, it was just too melodramatic. There were holes in the character development that the filmmaker clearly thought would go unnoticed because of a hope that people would just get swept up in the emotion of it all. It’s a love story and a crime drama done in a very, very Spanish fashion. If your heart goes all aflutter for the passion of a good Spanish melodrama, then this movie is squarely in your wheelhouse. However, if, like me, you’re a more practical bloke, then this movie is bound to do little more than serve as cause for a good eye rolling. There are undeniable holes to the story that require a bit too much stretching for me. But if you’re the type who can get lost in a good romantic crime story, knock your socks off.

Haywire

2012-01-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

Mallory Kane is a Marine Devil Dog whose idea of relaxing is a glass of wine while cleaning her guns. She’s a badass at kicking ass and she’s lent her talents to a private government contractor for the last three years. Her company, however, is falling apart and she wants out. As she puts it, she’s not going down with the ship, but leaving a covert organization is not as easy as she thinks and things get bad fast. Now, she has to find a way not only to get out but to survive.

I really liked this movie. It’s nothing groundbreaking, a very cut-and-paste plot that’s even visually generic, but it’s a solid good time. The fight scenes are well thought out and well coordinated. Soderbergh populated the movie with professional fighters rather than actors, usually a bad idea, and it worked well, lending a level of authenticity. You can’t fake those fighters eyebrows and ears. The acting was solid, the story was fun and the action was Bourne-level good. So, while it’s not going to change your life, it’s definitely worth seeing if you’re in the market for a good action flick. I certainly enjoyed it and it’s the first the first mainstream action flick I’ve seen in a while that I didn’t leave feeling like my money was robbed and my intelligence insulted.

S’good

Winter's Bone

2012-01-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

Winter’s Bone tells the powerful tale of a daughter who has had enough. Ree is the daughter of a meth dealing lowlife who lives with her mother and two siblings in the rural Ozarks. One day a sheriff’s deputy arrives at the house looking for dear ole dad to remind him of an upcoming court date. Well, that date comes and goes and dad never shows up. Soon after a bail bondsman comes by and says they’ve had enough too and are going to take the family’s home and timber property that dad put up as collateral on his most recent bond. Ree is but a teenager, the other kids are little and mom is a space cadet. If they lose the home and the timber, well, that’s the end of the line. So, Ree sets off to find ole dad, come hell or high water and she will not stop until he’s home paying his dues.

I gotta confess, this movie just didn’t do it for me and I really don’t know why. It had many of the elements of movies I love (strong female protagonist, journey story, right prevailing over selfish evil), but for whatever reason, it just never sucked me in. It’s a good story that is well shot, but I was never all that engaged and the movie quickly left my mind. Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic as Ree and John Hawkes was good too, but the rest of the actors were pretty forgettable. So, in the end, I’m not sure what to say. It’s a well-made movie with an interesting story, it just wasn’t for me.

P.s. Is it weird that Debra Granik has now made two features and both have the word bone in them?

S’good

Mary and Max

2012-01-12T14:05:00.001-08:00

Mary and Max is an Australian clayamation drama about, you know what, I’ve lost some of you already, haven’t I? Ok, well, if you know from the first clause of that sentence that this isn’t the flick for you, I understand, and you’re probably right. For the rest of you, here goes. Mary and Max is an Australian clayamation drama about a middle-aged man with crippling mental disabilities and a young girl with a devastating and unfulfilling home life who find enrichment and friendship through a pen pal relationship. They are from different ends of the world, but they serve as the sole shining lights in their otherwise dark worlds. They yearn for and dread the letters from the other, as the letters end up being both escapes and painful reminders of their own oddities and shortcomings. There isn’t much more to it than that.

The movie is sweet, odd and interesting. It would be as painful as a root canal if it weren’t for the stop motion animation, which allows for beautiful moments of illustration and exposition that wouldn’t be possible with a live action shoot. While the movie is certainly unique, it also doesn’t have a great deal of depth and would have been much better if it were like a 45-minute bit for television or a short. So, in short, if you find matters of mental health and personal issues of family function interesting, you may dig on this movie. If you, like me, are a total sucker for stop motion animation, then there is no chance you won’t at least enjoy the craft of this movie and enjoy watching it. Even if you are both of those things, however, I think you’ll agree that the story of the film could have made more of a substantial point and been told in a more concise manner. Not a bad movie, fairly forgettable, but worth a watch.

Limitless

2012-01-09T11:20:00.001-08:00

Eddie Morra is hitting the rock bottom of his life. He is an unsuccessful New York writer who finally landed a book deal only to blow the deadline without so much as a page written. Oh, and he just got dumped by his girlfriend. As he stews in the detritus of his life, he happens upon his ex brother-in-law, Vernon. At first it seems like just another bad thing going on, as Vernon does little more than mock Eddie for where he is in life and treat him like a second-class guy. Then, Vernon tells Eddie about a drug his company is developing that allows one to access 100% of their mental capacity and encourages Eddie to try it. Feeling as though he has nothing to lose, Eddie gives it a shot, but he soon learns the great benefits may well come with great and grave consequences. So, Eddie must decide: does he brave the dangers in order to live life as this heightened version of himself or does he go low risk and accept that the ‘real’ him is good enough? Nothing in life is free, but is he willing to pay the price for what he seeks?

What can I say about Limitless? Well, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all that good either. That sentence pretty much sums up the state of mainstream film in 2011. It’s not like it’s poorly made, but it’s hardly engaging or groundbreaking and is easily forgettable. And so, Limitless was well shot, well acted, completely devoid of surprises and wholly forgettable. Let me sum it up by saying the flick was adapted to the screen by Leslie Dixon, who is an immensely successful screenwriter, whose most famous works include Mrs. Doubtfire, Overboard, Loverboy and the Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan version of Freaky Friday. So, was it bad? No, but it’s about as fulfilling and satisfying as cotton candy.

Word Wars

2012-01-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

Apparently there is a chunk of the international populace that takes Scrabble very seriously. I don’t mean they’re into it, I mean they do it and nothing else. Word Wars follows a group of men who have forsaken all (or occasionally almost all) to be considered a member of the elite in tournament Scrabble. One of the profiled, a man who is referred to as GI Joel (no, not b/c he’s ex-military but b/c he has persistent gastrointestinal problems, get it, GI) who literally doesn’t leave his apartment except to attend Scrabble group meetings or competitions. Another of the group works nights as a security guard just so he can spend all day and night studying words and Scrabble strategy. These, and the others like them, are not considered weirdos or eccentrics but are revered as the true greats, being interviewed and asked to teach classes.

It is a very odd segment of the world population and this movie gives us a peak into that strange, compulsive world. Combining just the right elements of character study and competition, Word Wars makes this flick hard to shut off. It’s as though you just can’t stop watching, can’t stop yourself from wanting to see how it ends. Truth be told, there are no stakes here. These people have made a decision to dedicate their lives to a board game, clearly denoting an egocentricity and narrow mindedness that fuels a quest to do something that does little more than make a small amount of money and a large amount of self-satisfaction. That said, I can’t help but admit it’s fun to watch them do so for just under two hours and then to gladly move on with the rest of my life, free from the snare of that foul mistress known as Scrabble.

S’good

Solarbabies

2011-12-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

In a post-apocalyptic future, the world’s water supply is controlled by an evil coporation known as Eco-Protectorate. Among their many ventures is orphanages that are run like prison indoctrination camps. A small group of like-minded orphans finds a mysterious orb that may prove to be their way out of the prison like walls of…you know what, forget it, there is no reason to explain this movie further. Let’s switch gears. Let me sum it up this way, take Mad Max: Road Warrior, mix it with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, toss in some crappy 80’s TV family sitcom writing, make the whole thing about ten rungs stupider and you have Solarbabies.

In 1980, Mel Brooks decided to start up a small studio, Brooksfilms, and start producing handpicked, quality (not always comedic) films projects. He made a great go of it too, with movies like The Elephant Man, My Favorite Year and The Fly. The Fly was his first mega-hit, making just under $61million domestically. He followed it with this hunk of garbage and Brooksfilms didn’t make another lauded flick for years and soon the studio went out of business. There is simply no element of this movie that propels the story. The acting is bad, the dialogue is bad, the effects are lame as hell, the casting was weird, the concepts are pointless, the entire movie itself is a complete rip off of so many others. Let me just point one more thing out, it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While I’m not one to rely on that site, 0% is pretty damn stark.

If you want to get sauced and watch a movie about roller-skating teenage heroes of the future and might like spotting some of your favorite b-list actors from the late 80’s and early 90’s (hey, there’s that guy from Point Break, you know the blonde one, and there’s the guy from 21 Jump Street who wasn’t Asian or Johnny Depp, ooh, and look, there’s…), then this is the flick for you. If you’re anyone else in the world, you could probably just skip this one. Consider this warning my gift to you.

Ghost Warrior

2011-11-20T14:52:00.001-08:00

The tagline of this movie was “A deep-frozen 400-year-old samurai is shipped to Los Angeles, where he comes back to life.” I know, terrible, right? Well, it pretty much sums up the story and the quality of the flick. God bless the ‘80’s, when crap like this got greenlit and a budget. The problem with this movie, however, is that it seemed to take itself very seriously. A good cruddy ‘80’s movie has to treat itself like bubble gum and, not matter how much you may like it, we all know you’re not going to get nourishment from bubble gum, and the maker should know this too.

So, a samurai is deeply in love and then watches his woman die right before he’s hit with an arrow and falls over a cliff into water. Somehow he gets frozen solid in water that isn’t frozen solid and somehow he lives for four centuries. Then, when he comes back to, thanks to super advanced scientists, he wants to get back to the business of ass-kicking. He is surprisingly well adjusted to seeing things like cars, tv’s and airplanes, as well as people who are dressed, speaking and acting most bizarrely. Despite the movie raising more questions than answering (and not purposefully for phsilosophical stimulation, mind you), they seem to put a great deal of emphasis on specific details that don’t drive the story at all, like having the guy use a dialect of Japanese that is from the era and not like modern Japanese. What they should have done is put a good deal of emphasis on story and ideas, if they wanted it to be a legit movie.

Moral of the story, if you’re going to make a movie about some guy getting unfrozen after a ton of time, don’t take yourself seriously, the only movies that have ever used this concept even remotely well didn’t take it seriously at all (think Austin Powers, Demolition Man and Encino Man). Then again, there's no problem in this movie a sizable amount of booze can't fix.

Down to Bizness

2011-11-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

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I Love You Phillip Morris

2011-11-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

I Love You Phillip Morris tells the all too true and all too bizarre tale of Steven Jay Russell. You see, Steven doesn’t do anything half ass. He’s either all in or all out. When he is married to a saccharine sweet Christian girl, well, he’s the choir director and is sappy sweet suburban goodness as well. When he decides to live more like a South Beach gay stereotype, well, he goes whole hog to the point of committing massive credit card fraud in order to buy extravagant gifts and clothes. This, unfortunately, lands him in prison. There, he meets Phillip and falls, you guessed it, over the top in love with him. He goes to extremes for them to be together, from pulling strings to get them bunked together to escaping prison to go bust him out of another prison, to which Phillip had been transferred. So, will they get away with it? Will they be able to hide and live the straight life (no pun intended) in order to stay out of prison? Or will Steven and Phillip’s antics end them right back in the slammer? Ask them and they may tell you it doesn’t matter, as long as they’re together.

This movie has a great deal of good things going for it. It’s visually interesting, the tone is lighthearted and sweet and the character that is Russell seems tailor made for Jim Carrey, who plays him very well. I won’t go into the end of the story, because I think you’ll enjoy not knowing, but, suffice it to say, it takes a bit of the fun out of things. I think part of the movies flaw is that it’s not terribly engaging, at least not for me. I didn’t care a whole lot what happens to these characters and I can’t say it had me on the edge of my seat or anything. In the end it’s fun and enjoyable but nothing all that mind blowing. I wish John Waters would have gotten his mits on this one, then we’d have had something interesting. If you’re looking for a quirky interesting story about two wackos who are out of their senses with love, then this is your flick. If not, meh, skip it.

S’good.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-11-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Dr. Rodman works for a major pharmaceutical company and may be on the verge of a cure for Alzheimer’s, in that he’s developed a drug that appears to regenerate damaged and dying brain cells. Of course, the company wants to test this out on chimps first, but the project goes caput when one of the chimps attacks a boardroom full of investors. The problem for Rodman…the drug worked. Not only did it work, but apparently the chimp it worked on was pregnant and the baby appears to be even more advanced than the mom. So, he tries the drug out on his dad, secretly, and it works on him too. Of course, no major motion picture is complete without conflict, so let’s suffice it to say, things don’t exactly work out as planned. His father starts declining again and the wonderchimp starts wanting more than living with a scientist in some suburban San Francisco home. The father spirals out and the chim revolts.

I don’t have much to say about this movie because there’s really not much to say about it. People can be greedy, chimps are purer, the underdog triumphs, blah blah blah. I’m sick to death with formulaic wide-release action dramas. In them is nothing surprising and out of them comes nothing but shallow, easy messages. Also, how the heck is this movie part of the planet of the apes series? It has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the movies. Ok, it’s vaguely related to the fourth one, but the director said it’s only a loose association, that, really, this movies is supposed to be a prequel to the first one. Ok, fine, but how is it a prequel set in the modern day? Think about it. Also, and then I swear I'll stop, I have never become a fan of CGI. I don't care who you are, CGI just doesn't look real and, in fact, it looks unreal in movies, like this one, that are going for realism and, thereby, it detracts from the suspension of disbelief. Put another way, it's distracting rather than engaging. I bring it up here because there's a freaking ton of CGI in this movie.

That said, if you are not a curmudgeon like me, then there is a chance you may dig this flick. It does have that classic underdog story going for it and the majority of the country seems to have enjoyed it far more than I. It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t, well, much of anything.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

2011-10-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

In case you lived on a deserted island a couple years ago and haven’t interacted with the media since then, I’ll lay out the basic facts that led to the events behind this documentary. Jay Leno announced that Conan O’Brien would succeed him as host of The Tonight Show, then he didn’t leave for years, then, when he finally did leave and O’Brien took over the show, Leno announced that he would start a new show and it would run immediately before The Tonight Show, essentially stealing a chunk of O’Brien’s thunder and audience. Then Leno convinced NBC to move his show to The Tonight Show slot, moving O’Brien to after midnight. O’Brien had enough and quit, quite publicly.

NBC paid him heaps of money and let him leave without suit if he would agree not to appear on television or speak ill publicly about The Tonight Show for one year.

So, does the workaholic, driven O’Brien take this time off to opine or write or spend time with his family? Of course not, hence the title. He launches a live show tour of the US called The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. This documentary is somewhat about his fall from The Tonight Show and somewhat about his plans for the future, but largely it’s about the tour and, via the tour, a look at his life immediately following the Tonight Show debacle.

O’Brien was a lead writer for The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Late Night and The Tonight Show. He’s a seriously funny guy whose comedy has greatly impacted modern comedy in ways many people don’t realize. When this crap all went down last year it was a great disservice to him. This doc is an interesting and thorough look at his reaction to this disservice. It is not fluff, it’s a very transparent look at a dark time for O’Brien and it’s certainly a good watch.

S’good

Mr. Popper's Penguins

2011-10-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that’s right, I saw it. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m reviewing it. Hey, I’ve got nothing to hide.

Tom Popper never had a relationship with his father and, as a result, has a barrier up that keeps him from being too warmhearted or human. He’s a coldhearted commercial real estate agent with a lovely penthouse apartment and a broken down life. His father suddenly passes and leaves Tom a very peculiar inheritance…six penguins. I’m going to let you write the rest of the plot description. I’ll give you only two hints: he doesn’t get rid of the penguins and they serve as a catalyst that brings about the warming of his heart (irony?). Sorry, before laying that bombshell on you, I should have warned you to sit down first, as I know it must have come as quite a shock.

Ok, so, this movie’s plot progression and series of events are totally ridiculous. They are unbelievable , unrealistic and, well, ridiculous. That said, it wasn’t nearly as awful as the critics largely say it is. Jim Carrey is actually quite good in it. The writing is largely crap and the story makes the writing look like a true work of art, but he does a decent job with what he has and is fairly funny at times. Movies like this weren’t made for me (and probably not for most of you), but, let me say this, I saw it as part of a ‘family matinee’ program at a local theater and the kids were downright cheering at the end. My 11-year-old declared it her new favorite movie of all time.

In short, it’s stupid, it’s ludicrous, but it’s also sweet and pretty bearable. I have a close friend whose kids are crazy smart for their age and homeschooled. When I saw this movie, I asked them, when I saw them later that day, if they’d seen Mr. Popper’s Penguins and they said “what do you mean ‘seen,’ it’s a book and yes we’ve read it, we love it.” Turns out it was a Newberry Award winning kids book written in the ‘30’s. Listen to those sweet nerds and read your kids the book, but if you get dragged into seeing the movie, don’t worry, it won’t hurt too much.

U/SA

Everything Must Go

2011-10-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

Everything Must Go is about, well, letting go and moving on. Often our lives begin us down a path and keep us on that path, whether we like or not, whether it is productive or not. Nick’s life was good. He had all the trappings of success, with a wife, a good job and a beautiful house in the suburbs. While his life might look like it is squarely on track, he keeps derailing it with a major drinking problem. This pot of rancid water finally comes to a boil when he has yet another relapse, leading to him losing his wife, losing his job, potentially committing adultery and being locked out of his own house, all in the course of a couple days. Now, his accounts are all frozen, he has no money, all his belongings are sitting on his lawn and he feels like he has nowhere to go. So, what does he do? Drink himself into oblivion? Sit on his lawn until his wife comes back and attempt to get yet another second chance? Or does he move on and put his life on a new path?

While Everything Must Go is a hopeful and enjoyable movie, it lacks a certain amount of dramatic punch with its overreliance on formula. In other words, it’s not a bad movie, but I don’t think a single scene had anything all that surprising in it. You can predict every twist and turn. I’m a big believer that life is what you make of what is given you, and I like that this movie shares that sentiment. What truly keeps this flick out of made-for-tv territory is Will Ferrell’s performance. He is just great. His Nick is well formed, natural and capable of gently keeping the movie from being a major downer. Based on the subject matter, in fact, you would think this would be the most depressing movie of the year, but it’s not at all and that is largely due to Ferrell. He makes a mediocre movie very very watchable. In short, it’s not the best thing around, but it’s a sweet story with a good message and Ferrell knocks it out of the park.

Moneyball

2011-09-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

Moneyball tells the true story of how, in 2001, a chance meeting between a very unlikely pair changed the way baseball is played. When Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane went to Cleveland to discuss trades with their GM, he couldn’t help but notice a nerdy, young looking man in the meeting that seemed to be making big decisions for the Cleveland GM. So, after the meeting, Beane tracks the kids down and asks him who he is. The young man says Peter Brand, but, as Beane put it, I don’t care what your name is, I want to know who you are. He finds out that Brand is an egghead from Yale who uses statistics and computer code to determine the best possible roster for a ball club. He doesn’t care about fame, salary or even physical characteristics. Instead, he takes a completely cold, facts only approach, plugs the person into the code and they either show up on his chart as a good bet or a bad bet. Billy is sold and hires the kid on as his new assistant GM. Of course, both this move and the new method fly into the face of over a century of baseball wisdom and just about everyone thinks Beane has completely lost it. Will it pan out? Is ne nuts or is he onto something?

I’m about to give this movie a very mild recommendation and I have to start out by saying I recognize that I am in the vast minority on this one. For crying out loud, the movie has a 94% Approval Rating on Rotton Tomatoes right now. Well, too freaking bad, because, like baseball itself, I know there are many aspects of it that, on paper, make it look like I would like it, but when I’m actually watching it, I just don’t dig it. I didn’t care what happened to these characters, I didn’t care if it worked out all that much and, generally speaking, I really wasn’t much engaged in the movie at all from start to finish.

How can this be when the cast was fantastic, the performances were very natural, the cinematography great and the script written by two of the best screenwriters in existence? Well, I think it boils down to the story itself. It’s not about how two unlikely heroes saved baseball or came up with a way that took a rag tag team to the top. In fact, the A’s had just been very deep into the playoffs the year before. Essentially this movie is about how a GM took a chance on a theory that made his good team slightly better. They don’t go on to win the world series and, in fact, they don’t even go further into the playoffs than they did the season before the new approach was put into place. Yes, Beane’s new approach did have a huge impact on the way all teams approach playing the game, but very little of that in the movie. Most of the movie is about a guy making his team slightly better. And where is the drama? These are rich white guys, one of whom has a degree from Yale, who are making millions while managing a pro sports team. They go to their fantastic job and do a good job thereat, there’s the movie, that’s it. I just never felt any drama, anything engaging, and at the end I just sort of shrugged. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t that good. In a way, I felt like I was watching an actual baseball game. Like in a game of baseball, it has a small handful of thrilling moments, but overall it’s usually pretty forgettable.

The Man From Nowhere

2011-09-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

This movie tells the story of a no name, skinny, goth looking guy who runs a pawnshop in a rundown apartment building in the wrong part of town. He lives in his shop and only leaves to go to the store. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t say a word and is clearly in hiding. No one notices him and he grows callous as he watches the parade of filth that comes by his kiosk window all day long. A sweet, innocent little latchkey kid takes a liking to him and seems intent on becoming friends. Just as he opens up to her, the little girl is kidnapped along with her mother by some very bad people. The pawnshop owner can’t let this fly and tracks each person involved down one by one, exacting revenge until they give him back the girl.

The Man from Nowhere is a classic revenge flick. If you can picture this movie as an American vehicle from several decades ago, the lead would easily be held by the likes of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Highly skilled, cold hearted badass doesn’t give a rip about anything in this world, never letting anyone inside the watertight heart of his, that is until some innocent person (a woman or a child usually) comes into his life. Just when he lightens up and lets her in she is kidnapped, killed, robbed, hurt or meets some other unfortunate fate. Well, the hero, be it Wayne or Eastwood, can’t let this happen and proceeds to track down the bad guys and tear them a new asshole.

Well, that basically sums up this flick too. It’s a classic, hard-boiled revenge flick where some bad dudes have messed with the wrong guy and they’re soon to find out just how big a mistake they’ve made. Let me sum it up with a quote from a crucial scene in the movie. Upon finding one of the scumbags he’s looking for he sees that a whole gang of dudes have come out to stop our hero from reaching the scumbag. The scumbag asks if he has anything to say about this and he says, “how many cavities do you all have? I run a pawnshop, I’ll take your gold teeth, but anything else I touch I’m going to chew up and spit out.” If you like this kind of movie, you’re going to love The Man From Nowhere. If not, you may still like it, as the acting is great, the action is too and the martial arts are top notch. The performances are memorable and I love this kind of story. I hope to see more from all involved.

S'good

Drive

2011-09-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Drive is about, well, a driver. He’s cold, he’s calculated and he’s damn good at what he does. As he puts it, “you tell me where to be and when, I’ll give you five minutes to get your job done, anything inside of that, I’m yours no matter what, outside of that, you’re on your own.” He lives a life with no allegiances, no moral compass and with the precision of a clock. That is, until he falls for the single mother next door and her grade school aged son. Now there is a kink in his clock and, unfortunately for him, his bosses depend on his machine-like precision and they don’t have much patience for his new personal life. Soon, their patience wears out when he inadvertently costs his bosses a ton of cash when attempting to help his new crush out of a bind.

Drive is much more similar to the tense, slow boil of French New Wave Thrillers like Le Cercle Rouge, L’Argent or, especially, Le Samurai. It is slow, it is quiet, it is highly stylized and boy is it tense. The protagonist is like a rope pulled just to it’s breaking point and, if it feels the pull any more, it just might snap. And, man, can this guy snap. He’s smiling, warm, nice, even loving one moment and then will be cracking your skull with a hammer the next. While an obvious psychopath, he seems intensely intent on maintaining control, which is why, when he does lose control, he seems to almost physically fight it. His arms tremble, his expression denotes he’s sick to his stomach and sweat will just pour off him. He wants so much to maintain control in all he does, that doing otherwise seems to make him ill.

Of course, this is all part of why it throws him for such a loop to fall in love with the single mom living next door. Talk about out of his routine. While ‘this criminal who lives like a clock but falls for his counterpart’ bit has been done before (I love it in The Professional), it’s done well here. You like her, you like him when he’s with her, you want it to work out. I won’t tell you if it does or not, of course, but I can tell you that ever moment until the conclusion is interesting to say the least.

If I had a single complaint it would be that the movie wasn’t restrained enough. I don’t mean it needed less dialogue or anything (any quieter and it’d be a silent movie), but rather that it often showed a little too much violence (taking away from the scare factor), stayed on a shot way too long or had sections of scenes that just weren’t necessary. This movie is not without it’s faults, but overall it was stylish, tense, engaging and a great throwback to some of my favorite French dramas of all time.

Cedar Rapids

2011-09-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

Tim Lippe lives a purposefully sheltered life. He’s never left his hometown (not even temporarily). He still lives in the home he grew up in and his bedroom looks just like it did when he was a little boy. He’s never really dated and lives a life of blissful ignorance. All of a sudden, the winds of change come blowing into Tim’s life and topples his quiet, sheltered little deck of cards he calls living. First, one of his 7^th grade teachers takes him on a date and they sleep together. He thinks he’s found love, but she tells him, hey, they’re both adults, she’s recently divorced and she thought they were just having fun. This is not in his wheelhouse.

Then, his supervisor at work abruptly passes away under scandalous circumstances and his boss asks Tim to go to the annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in his supervisor’s place. The death, the one-night-stand, the trip out of town to a ‘big city,’ (including his first trip on a plane) all serve to shake up his mundane routine of life something fierce. So how does this Ned Flanders wannabe handle it? Well, watch and laugh.

This isn’t the most original of stories; we’ve all seen this sort of movie, where the naïve country kid has a wild, unexpected time in the big city, but it doesn’t mean Cedar Rapids isn’t enjoyable. The writing is pretty good and the visuals are mostly standard fare. What raises this flick above the fray are the performances. Just about every role is filled by an actor giving a heartwarming and hilarious performance, especially John C. Reilly and Ed Helms. There’s not a dud in the bunch. While it’s not the greatest flick out there and certainly isn’t groundbreaking, it’s enjoyable and full of more than a couple laughs.

S’good

Hanna

2011-09-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

Hanna tells the story of a very specific moment in the life of, well, Hanna. We’re not told exactly how old she is, but, for the sake of this discussion, let’s say she’s in her early teens. She’s at that moment in all our lives where we begin to question ourselves, our role in the world and what may be out there in the greater world. This is especially so when we happen to be the only child of a rogue CIA agent who has spent our entire life out in the woods with us training us to be a high level agent. In other words, what happens when a person lives a completely isolated life and suddenly finds him/herself in an existential dilemma? Meet Hanna. She has been trained her whole life to fight and to kill and has been completely shut off from the outside world. Now, she wants to know and to see, to hear music for the first time, to, maybe, find a little love. All that stuff. Problem is, if she exposes herself, she vicariously exposes her father. If she does that, the shit is gonna hit the fan.

Well, she does it anyway and he lets her. He understands she needs to see the outside world to find out it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Can they survive long enough for her to have her little rumspringa?

This movie is like Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret meets The Bourne Identity. It’s part coming of age tale (teenage girl’s self discovery) and part thriller action. The coming of age portions were so so. They seemed out of place with the tone of the rest of the movie and, oddly, weren’t dealved into enough. I almost felt like it shouldn’t have been 50-50, but more like 80-20. Joe Wright should have made up his mind and decided what sort of movie he wanted to make. A girl going out into urban Berlin after living so isolated for her whole life that the first site of an airplane causes her to scream in both terror and delight, would make for a fantastic film, but if that is broken up with tons of espionage and chase scenes, then it’s just not developed enough. Now, that said, having two, disparate but fantastic flicks broken up by each other doesn’t mean the whole is a bad flick. It just means it could have been better.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was interesting, stylish, and thrilling when it needs to be. I liked Wright’s Pride and Prejudice more, but, outside of it, this is his best. If you like movies like Bourne, then this is certainly a flick you should see. It’s action done well and proof that a little creativity is all it takes to bring the mainstream movie industry out of it’s terrible artistic slump. In other words, this movie is not rocket science, but it’s original and a solid story and, after all, it doesn’t take much more than that.

S’good

The Expendables

2011-09-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

A group of mercenaries known as The Expendables travels the world kicking ass and fulfilling missions. On one mission to some Spanish speaking island in the Gulf of Mexico, the leader of the group, played by Stallone, falls for a girl who elects to stay behind on the corrupt island rather than be rescued by The Expendables. So, Barney, yes his name is Barney, can’t stand for this, gathers a team of the very best he can get and goes back to, you guessed it, kick some ass and save the girl. This movie was a deliberate throwback to the grand action movies of the 1980’s.

Stallone asked everyone he could think of from that era to be in the flick and many of them were, from Dolph Lundgren to Micky Rourke to Eric Roberts. The one’s that turned him down are allegedly in the sequel, people like Van Damme, Lorenzo Lamas and Chuck Norris. Basically, it boils down to this. Did you love action movies from the 80’s and early 90’s? The kinds of action movies where the plot was incidental and the movie was mostly about big stunts and even bigger explosions? I’m not talking about the really innovative stuff like Die Hard or Predator or the like. I’m talking about boom blam glossy popcorn with names like Delta Force and Iron Eagle. Well, if you did, if you totally loved that stuff, then this movie is so squarely up your alley it’s gonna blow your mind.

I, however, was never really into those kinds of movies. I was too busy being a geek for horror, sci fi and animated sources of my popcorn. That said, this movie was fun and a nice mental break and I gotta say I did enjoy it. So, there you have it. It’s not groundbreaking, but it might be just what you’re looking for.

Madhouse

2011-08-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

Peter Toombes (pun very much intended) had become a giant star making horror movies in the 50’s and 60’s and was most famous for playing his signature character Dr. Death, portrayed by the one-and-only Vincent Price. At a New Year’s Eve party, however, tragedy strikes and he shrinks away from the public eye and puts aside Dr. Death for good. 12 years later and old friend and colleague, played by the incomparable Peter Cushing, convinces him to movie to England and reprise the role for a British TV series. He agrees and both the accolades and the tragedies seem to pick right up where they left off. At this stage in his career, Vincent Price was sick of horror. In fact, he hated the direction the new generation of horror filmmakers were taking the genre. Rather than try and emulate them, the fantastic Mr. Price made this piece in a very classic style and commented on the new wave in subtle ways, through monologues and roles for heartless producers. He also used the story to comment on himself. Here is someone, like himself, sick of doing this but finding himself doing horror once again, and, so, the question becomes will Peter use this opportunity to be a hero or a victim?

If there is one thing that separates old horror from the new generation of horror (and by old and new I don’t mean anything in the present day, but rather the pre-70’s horror and the horror genre birthed by people like Wes Craven, George Romero and John Carpenter in the 70’s) it is the type of the weight of the threat posed by the villain. In fact, one might say it boils down to movies being creepy versus scary. For example, this movie, to me, played more like a whodunit with some fantastically creepy atmosphere, but it wasn’t scary at all, not a single frame of it. granted, I’m not easily scared by movies (I find horror more fun than scary), but this movie feels more like old Hollywood with it’s grand score and classically trained actors than it does anything resembling a harrowing tale of the evils of some demented mind. That said, I enjoyed this movie immensely. I find it very hard to dislike a Vincent Price vehicle and throw in Peter Cushing and you have a near guarantee I will like it. This movie contains classic Price monologues and Cushing coldness.

Hobo with a Shotgun

2011-08-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Hobo with a Shotgun tells the story of a man who has seen enough. He’s taken all he can stand and he can’t stands no more. An old train hopper stumbles upon the town of Hopeville and finds it to be brimming over with crime and violence, mostly due to the vice grip a crimelord named The Drake has on the town. He just looks the other way, but, after a couple days in this lovely town, just can’t take it anymore. So, he goes down to the local pawnshop, buys a shotgun and starts “cleaning up the streets.”

Hobo with a Shotgun is a spoof of those grindhouse movies from the 70’s and 80’s that, usually, prominently featured vengeance, blood and any other exploitative, scandalous thing they could pack into 90 minutes. Problem is, the only good spoofs are those that show a real affection for the genre and aren’t just mocking it (for a great example, please see Black Dynamite, actually, just go see Black Dynamite either way). This movie is not that kind of spoof. They are clearly just mocking those action movies that now populate $1 bins across the country. Everything is over the top, the writing is just awful, the acting awful, the effects are ridiculous and the movie seems to have no point whatsoever. Then again, I did kind of enjoy it. call me sick, but maybe that’s why I can’t resist those $1 bins and half my movie collection is made up of movies where people’s heads explode following a punch or where the dialogue is laughable. So, in the end, if you love those trashy old movies and this one happens to be on late night cable, give it a view, but otherwise, just go rent Ricky Oh or Death Race 2000. That said, I gotta admit, the music for Hobo was spot on perfect.

The Last House on the Left

2011-08-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Last House on the Left tells the story of a girl’s night out gone very wrong. In reality, I suppose you could say that it was about three different groups whose respective nights don’t quite end the way they’d hoped. Mari and her friend Phyllis head out of the suburbs to see a rock show in Harlem. They’re almost adults now, they can handle a rock show in Harlem, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, when they get to the city they decide to try and score some weed. The people they ask just so happen to be a traveling group of serial rapists and murderers. They proceed to rape Phyllis and then put both of the girls into the trunk of their car like leftovers for later. They then stop at some random spot in the suburbs for more rape and torture and it just so happens to be right across the street from Mari’s house. That’s when the shit really hits the fan.

This movie is significant to any and all horror aficionados, such as myself, for two reasons. First, it is considered one of the first to usher in the age of, what is known as, new horror. It’s not new anymore, as this movie came out in the early ‘70’s, but what ‘new horror’ means is that horror shifted from being not so creepy swamp monsters and vampires and started being about truly terrifying supernatural possessions and serial killers. Freddy Kruger and Rosemary’s Satanic baby are very different from flying brain monsters and movie adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe starring someone like Vincent Price. I suppose you can say that new horror is when horror went from being creepy to being scary. The second things significant about this movie is that it introduced the world to a, then, literature professor who was interested in making movies named Wes Craven.

Despite it’s prominence in the history of the genre, I’d never seen it. I figured it was about time. It’s influence is undeniable and I’m not sure there’d ever have been a John Carpenter or Toby Hooper without inspirations like this out there. That said, let’s talk about the movie watching experience. The performances were really uneven. Some, like Jeramie Rain and David Hess, were really great and memorable, while others were totally one note amateurish performances. In fact, just about everything about this movie was uneven, with moments of greatness peppered with things that just didn’t work at all. For example, the music was awful, completely out of sync with the tone of the movie and distracting and they would toss in these stupid moments of goofy cop comedy right after some heavy rape scene. In the end, it meant one could clearly tell the director had talent and promise, but the movie itself just wasn’t that engaging or scary, at all. Long story short, see it if you’re a fan of the genre and want your movie watching collection to be complete, but, otherwise, you can probably skip it.

13 Assassins

2011-06-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

In the Edo period of Japanese history, the samurai lived as powerful servants to the even more powerful shogunate. While the samurai may have been the ultimate warriors on the highly guarded and closed off islands that made up Japan in those days, their code required absolute devotion to their lords. So strong was this devotion that it was unthinkable to not follow the lord’s demands. Along comes Lord Naritsugu, who is both a high-level shogun lord and a complete psychopath. Everywhere he went he raped, tortured and killed at will, often the victim’s were completely innocent families, often using the noble samurai to finish the job. Naritsugu’s main samurai, Hanbei, is a seasoned veteran who was a top pupil back in the day, second only to an ultimate bad ass of a samurai, Shinzaemon.

Unlucky for Hanbei, Shinzaemon has just found out what Naritsugu’s been up to and that Naritsugu is about to take over has top shogun. Well, ole Shinzaemon can’t let that go down. Problem is, he can’t find anyone to join him in his quest to take out Naritsugu, as most samurai wouldn’t even think of touching a hair on a shogun lord’s head. So, all Sinzaemon can do is round up a group of samurai rejects and iconoclasts and try to take down Naritsugu. So, the ragtag group of 13 takes on Hanbei and his army of samurai to stand up for what’s right and bring down the hand of justice.

This movie is freaking awesome. I tend to either not much care for Takashi Miike’s movies at all or love them. This one definitely falls into the latter category. The movie is a tale about the dangers of absolute, unthinking devotion to authority. The style is that of a classic samurai period piece and, as such, mimics the great westerns of the golden age. Change the background to the frontier of the western U.S. in the 19^th century and switch out the main actor with Clint Eastwood and you would have a western classic on your hands. The white hats and black hats are similar in substantial ways and diametrically opposed at the same time. They’re also both heavy hands who ultimately must have a final showdown to decide the fate of the town. It’s classic stuff, high noon samurai style, and it’s awesome.

Bridesmaids

2011-06-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

Annie’s life is falling apart. She has no relationship with her mom. Her business has recently failed. She has no love life and the one guy she is involved with is a douche of the highest order. The only constant and positive aspect of her life is her lifelong best friend Lillian, but Lillian is now spending most of her time in Chicago, nearly an hour away, and now Lillian has announced she’s moving there because she’s engaged. Annie is essentially on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Lillian asks her to be the maid of honor and pairs her up with Lillian’s new best friend the all to together and seemingly perfect Helen. It is the straw that breaks the camels back.

What makes a comedy great? Is it the story? Is it the emotional bits that function to keep the story arch and character development going? Or is it just laughs? There are many comedies we can all think of that may be full of gags and laughs but that didn’t stick with us because they lacked the other elements. It’s rare that a comedy has all these elements firing on all pistons. Bridesmaids is no exception. I left feeling like it wasn’t that great because I didn’t care much at all about the emotional arch of the Annie character. I love Kristen Wiig, but it seemed like, for most of the movie, she was just doing her character from most of her movie appearances but just amped up a bit. At the same time, I laughed my ass off in this movie, more than any other comedy I can remember in a good long time. So, what does this mean? If I give the main story line a B-, does that mean the movie is a B-?

I don’t think that’s fair. Plus, as time passed I began to think more kindly on the Annie character and like her a bit more and also came to realize that excluding such an emotional aspect of the movie would have made it just another Apatow-helmed dirty mouthed gross out comedy. While I like some of his movies of such an ilk, it’s been done and, lately, done way too often. Instead, it was like those movies but worked slightly better, to where I am still thinking about the story and movie now, still mentally invested in the characters.

But, hands down, 100%, without a doubt, the absolute best thing about this movie was Melissa McCarthy. Her character, Megan, was easily the funniest character I’ve seen in a solid decade. She took what could have been a completely forgettable side character and totally nailed it, to the point that, by the end of the movie, her merely being on screen made me laugh. From the first moment she speaks to the roll of the credits, she kept my attention and made me laugh like I haven’t laughed in years. Hilarious! So, in the end, I felt so so about some of the storyline aspects of the movie, but it was a decent story that was very well acted and it consistently made me laugh and, after all, isn’t that what a comedy is aiming to do?

S'good

Krull

2011-06-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

As anyone who knows me or follows this blog knows, I love campy cinematic crap from my childhood. I own so many movies from the 70’s and 80’s that most people have long forgotten that it’s not even funny. I also love to scan back, remember some movie even I’ve long forgotten and give it an overdue repeat view. Anytime someone undertakes such an endeavor, they inevitably find that some movies they loved as a kid hold up over time and some most certainly do not. Well, all that to say, viewing Krull now, a movie I totally dug as a little guy, I realize just how much Krull sucks. There really isn’t a good aspect of this movie. The effects are awful, the props are awful, the acting, the writing, even the score, it’s all just terrible.

Krull has about as much suspense and drama as an episode of the A-Team. True, three people die in Krull, which is monumentally more than in any episode of the A-Team, but there was never a second where I felt any of the important characters was in any danger whatsoever. There were these highly trained killing machines with laser guns who seemed to be everywhere and were constantly trying to kill the five or so people on this mission. Those five or so people were not trained and had things like staffs and spears. Yet, they seemed to be able to easily defeat the killing machines through some cunning bobbing and weaving. Awful, just awful.

Their biggest help comes in the form of a Cyclops that looked like the neighbor from Home Improvement with a second rate mechanical blinking eye molded over his actual eyes. It’s the fakest thing I’ve ever seen and they chose a guy who is not at all imposing or athletic to be this big heroic warrior. Sheesh.

I could go on and on, but the absolute worst thing, hands down, was the music. The score is the most grand, sweeping, epic score I have ever heard and the movie is about as sweeping and epic as Clerks. They go to like two locations! Take the biggest and most bombastic parts of the Star Wars score and imagine that playing constantly throughout the movie, as in every single time a person crossed the room or took a single step. It was beyond description.

Long story short, if you’re aching for some retro fantasy, pop in Conan the Barbarian, revel in some James Earl Jones/Arnold Schwarzenegger goodness and skip Krull.

Trinity and Beyond

2011-06-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Trinity & Beyond is a 1995 documentary about America’s embracement of and development of nuclear weaponry. Using declassified footage, the documentary largely lets the old military footage of these gigantic test blasts and the preparation there for (and sometimes backlash thereof) speak for itself. If you are at all fascinated by human evolution, this movie is not something to miss. There are shots in this movie I have never seen and blasts the scale of which I have never known. On this level, it is truly disturbing.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is our willingness to simply accept that the development of these weapons was just part of life and completely necessary. While a few people may have spoken out against atom and hydrogen weapons, the majority, especially those involved in their creation, seemed to think nothing of it, as though it was as necessary as developing a sharper knife than your enemy. In reality, we were creating ways to destroy each other on a scale unlike any in human history. As though we were figuring out how to jump start an ice age or plague.

Where the movie falls short is two fold. First, the general aesthetic and score are campy at best. They make shtick of something of greater historical and ecological significance than nearly anything else. Secondly, and this is largely because it was made in the mid-to-early 90’s, it seems to treat the threat like something from the past. In fact, the story pretty well ends in 1964, as though America and many others like it stopped developing these horrific weapons back in the day. In reality, atomic weaponry is now in the hands of countries that can barely sustain a workable hospital or education system. These weapons of mass destruction are being refined and developed by numerous countries and, oh by the way, America and Russia still have plenty enough to wipe out a huge chunk of humanity. Put plainly, the movie seems to think this is a closed case, when, in reality, we are still in an era where a select few could send humanity back into the dark ages in a matter of hours.

Until we leav it, the nuclear age is going to be a disturbing threat to humane and ecological existence and if you are unclear of this after watching the footage contained in this movie, then ignorance must truly be bliss.

S’good

The King's Speech

2011-05-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

Britain in the late thirties was at a major crossroads. At the turn of the century the British Empire was the largest in history, controlling so much of the earth that there was no part of the empire that was not seeing daylight at any given point of the day. They literally controlled nearly half the population of the earth. Through world war, uprisings and general unrest at being empirical subjects, the reign of George V saw the first three decades of the 20^th Century take a great deal of power from that empire. Toward the end of his life, George saw things potentially getting much much worse. It looked as though Europe, including Britain, may well be on the verge of yet another world war and, with his health failing, his sole heirs were a playboy who cared more about mistresses than civic duty and a nervous, bland younger son who could barely speak due to an awful stammer. The latter, however, decided enough was enough and he must both grow a backbone and eliminate that stammer.

He was growing increasingly frustrated in his efforts, as nothing seemd to work, when suddenly an odd actor from Australia came along and seemed to have the answer he’d been looking for. He was unorthodox and so were his methods. He was the last person a potential heir to the throne would be expected to become subject to. Lionel made the Duke of York come to his office in a nasty part of town. He referred to the Duke as Bertie, a family nickname, and made him talk about personal, private matters. All of this made the Duke very uncomfortable, but the more he opened up and let himself go, the more he became the man he was hoping to be.

The King’s Speech is about more than him overcoming his stammer, it is about the friendship of this very odd pair and the making of a king. It was a good thing the Duke of York decided to get himself into shape, as his father died just before World War II broke out and his older brother abdicated from the throne to marry his mistress almost immediately after taking the thrown. It was a decisive move at a delicate time. On this note, King’s Speech is very interesting. I love history and it was great to watch a ‘behind-the-scenes’ view of an important moment in Western history.

That said, while I liked the movie, I didn’t love it. I don’t think they did a good enough job of showing the stakes behind it all. Outside of the occasional mention by one of the characters of the import of his attempts to better himself, the film never really portrayed the basis for that import. Only once do they show Hitler or anything military at all. There was very little shown of the government dissension (for crying out loud Ireland removed the monarch from it's constitution on the day of his ascension to the throne) and nothing shown of the poverty and unrest of England or the rest of the empire. In other words, it was vital that the king become a strong, powerful leader at this pivotal point, but you wouldn’t know that from the film alone. I never felt like much was at stake other than the personal battles of the Duke of York.

Long story short, it was a movie that was interestingly shot, very well acted, but never really sucked me in all that much. I liked it, but I didn’t love it and I certainly didn’t love it as much as everyone else seemed to.

S’good

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2011-05-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

About 25,000 years ago a cliff face in Southern France collapsed. It completely sealed off a large cave on a riverbed. When I say completely sealed off I mean it. In 1994 some French archeologists were taking part in a ‘shot-in-the-dark’ method of looking for caves that they sometimes did in their spare time. The method is to walk along areas that look to have formed as a result of a collapse of the rock face and use either your hand or face to feel for air coming out of the rock. Air means at least a shaft is under there. Well, they found one and the shaft just kept going, though it was barely big enough for either of them to get through. They kept following it down and down until suddenly it opened into a huge expanse. What blew them away, however, was not the size, but what they saw inside. The cave is a perfectly preserved glimpse into life over 25,000 years ago (the date of which they know from carbon dating and many other tests). It is truly as though they stepped back in time.

There are footprints, there are pieces of ash from torches, there are altars and there are numerous, incredible paintings. Not only are these now the earliest known paintings, but they are truly the product of high levels of skill, much more advanced than other known works of art dating thousands of years later. There are also the bones of animals long extinct and some of the paintings are of animals that scientists had no idea existed in France, such as lions, hyenas, bison and more. The French government, in an attempt to preserve this amazing time capsule, sealed it off and forbade any entry except for a single, small group of scientists who is allowed for one hour a day, for four days, once a year.

Werner Herzog is the first person in these last 16 years allowed to film inside the cave. They allowed him in only with the scientists and only if he used battery operated equipment. Though this means the camera work can be iffy at times and the lighting is not always that great, the chance to take a look inside this incredible site is worth every minute. In the entire world, as far as we know, there is no other site like it. While other ancient finds exist, they are always tainted and faded. With this cave, it is truly like walking in two seconds after Cro-Magnon man walked out. The only thing that makes it at all dated are the stalactites and stalagmites that have developed over the millennia, but all these do is make the joint all the more amazing visually. If you could pick someone to guide you through this amazing cave, I can’t imagine many more qualified to make it interesting than Werner Herzog. It’s the most upbeat and positive I’ve ever seen him. Even Werner can’t help but be in awe of this place.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

2011-05-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

One of the people interviewed in this movie said (roughly) the problem I have with the Republican Party is that they portray themselves as the party of the common man, yet work primarily for and in the interest of the wealthiest 1% of the country and portray themselves as the party of strict moral standards and yet lead often deviant lifestyles. Put plainly, this guy’s problem with the Republican Party is that they are so good at pulling the wool over people’s eyes and he doesn’t appreciate it. If that the case, he’s certainly not going to be a fan of Lee Atwater, a key figure in the modern version of the Republican political machine. You think Karl Rove is bad? Take a look at his teacher.

The Republican Party was making it in the 60’s and 70’s, but it seemed like the Democrats had cornered the market on effective, beloved mass communication. The Republican Party might get the occasional vote, but if they wanted to be a true powerhouse, they had to get better at being persuasive and eloquent. Lee Atwater, though a nobody from the Carolinas, was a master at what he called spinning, which is, of course, now part of the basic political vocabulary. He could make anything sound as damning or uplifting as the chose. At the start of the 80’s he had the perfect vehicle through which to exhibit his gifts, Ronal Reagan. Reagan said he never would have won the primary and been on the road to the Whitehouse without Lee. But while Lee had the talent, he completely lacked in conscience. He had zero qualms about lying or cheating or straight up backstabbing to get the right story out.

He used racist tactics, sexist tactics and everything in between. The fascinating aspect of the story is not that such a person existed, but that it worked so very well. America, we were duped and then we were duped again in the 90’s and then his protégée duped us again in the early millennium. Atwater, his methods and his approach have become such an overwhelmingly successful aspect of campaigning that now it’s considered political idiocy to not use them. Now, the tables have turned and it is the Republican Party who is so effective at mass communication and the Democratic Party who seems at a loss for these abilities, even with the eloquence of Obama at the mic. Let’s just hope they don’t find their own Lee Atwater to turn that ship around for them.

If you want to see an unbiased, balanced examination of a very uniquely American political animal, this is the movie for you. This guy is fascinating and his story is even more so.

S’good

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

2011-02-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the third installment of the Millennium Trilogy of Swedish films about the attempts of hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist. With the first film they set about solving a cold murder case and stumbled upon a larger conspiracy involving high-powered Swedish businessmen and politicians. As they further investigated the matter in the second film, they discovered part of the conspiracy involved Lisbeth’s father, who was, until then, believed dead. Now, in this third installment, as Lisbeth stands trial for some of her deeds thusfar, pandora’s conspiracy box is fully open and the shit has officially hit the fan.

This is a darn good flick, better than the second, but not quite up to the level of the first. As a stand-alone film, it’s so-so, not bad, but nothing all that great. As the cap on the trilogy, I thought it was very enjoyable. They did a great job of summing things up and answered the unanswered questions. Like many of the final flicks in serials, it’s more about finishing the story than it is about creating a great stand-alone story, so it doesn’t bother me all that much that it’s not bullet proof.

The acting continues to be great, especially Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. The story was engaging and interesting. I do wish they’d had more interaction with Blomkvist and Salander, but they had to be faithful to the book and at least there was more in this one than number two. If you like tight conspiracy-based thrillers, watch all three, this one included, but especially the first one.

S’good

The World's Fastest Indian

2011-02-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

The Worlds Fastest Indian is the story of someone who had a wild idea and simply decided to go and do it. try to imagine in your mind’s eye the holder of the land speed record for a motorcycle. What does that person look like? I’m guessing you didn’t picture a man in his late 70’s from a small town from the northernmost point of New Zealand who lives in a shack, wore a button-up shirt and linen slacks to the race and was riding a Indian motorcycle from the 1920’s that he built up from the frame himself. Well, this is the true story of that amazing old fart and it really is a true story.

Once Walter Bruno was getting on in age he was alone and living in a dingy garage. He decided he wanted to build the worlds fastest motorcycle. Seriously, he decided to take the frame of a 1920’s Indian Scout and tinker with it in his garage on the dream of turning it into the fastest bike on earth. To say this is far fetched is a gross understatement. Problem is, he wouldn’t quit. One day he thought he was ready, saved up money to travel to the Bonneville Salt Flats and make it official. He had so little money that he made his way there working odd jobs for transportation on cargo ships and car dealerships, all the while dragging an customized antique bike he’d only ridden once before.

Age, money, experience, isolation, family tragedy, nothing inhibited this guy. It’s such a great and uplifting story.

Now on a slightly negative note, the acting wasn’t the best and Hopkins’ accent was pretty awful, but outside of that, the movie plays well. There’s little drama here, but it’s not about the drama. It’s about a couple of very simple, but profound things. First, if you are good to others you will often get goodness in return and, two, that often the only thing that separates you from your dream accomplishments is a Herculean amount of effort.

S’good

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

2011-01-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while Werner Herzog decides to film in a manner that doesn’t just create an other worldly experience for the viewer, but also one for the cast and crew making the picture. In doing so, he tries to have you walk in the shoes of the characters by having the cast and crew walk in their shoes too. He doesn’t do this very often, for obvious reasons, and though these are usually highly criticized during their making they are also invariably his best works. In Little Dieter Needs to Fly, he took a POW escapee back to the jungles of Cambodia from whence he escaped to have him walk Herzog through just what happened. Fitzcarraldo tells the story of a man who decided to pull a boat over a mountain to continue his river journey; thus, Herzog had them travel the same river and actually pull the boat over the mountain.

Well, Aguirre tells the story of Lobe de Aguirre, a man who, while on a trip down a wild Peruvian river as part of a Spanish mission to find the golden city of El Dorado, mutinied and established a new empire free from Spain. Problem is, the empire is confined to a large raft floating down the river. In other words, Aguirre was totally nuts. The story is good and Klaus Kinski’s performance as Aguirre is one of the best in film history, but what makes this movie truly worth watching is the experience of the film as a whole.

Herzog shot it in order and claims he only did one second take in the entire movie (which involved a horse kicking a fire and it’s hilariously obvious that they spliced in a second take). In other words, they filmed the performance as it occurred and for good reason, they often had no choice to go back and do it again. Why, you ask?

Because they were literally filming it on a giant raft floating down a wild Peruvian river. The part at the beginning that isn’t on the river was on steep cliff edges 14,000 feet up in the Andean rainforest. It was so dangerous and slick that the only way to film it and get back down in time before anyone died was to have the 400-person cast and crew all get in costume and for Herzog to simply perch himself and film them as they made their way down the mountain, as though it was the procession of the characters in the movie. There are unscripted moments of animals and objects falling to their demise as people walked by. Many people became violently ill from nerves and altitude sickness. Then, they all get on rafts for weeks, only stopping for sleep in tents on the side of the river.

Man, what an experience this production must have been. Herzog claims many of the local tribesmen hired on the film would come to him and ask to kill Kinski. Kinski himself got so angry at one point that he wondered off into the jungle, only for Herzog to find him and threaten to kill himself it Kinski didn’t come back and finish.

The product of all this madness is a truly one-of-a-kind film.

It’s not all good, though. Since it was the early 70’s and since much of the cast weren’t actors, the acting among the supporting cast can be pretty weak. Perhaps the biggest negative of the viewing experience is the dubbing. The film was shot in English, but when Herzog got back he found that almost none of it was audible due to the river. He didn’t have enough money to hire the actors to come to Germany to do voiceover either. He had such a blow out fight with Kinski during post-production that Kinski refused to record his part either, though he lived in Germany near Herzog. On top of this, word had spread, very negatively, around about the production and he was finding no one reputable either to do the voice acting or the recording. In the end, Herzog had to find pretty second-rate actors and post people to work with and the product is a very badly dubbed and poorly acted voice track. It’s pretty stark, when the production and visual acting is so fantastic.

Either way, everyone should see this movie, and maybe watch My Best Fiend as a chaser.

The Fighter

2011-01-20T20:28:00.001-08:00

The Fighter tells the true story of a very particular moment in the life of Boston-based welterweight boxer Micky Ward. In the late 90’s HBO showed up to shoot a documentary on Micky’s older brother Dickey. The documentarians showed up to shoot the once great Dickey’s return to boxing as a trainer of his younger brother Micky; however, when they saw that Micky was going nowhere with his boxing career and that Dickey was a major loser and crackhead, they changed the focus of their examination, which was eventually release as the documentary called High on Crack Street.

When it came out, Micky came to an epiphany. He either needed to get serious about his life and career or get out. His brother’s delusions about being this great boxer seemed only to exacerbate Dickey’s delusions about everything else. Micky couldn’t be that. It was time to put up or shut up.

So, Micky fires everyone in his entourage, including most members of his family, like his mother and brother. He decides to get down to business and take a shot at the international title.

I don’t need to tell you that he works hard, learns something about himself and his family he didn’t know before and does end up winning the title. While there are many good things about this movie, the story is certainly predictable and seems almost cut-and-pasted from many other sports movies we’ve seen before.

This doesn’t make it bad, however, as many other aspects of the movie really great. First, there are the performances. Mark Wahlberg is moderately good (he’s been better) but others like Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo knock it out of the park. Secondly, they do a great job of making the whole thing feel very authentic. The whole family was on set throughout the entire filming to make sure they did everything as it truly was. They shot it in the neighborhoods where it occurred. They even got the HBO crew that shot the real doc to play the crew in the movie and got HBO to shoot the fight scenes using the same equipment and set up as they did in the original fights portrayed. Not only all this, but Mark Wahlberg trained with Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach for months before shooting and since they filmed the fights as actual fights (as in, no camera tricks) the actor actually fought real boxers for the fight scenes (though the director says he told the boxers to only hit at 60%, whatever that means). The point is, the movie seemed like a very authentic look into the story. While you might guess everything that comes at you in this movie, how it comes at you makes it worth the trip.

S’good/WW

The Town

2011-01-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Town is a heist movie, sort of, written and directed by Ben Affleck. Four life-long friends have always been in trouble and always been on the wrong side of the tracks. They’ve also always been each other’s point of security and stability. To say these four guys are thick as blood is an understatement. Jem and Doug (played respectively by Jeremy Renner and Ben Affleck) have the closest relationship of them all, Jem having recently finished doing time for Doug.

The four, now grown up, rob banks together and man are they good. Things get hairy during their most recent heist, however, and they end up taking a teller hostage. This is the straw breaking the camels back for Doug, who actually looks the teller up after the fact and begins a relationship with her. Suddenly Doug has three people breathing down his neck: FBI agent Frawley, who is getting far too close to catching him, Doug’s boss Fergie (played to perfection by the late Pete Postlethwaite), who doesn’t take to kindly to rumors of Doug wanting to leave and Jem, who seems he’d rather see Doug dead than to see him leave him just after Jem did a stint for Doug.

Like in any good heist movie, Doug agrees to do one more score and, of course, the score goes badly and he must pay the consequences.

While the movie is pretty predictable and seems way way to reminiscent of Heat, I still enjoyed it. The performances were good, yes even Affleck’s, and it was shot in a way that easily kept you interested. The best thing is the writing, which was very particular. It was written by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, who wrote the fantastic Gone Baby Gone as well. Peter Craig also penned the screenplay with Affleck and Stockard, who is known more for his darkly comedic novels about dysfunctional families, which added a good sense of family interaction among the four friends and a good deal of natural comedy to the conversations. The movie itself is based off the very good Prince of Thieves and a good foundation is always helpful for a good screenplay.

So, in the end, it’s nothing new, but it’s done very well and if you like this kind of movie you’ll love it.

S’good.

White Material

2011-01-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

Clearly in reference to the seizure of the Zimbabwean farms run or owned by western Europeans during the Mugabe era, White Material is a French drama showing such an experience from many angles. The story centers on a coffee farm in an unnamed African country run by a white family, a few Africans who work in management-esque positions and quite a few African laborers. I once heard a saying that the problem with Africa is that everyone is wrong.

This certainly seems the vantage point of director Clare Denis is taking. The white farmers are clearly in the wrong. They refuse to give up their farm, refuse to move their family to safety and live in air-conditioned luxury while those around them suffer.

The local adult and child rebels are clearly wrong, as they seem to only care about snatching up what they can get and will kill anyone who gets in their way.

The government is also quite clearly corrupt, as they too live in luxury while those around them suffer, but then they will swoop in and take what they can get and seem to heartlessly kill at will as well. This last one was an obvious reference to Mugabe himself, who heavily suggested an uprising against white farmers for amassing vast properties, but then he owned 14 commercial farms alone and lived like a king.

Each side was portrayed as an intense source of frustration, persons acting grotesquely in the name of entitlement.

The movie was shot well and the performances were top notch. My only complaint about the movie was that it had almost no story. French filmmakers love the ‘slice-of-life’ approach to story telling, where there’s no particular story arch, but rather the watcher gets to simply receive a message by being a fly on the wall during a particular time period. It’s an approach many enjoy, but I’m not a huge fan of it. I can’t help but leave a movie like this and think, why didn’t they just make a documentary? The point of a feature, to me, is storytelling and there just wasn’t much story here.

That said, it was certainly worth a watch and will most definitely get conversations going.

S’good

Tron Legacy (3D)

2011-01-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

First and foremost this is a nostalgia remake. I don't know anyone who thinks the 1982 TRON was a good movie... kind of like if how the majority of 30-somethings would have to admit that The Goonies was not a good movie either, just a piece of their childhood that is a trip down memory lane. I would hope that most of the TRON: Legacy hype was for the return of very specific stylized visuals in a 3D setting, because the movie itself doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever.

After the disappearance of Encom mogul Kevin Flynn (Bridges), his son becomes the heir (as primary shareholder) of the software giant, but has no interest in leading the company... apart from the cyber attacks he unleashes on a yearly basis to somehow encourage the company to release their products as open source software. When Alan Bradley (Boxleitner as trusted Encom executive) comes to the younger Flynn stating that he received a page from Kevin Flynn's office at the closed arcade, young Sam Flynn can't resist taking a peek at the abandoned building and investigating further. Of course his investigation takes him through the portal to the digital realm that his father appears to be stuck inside, and action/adventure ensues as the story unravels and Sam finds out what went horribly wrong inside the world of his father's creation.

I find that the more I think about the story and how the movie is put together, the more problems I see coming to the surface. At face value, the movie is fine... the special effects are for the most part good - digital Jeff Bridges can be distracting, as the inclusion of non-digital Jeff Bridges makes the CGI stand out... the 3D can distract you from some of the goofiness, but for the most part it is the art design that steals the show. I think they did an incredible job of bringing the art of TRON into 2010, and making it a really interesting watch. I don't find much that is redeeming about the plot - which is just a rehash of several stories and some loose ends that don't really go anywhere. *SPOILER ALERT* The most annoying part of the movie is saved for the ending, where Sam comes to the realization that he really should take his father's place as head of the company... and then promptly hands over power to Alan Bradley because he trusts him to run it properly. Something that could have been done years earlier perhaps? Sam then takes his new friend from the digital realm on a motorcycle ride through the country... even though through the story it is suggested that she might be the key to World Peace or some such nonsense. Really? Did you just write that in to find a reason for Sam to bring her back...? Strange.

Watch it while it is in the theater, 3D is not necessary... skip the rental.

-SA

Youth in Revolt

2010-10-06T11:34:00.001-07:00

Nick Twisp is sick of his life. His parents are both self centered jerks. He can’t seem to get out of the ‘friend zone’ with women. And his only friend is even more pathetic than he is. His mom’s new boyfriend (played unconvincingly by Zach Galifianakis, sorry Zach you’re just not the tough trucker type) is in a little hot water and wants the family to go in hiding with him in a nearby lake cabin of a friend of his. Nick goes because, as he puts it, what else is he going to do? He hopes it will offer him new opportunities for love or friendship and the very first night he’s there he falls for a beautiful, smooth talking, naughty preacher’s daughter. Problem is, she’s way too cool for him and way out of his league.
Nick has to do something about this, so he develops a tre chic alter ego named Francois who, he hopes, can guide him down the path of coolness. How can he go from being Dave Brubek to being Miles Davis? The rest of the movie is Nick indulging all of Francois’ whims in an attempt to win this girl’s heart.
The movie is fairly entertaining and Michael Cera is pitch perfect as Twisp and Francois. I also loved M Emmet Walsh and Fred Willard in their side roles. There were some funny and engaging moments. Overall, however, I couldn’t really get into it. This movie comes from a long line of recent ‘teen’ movies where the teens seem more witty, worldly and intelligent than most adults could hope to be. They read Dostoyevsky, watch Truffaut and listen only to new wave French music. Bullshit. There’s maybe one sixteen year old out of 60 million like this and yet most recent teen movies (thanks a lot Juno) make it seem like all of them are this way. Brainy, witty kids in high school hate high school because it seems like everyone else is a raving idiot, not because they prefer Jean-Pierre Melville over Robert Bresson. Please. It drives me too crazy to like a movie like this all that much. But, overall, it was watchable and had it’s moments. Don’t rush out to see it, but don’t balk at the idea if someone brings it over.
Saturday Afternoon

The Weather Underground

2010-10-05T16:33:00.001-07:00

When politics are involved, things are never as simple as they seem. This is true from both sides of the portrayal of a thing. Opponents describe the something in simple, objectionable terms. The group called The Weather Underground was described as terrorists, extremists, anti-American. Proponents use equally simple terms, but one’s they hope to use as inspiration. They portrayed themselves as freedom fighters, righteous crusaders. In truth, neither side captures the picture fully. The 1970’s was a time of volatility in the west, as the world attempted to finally come to grips with it’s switch from a class focused system to one of merchants and industry.
Groups like The Weather Underground came along and created a defined approach to this switch and used methods that drew ire and admiration. But, in the end, these people were humans and humans are not one-dimensional sound bites. The Weather Underground (the documentary) tells the story of what really happened by both the people who fought this group, especially members of the FBI, and the members of the group themselves. It’s amazing to hear their tales and to see where they’ve ended up after years of seclusion and hiding, landing in anywhere from prison to running a bar to being a tenured law professor.
The Weather Underground tells a gripping tale in a gripping way. You see what happened through the eyes of those who were not only there, but intimately involved. Many groups had an impact on the 1970’s but very very few made a bigger splash than The Underground. To hear this story without all the fluff is worth the price of admission. Good stuff.
Worth Watching

Invincible

2010-09-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

Invincible tells the true story of two very different reactions to the rise of Nazism in late ‘30’s Berlin. One is a sleazy, worldly, brilliant con man who has tricked his way across Europe hiding from the Nazis in plain sight, often holding their hands while faking his way through a ‘divination.’ The other is that of a good hearted, simple-minded blacksmith who had never left his small Polish town until being led to Berlin to perform as a strongman. The first hides his Judaism and is in a constant game of cat and mouse, played wonderfully by Tim Roth at peak form. The latter hates hiding and cannot help but shout his Judaism from the rooftops. The movie allows the viewer to see how the two approaches to life pan out for our protagonists.

This movie does many things very well. Tim Roth’s performance is the best of his career and one of the best you’re likely to ever see. The imagery and symbolism is spot on. The production design is robust to the last detail. I would argue there was only one bad choice Herzog made in the entire film. Problem is, it’s a big one. You see, Herzog decided to use non-actors to portray roles that mirror what they do in real life. The pianist is played by a pianist, the weightlifter is played by a weightlifter, and so on. In fact, other than two or three actors, all of the roles are played by people who are in actuality they type of person they play on screen.

This has been done many times in the past and was done very well and often by one of my all-time favorite directors, Robert Bresson. The problem is, this method is great for action (the piano playing is very natural, the Hebrew teaching very natural, etc) but terrible for dialogue. People, like Bresson, who do it well, don’t do allow the actors to do much speaking. Invincible, unfortunately, is dialogue heavy. It’s very much a low action, dialogue focused movie, which means terrible acting abounds. When the performers are not doing what they do, they are truly dreadful actors. But, hey, this was Herzog’s first non-documentary feature in 18 years and like I said, it was only one poor decision, although a broad sweeping, overarching one. But it won’t matter too much, as all the other elements and Roth’s performance are more than enough to make this a very interesting, engrossing picture.

S'good.

The September Issue

2010-09-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

The September Issue is an inside look into the creation of Vogue’s, well, September issue. This giant tome is, apparently, the fashion magazine issue of the year for the fashion world. This particular issue of this particular magazine is one of the most important publications of the year for these folks, again, apparently. The doc focuses squarely on a small handful of people who run the show at Vogue. This is primarily the very influential and infamous (The Devil Wears Prada was about her) senior editor Anna Wintour, but it’s also a glimpse at other lead editors and the magazine’s creative director Grace Coddington. Grace and Anna came over from England together and started in the biz together, years ago, and now, by their work ethic, fashion sense and an array of other elements, have risen to the very top. Of course, the fact that Anna is just a little higher on the totem pole does create more than a little rivalry between the two.
It’s certainly interesting to see all that goes into the creation of such a momentous publication and I like getting to be a fly on the wall, watching people who are way up in their respective fields; however, I never really got all that engaged. To me, this doc was more like an interesting TV doc from A&E or the History Channel, in other words, intriguing, but forgettable. Then again, maybe it’s not fair for me to review this flick, as I still wear shorts and t-shirts I was wearing in high school and care as much about fashion as I do about the local beef prices in Kazakhstan. So, if you’re into fashion and a curious about getting inside the ivory tower of Vogue, this movie is smack in the middle of your ballpark. If you barely know that Vogue is a magazine, like me, then it’s probably going to be little more than a half interesting watch.
SA

The Descent Part 2

2010-09-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

In The Descent, five adventurous gals head down to chart uncharted caves beneath the Appalachian Mountains. Five went down, one came up. Down there they found shifting chutes, cave-ins, injuries and some sort of freaky demon people that desperately wanted to tear them a new one. Well, Part 2 picks up right where that disastrous trip left off, with the sole escapee running up to a truck covered in blood. Apparently one of the girls who is still down there (dead or alive) is the niece of a powerful senator and all of god and country seem desperate to get the remaining four (mainly her) out. So, they pull some typical horror movie crap by saying the best way to find them is to go back down there with, you guessed it, the girl who just managed to find her way out.
While this and several other moments of the movie were clearly the result of some pretty lazy scrip writing, the movie overall made for a fun watch and definitely had some solid tension. Once the ‘rescue’ team gets down there, they run into the same problems the first team did, meaning the earth starts caving in around them and demon people are running around lusting for their flesh. Of course, since it’s a sequel, everything’s bigger. On the good side, the claustrophobic cinematography and production design is more ever present. On the not so good side, there are way more moments with the monsters and bigger fight scenes (the rescue team has guns, flares and tools after all). For me, possibility of being buried alive = dramatic, actors in monster suits = not dramatic. Long story short, if you want a decent British horror flick with a full tablespoon of action and pressure, this is certainly worth a watch.
SA

Halloween IV

2010-09-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

After the disaster of Halloween III (which didn’t even make back it’s budget), the producers behind the Halloween movies decided they needed to return to the core of the Halloween story. The problem is, they didn’t just get back to their roots, they totally repeated themselves. The original Halloween is about a boy named Mike Meyers who killed his whole family and is, thusly, institutionalized for life. Many years later he discovers he has a sister who lived. Well, ol’ Mike can’t stand for this shit. He breaks out and tracks her down to kill little sis. The only one who truly feels he can stop Mike is his doctor from the institution, Dr. Loomis. Got that?

Now here’s Halloween IV. Michael Meyers is locked away and suddenly finds out that he has a niece he never knew about. Well, ol’ Mike can’t stand for this shit. He breaks out and tracks her down to kill his little niece. The only one who truly feels he can stop Mike is his doctor from the institution, Dr. Loomis. That’s right, they even set it in the same town. Problem is, they didn’t even repeat it well. The actors are much worse, the effects much cheesier and the invincibility of Meyers even more absurd. It’s one cheap Hollywood trick after another. Let me put it to you this way. My wife hates horror movies. They scare her too much and it took much convincing for me to get her to watch this with me. She thought it was hilarious. She asked at one point, “is this supposed to be scary or are they trying to be funny?” She was asking earnestly, but all I could answer with was “exactly.” This installment of the series is totally unoriginal and by far the worst so far.

Piranha 3D

2010-09-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

Piranha 3D is a remake (think re-envisioning) of a piece of Roger Corman schlock from the 70’s. Anyone who knows Corman’s work, knows those movies were all about big fun, big boobs, big blood and big laughs and most certainly were not about spiritual or intellectual enlightenment. If you went to see Corman’s Deathrace 2000 or Piranha 3D, you went for some good Saturday afternoon, mindless fun. Well, boy did this remake capture that spirit.

Piranha 3D takes place on a big lake in Airzona, well into Spring Break and chock full of college kids, porn stars and the general sleaze that feeds off Spring Break. Well, it just so happens recent seismic activity at the bottom of this lake opened a long shut cavern full of some of the nastiest piranhas around. And, you guessed it, the piranhas are all too thrilled to get their fill of sluts and douche bags. The local sheriff, her son and an very small handful of people in the town with a brain and a heart must do what they can to minimize the carnage. Let me tell you, they don’t minimize much.

This movie is totally ridiculous. There is truly only one word to describe it: gratuitous. Not a second of this movie was necessary. This all sounds like I’m slamming it, doesn’t it? But, I’m not. Actually, I’m saying, it’s classic Corman. This remake captured that Corman spirit and how. It’s campy, it’s over the top, it’s way too full of just ludicrous moments, but, well, it’s a lot of fun too. Like a good Corman pick, if you go in expecting cinematic high cuisine, you’ll be crazy disappointed, but if you’re looking for the hot dog and beer of the movie world, you’re likely to have a blast. Let me phrase up this movie with a description of one moment therein and you can decide for yourself if you want to see it. There’s a scene in which a porn shoot on a boat is suddenly in peril because this glass bottom boat has struck rocks. Now the set has become a buffet for the piranhas and, after the feeding frenzy, there’s an underwater shot of the piranhas swimming away. One of them pauses, looks woozy for a second and burps up…wait for it…a penis. Like I said, totally ridiculous.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

2010-09-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and is also an adaptation of the second book in the Millennium Trilogy. All three movies in the film trilogy were shot around the same time and all with the same cast and crew, outside of the director, who was changed after the first, with Swede Daniel Alfredson, the director here, helming the second and third movies as well as the Swedish TV show based thereon that arrives in fall. Like the first film, this concerns uber-hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist from Millennium Magazine, Mikael Blomkvist, getting their sleuth on and stopping some bad guys. In this flick, however, the bad guy isn’t covering up a murder, but is, much worse, running a sex trafficking ring. And the John’s involved include some high profile fellas. This simply won’t do for the moral Blomkvist and the fem-power Salander.

Like most sequels to good movies, this one is a little more generic and mainstream. The pace is a little faster, the plot is a little less believable, the sex scenes and fight scenes are a lot longer and more elaborate and the dialogue is a little weaker. But even with all that, the movie is still engaging, well acted and very well shot. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist truly inhabit there respective characters, especially Rapace as Salander. This movie is better than most and if you like gritty whodunit sort of movies, this is sure to satisfy.

S’good

Animal Kingdom

2010-09-03T16:52:00.001-07:00

How do you watch out for snakes when everyone’s a snake? This is the predicament of Animal Kingdom’s J Cody (played with mouth-breather excellence by Aussie newcomer James Frenchville). J’s mother was the only daughter in what has to be the nastiest family in Australia. This group of brother and the delightfully, totally evil matriarch Janine rob banks, murder, sell drugs and don’t hesitate for a second before killing the police. J’s mother, when J was very young, decided to save him from all this and moved away with him. However, flash forward a few years, and J’s mom has suddenly died. Now, as a minor, the State wants to put him with his next of kin. Unfortunately for J, that next of kin is known as the Cody Gang. Man, they are a rough bunch too. Suddenly he’s thrown into a world of lies, violence and, yet, a family connection he’s never known.
Because of the Cody Gang’s terrible treatment of their community and the police, they essentially live in constant war with the Major Crimes and Bank Robbery Units of the police. When our story picks up the Bank Robbery Unit is being abolished and before those cops get reassigned they’ve decided to take out the Cody’s their own way, since they’ve never been able to make anything stick so far. There’s nothing but aggression and violence from both side and a constant cat-and-mouse form of living. Caught in the middle, J must pick a side, and, from where he stands, both sides look like a terrible option.
This movie is fantastic. It’s a slice of life sort of flick but the slice is of one truly wretched life. It’s like getting a backstage pass to one of the nastiest horror shows in town. While all the actors are great and give truly amazing, natural performances, the greatest of them all by far is Ben Mendelsohn’s portrayal of the eldest brother, known as Pope. His character is easily one of my favorite villain performances of all time. He is truly frightening. He portrays a man in a constant state of deadly flux, a human who seems capable of conveying the sweetest compassion and the most bone-chilling coldness within the same shallow breath. Pope goes from best mate to ruthless killer in the blink of an eye and Mendelsohn portrays him in the most unique and believable way how. It’s worth the price of admission. While the story’s not perfect and I’m not sure what the moral was, the movie as a whole is really really great.
BA

The City of Your Final Destination

2010-08-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Director James Ivory has produced rich, slice-of-life dramas about brooding aristocrats since the late 50's, giving the viewer a look into the private scandals and searing romantic endeavors of wealthy, white westerners. A traditional Ivory picture will be set at some lush country estate with the protagonists away from their traditional lives, say, on holiday or something similar. In The City of Your Final Destination Ivory is in pure classic form, but this time without the robust period piece costumes.
Instead of 19th Century England, Ivory sets this flick in modern day Uruguay. Jules Gund was monumentally famous for writing one giant hit of a book and for being an eccentric loner who lived with his family on an estate called Ocho Rios in Uruguay. Gund recently offed himself and, for whatever reason, the unique remnants of the family (a brother (Anthony Hopkins), his partner (Hiroyuki Sanada), Gund’s wife, mistress and lovechild) continue to live isolated on this gorgeous estate. A 20-something grad student in Colorado named Omar has decided his doctoral thesis will be a biography of Jules Gund, but when he sent a request for authorization to the family, they denied him. He decides this is his chance at something big, so he packs up and surprises the family at Ocho Rios. What Omar finds is an incredibly well educated, well bred group of eccentrics living on a breathtaking compound who don’t exactly mingle with the masses all that often. He also finds, of course, a much more interesting story than he’d first imagined.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was very well executed and the pacing truly made it feel as though I was simply there in Uruguay visiting this family and witnessing the oddity and wonder of it all. What I mean to say is that it all felt very natural and unpretentious. Ivory created an tone that said, “sit back, relax with a cool drink and soak in the drama of this family.” The only complaint I have is in the casting of the two female leads. Mind you, both did a great job in their portrayals, but their ages were all wrong for the roles and, as a result, they could not feel as natural and genuine in their character’s skins as the rest of the cast. First, you have 46-year-old Laura Linney playing the upright, formal matriarch of the family who is supposed to be in her early sixties. Linney acted 60 but didn’t look it one bit. Then, the character of Arden, the 28-year-old mistress, was portrayed by 40-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg. While Gainsbourg did a great job of exhuding the right nervous, fidgety energy for the role, it just doesn’t work when someone who is forty and looks forty is playing a twenty-something. Outside of this mild complaint, I liked everything about this movie. It’s visually gorgeous, lazily paced, very well written and acted and went down like a cold Manhattan on a sun soaked veranda.
WW

The Other Guys

2010-08-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

The Other guys picks up with the untimely death of the biggest superstar cops NYPD’s seen in a very long time, Danson and Highsmith. They were cool as hell and beloved by all. Meanwhile, two detectives, Gamble and Holtz, have recently been paired together in what seems to be a punishment. Gamble, played to uptight perfection by Will Ferrell, was a forensic accountant whose position was recently eliminated. Holtz, angrily portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, was a hotshot detective who recently accidentally shot someone. Both are put in jobs they don’t want, Gamble a detective, Holtz working at a desk with Gamble. Holtz wants them to break a major case so they can take over were Danson and Highsmith left off and so they can get back to doing what they love. Gamble doesn’t like the risk, but he loves the idea of getting back to the boring routine of being an accountant.
And so, this very unlikely pair sets off in a borderline incompetent attempt to be police heroes. Gamble is so uptight his ass could probably turn coal into diamonds and has never come anywhere near a tense police situation. While Holtz may have the physical skills, he’s emotionally volatile and 100% hates Gamble. Needless to say, this journey to breaking a major case is full of mishaps and missteps. Think Lethal Weapon, but instead of Riggs and Murtauh, you have Inspector Clouseau and Inspector Dreyfus.
This is the fourth collaboration between writer/director Adam McKay and co-writer Will Ferrell, with the previous being Talladega Nights, Anchorman and Step Brothers. As with all their previous endeavors, The Other Guys relies on funny dialogue, outrageous situational comedy and loveable, yet asinine protagonists. Like the other three, it can, at times, become a little too silly and one note, but lucky for us, it does this very little compared to, say, Step Brothers. I’ve always felt like the McKay/Ferrell movies seem funnier than they actually are, that as overall movies they’re mediocre, but that when they are funny momentarily they are really funny. For example, the funny parts of Anchorman are hilarious, but most of the movie sucks. I’d place The Other Guys with Talladega Nights, however, which is easily my favorite of the four. Like that flick, The Other Guys keeps the narrative relatively tight and doesn’t veer off on too many tangents. Will Ferrell is in peak form and Wahlberg does a fantastic job as a straight man. The supporting cast is funny too, including Michael Keaton who just simply doesn’t get enough work. Long story short, if you like the McKay/Ferrell style of comedy, you’re gonna love this one because it is one of their best collaborations yet.
S’good

Halloween III

2010-08-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

With Halloween III, John Carpenter wanted to wipe the slate clean. He entrusted the project to a colleague, someone he’d been working with in various capacities since the start of his career, Tommy Lee Wallace. He asked Wallace to write, direct, do the production design and turn it back into a franchise based in independent filmmakers, rather than churning out money-making studio sequels. Wallace took a big gamble by making the third Halloween sans Michael Meyers. That’s right, no Michael Meyers here. In fact, there’s no Laurie Strode, no Dr. Loomis and no slasher killer of any sort.
The story of III, concerns a Dr. who is treating a patient that makes claims of evil deeds going on in a small California town. The Dr., for inexplicable reasons, travels with the now deceased man’s daughter to this small town to investigate these alleged acts of mischief. He finds something far worse than he’d imagined. See, Halloween is fast approaching and he begins to suspect the Silver Shamrock company, who makes Halloween masks for children, may be responsible for several recent mysterious deaths, including the above mentioned patient. As it turns out, the company is making masks that will totally pulverize their wearers and release poisonous snakes and spiders on all those around when the wearer watches a certain video. Oh, and by the way, the company has been running promos non-stop telling all kids with Silver Shamrock masks to tune in at nine on Halloween to watch for a big prize giveaway.
While the production values of this movie are fairly cheap looking and the acting is hardly Olivier, I actually like this installment. The movie made back somewhere along the lines of triple it’s budget, but was a huge critical failure. Most people didn’t like it because they didn’t understand how it could be called a Halloween franchise movie. I gotta agree here, as it really should just stand on its own, but they hated the movie for it, while I think it’s only a mildly annoying curiosity. It’s campy, it’s at times predictable and the ending is fairly lame, but overall, it’s just the sort of cheesy 80’s horror I love. As a kid, this was one of my favorites and watching it now I may well be blinded by nostalgia. Either way, I enjoyed the heck out of this 80’s horror trash.
ME

Halloween II

2010-08-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

To me, the original Halloween sits comfortably on the all time top ten list of horror movies. In fact, I’ve long joked that it and Rosemary’s Baby are the only horror movies in my list of all time favorites that don’t start with ‘the,’ with the other four being The Shining, The Omen, The Changeling, The Thing and The Exorcist. So, lately I decided to watch all the Halloween’s in order, not in one sitting mind you, for the fun of it. I’ve seen the original many times, so I skipped it and went straight to Halloween II.
Wow, what a drop in value occurred from I to II. In II the audience picks up exactly where I left off. If you remember, the cliff hanger at the end of Halloween I was that Dr. Loomis goes over to check the body of Michael Meyers only to find he’s no longer there. Roll Credits. Well, in II, we start with Dr. Loomis freaking out and heading off with the cops on a manhunt for Mr. Meyers. Meanwhile, Laurie Strode (played again by Jamie Lee Curtis) is being hauled off to the hospital. While the good Dr. and the po-po look for Mike Meyers, Mr. Meyers is heading to the hospital to finish what he started. So, Laurie, though she’s now in no shape to do so, must escape her psycho brother yet again.
That plot description sounds just fine for a horror flick and it was written for the screen by John Carpenter, just like the first one, but it’s a clear example of the importance of execution. While the story is good, the execution is dreadful. The acting is bad, the shots are generic and the production design is awful, with way too much of Michael Meyers being shown, including almost comically wide eyes that seem to show up when he’s killing someone. And while the first in the series was taught and restrained, this one is overwrought with superfluous nudity and violence. More action and less tension almost always equals a lower quality film. II was directed by a first time director who went on to have a very successful career directing TV shows like 90210 and Buffy. Not to knock TV, but, well, it’s clear he’s more apt for short bursts of quality rather than helming an entire film project. After a major hit with I, we see a major miss with II, but, lucky for it, the story is enough to keep it out of U territory.
SA

Nightbreed

2010-08-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

In Nightbreed we find a young man named Aaron Boone plagued by nightmares about monsters from a land called Midian. His nightmares become so bad he seeks the aid of a psychologist. But suddenly he gets a call from said psychologist, Dr. Decker, who gives Boone the heads up that the cops believe he killed 6 people. Boone is shocked, only to find out the murderer killed these folk in a manner that practically mirrors dream descriptions Boone previously relayed to Dr. Decker. Did these murders go down just like his dreams because his memory is calling memories dreams? Or is it that Dr. Decker heard Boone’s descriptions and fulfilled the murders like a paint-by-numbers activity? Well, I’m spoiling nothing by telling you, it’s the latter. Dr. Decker is a psycho.
He has Boone killed, but Boone doesn’t stay on that slab for long because, wait for it, it turns out his nightmares about Midian were true. The monsters from Midian are real and they call themselves the Nightbreed. The Breed wants to adopt Boone as one of their own, given their strange mental connection, and they have been beckoning him to them for some time. So, Boone bands up with the Breed to take down the evil Dr. Decker.
There is very little of this movie that didn’t have me rolling my eyes. Anytime a filmmaker takes a horror movie and turns it into something meant to make us feel warm and fuzzy about the ‘monster,’ the movie fails. The only exception I can think of is The Sixth Sense, where the ‘good guy’ is normally the stuff of nightmares. True, director Clive Barker has always said this movie was hijacked by the studios, who cut many minutes and totally repaced the movie after he was done with it, but I don’t think that’s going to give him a free pass. See, the very idea of the movie sucks. Monsters should be monsters, and while we always want to sympathize a little with the Mike Meyers and Hannibal Lectors of the world, we also don’t want to be expected to cry over them when they meet their untimely demise at the end of the picture. Portraying hideous monsters as a people group who has been oppressed and misunderstood for centuries is just idiotic. There is a reason this movie never made back it’s budget.
That said, what’s keeping me from giving this movie a big fat U is the performance of David Cronenberg as Dr. Decker. He was a fantastic villain. If the movie was better overall, we’d be talking about him in the same breath as Dr. Lector and Antone Cigur. He’s a truly freaky villain and his mask is one of the best ever, love it. That and the production design take this out of the land of U and into SA, but don’t be fooled, generally speaking, this movie reeks.
SA

Black Dynamite

2010-08-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

I think if there is one bad thing to say about Black Dynamite, it is that they didn't make a movie for the general audience. We're already saturated with bad parody after bad parody - and gone are the (good) days of the Zuckers and Mel Brooks. I think we've just come to expect mediocrity from this once acclaimed cinematic form. Black Dynamite is everything you want it to be and more, and makes up for the other blaxploitation pardodies (I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Baadasssss!) that we wanted to love, but fell a bit short.

Black Dynamite is the quintessential badass. Loved by the community, feared by the evildoers. When Black Dynamite's brother is murdered in a drug sting, he takes to the streets to hunt down The Man, and ends up neck deep in a conspiracy that goes straight to, you guessed it - the Honky House.

It's hard not to appreciate a movie that doesn't take itself seriously, and Black Dynamite does just about everything right. Intentionally poor camera work and editing, bad stunts and re-hashed explosions, confusing dialogue... and I think I even caught a reference to Rudy Ray Moore's Disco Godfather. Michael Jai White is fantastic in the title role, and put together a terrific team on this little independant film. For anyone who ever loved blaxploitation camp, this is the film to see. Just bring the Colt 45 (or MD 20/20), and let the good times roll.

-WW

2012

2010-07-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

In the year 2010 the world is suddenly heating up from the inside out due to some sort of something happening with the sun. Because of this, lots of bad stuff’s happening to and on Earth’s crust. Things like ice caps melting and fissures appearing in the ground. Well, for some unknown reason, the shit really hits the fan in 2012 and this show we call life as we know it is suddenly and violently coming to a close. The G8 decides to save their best and brightest by putting them on giant boats, called arks no less, along with provisions and lots of animals. The way too obvious problem is that all those not so best and bright, not to mention millions from developing countries not in the G8, are pretty pissed about not being allowed on the boats.

Well, too stinking bad because 99% of you are going to die, but don’t worry viewers because one family that we’re supposed to care about makes it. A dysfunctional California family that’s recycled from hundreds of other movies is the center of the story and they struggle to make it to the ark, which they only know about because the father’s a limo driver and one of his clients was asked on board. Well, they make it on in the last seconds and, for a totally unknown reason that destroys what little scientific cred this movie had to begin with, the waters recede and life looks like maybe it can go somewhat back to normal. Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about the billions of corpses and all the wiped out vegetation, life will be pretty much happily ever after because John Cusack and Amanda Peet survived.

German director Roland Emmerich has made a career out of giant scale popcorn movies, like the DeMille of our day, movies that are spectacle. Past examples on point are Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. I like spectacle, I really do, and I very much enjoy a good adventure movie, but there must be good writing or at the very least gripping performances to make the movie watchable. John Wayne’s movies may not have been full of the best stories or casts, but he did a damn fine job and cast even better actors around him like Jimmy Stewart and Robert Mitchum. My point is, you can’t just have some grand scope eye candy of a picture; you must also toss in some good acting and compelling script. This one has neither. If you want to watch some cool visuals, stick to the Discovery Channel.

Unacceptable

Inception

2010-07-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

In the not-to-distant future we humans have developed the technology to enter into the subconscious, or dream state rather, of another of our fellow humans. Simply by being connected as a group to this device, all those connected enter into the subconscious of the host person together and enjoy (or sometimes decidedly not enjoy) a shared experience. Several engineering firms make this technology available and, in typical capitalistic fashion, it gets used both for good and for the not-so-good. An employee for one of the big engineering firms in question, Cobb, is the best of the best; however, it was recently suspected that he may killed his wife and, so, now he’s on the run and can only use his skills for the black market version of the legit technology. As with any black market version of legit goods and services, the clientele generally wants something stronger and wants to use it for more nefarious objectives.

Enter Saito, a wealthy Japanese business man who seeks to use the technology to plant a desire in a competitors head, a process called inception apparently, that would make said competitor want to break up his, far too successful for Saito’s liking, business. Saito wants the very best, so he hires Cobb and asks Cobb to assemble a team of all-stars. Think of it like a heist movie, but the movie takes place primarily in the mind of an unknowing participant. Generally, the dream world works like the real world in terms of physics; however, if the host is significantly jarred in one part of the dream it screws with the physics of another part of the dream and, obviously, one is limited by time, as people don’t tend to sleep forever. This means it’s a heist movie where the, say, bank is going to suddenly disappear if they don’t finish their work on time and the bank might suddenly be upside down or on it’s side if the host falls over or gets flipped in another part of the dream. All the while Cobb is battling the demons he’s carrying around from the death of his wife. All of this combined makes the job very tough and the movie very tense.

Christopher Nolan is on one hell of a run. His movies are engaging, original and always produced at rich, quality levels. His movies are unique, well written, well shot, well acted and even well scored. From Memento to Dark Knight to The Prestige, he hasn’t missed the mark in years. In my opinion, Inception may be at the top of his list. As usual, Nolan made a movie that you don’t even have to understand to enjoy and every moment from first to last is gripping. Literally on the ride home my wife is saying, I wanna watch that again.

Flirting with Disaster

2010-07-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Flirting with Disaster is a mid-90’s comedy staring tons of people from Alan Alda to Patricia Arquette to Lily Tomlin and Mary Tyler Moore. It’s also the last truly independent style flick David O. Russell did before switching to bigger pictures like Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees. Flirting tells the story of the disastrous roadtrip Mel (played by Ben Stiller) takes to find his biological parents. He brings his wife and new baby, but also brings along a psychiatrist from the adoption agency who is willing to pay for it all if she can document it for a study she’s doing for her PhD. Along the way the meet several people who turn out not to actually be Mel’s parents, meet a couple of ATF agents who ask to come along for the ride and are intercepted by Mel’s incredibly tight strung New Yorker adoptive parents.

The whole thing feels like one of those Euro flicks where everything goes wrong at every turn and the humor is found both in the characters and in the mayhem. It’s wackiness at every turn, in other words, and, as my wife put it, felt like a stepping-stone on Ben Stiller’s path to later similarly themed movies like Night at the Museum and Meet the Parents. While the style of comedy may be the same, the themes in Flirting are much more adult and, in my opinion, a little less ha-ha funny. This movie may not be great and, well, it’s not really my kind of comedy, but the performances are really fantastic and they make it very enjoyable to watch. That is, except for Stiller and Tea Leone (the psychiatrist) who are simply unbelievable and ridiculous. In fact, their whole storyline is ridiculous and not believable.

The seemingly bit players make this movie great. Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin are pitch perfect as a couple of acid-dealing artists. Mary Tyler Moore has never been better. Josh Brolin is great as the overly maternal ATF agent. But, to me, Richard Jenkins tops them all. He’s hilarious. He’s very uptight, but has an ‘epiphany’ part way through the movie when he inadvertently takes acid. His epiphany follows several scenes of hilarious freaking out. Imagine him panicking because he’s “seeing colors I don’t want to see.” Or him running around New Mexico in his underwear because he’s trying to “outchase the wind.” It’s great stuff. Long story short, if you like character movies with solid actors who are all reveling in being on a snowball rolling out of control, then this is your movie.

S’good