Grumpy Bulldog Movie Reviews

Catch .44

2011-12-24T09:28:00.001-08:00

(2.5/4 stars)

It's pretty obvious during the five minute conversation between the wanna-be Charlie's Angels (Tes, Kyla, and Dawn) that this movie desperately wants to be a Quentin Tarantino film. Which was bad news for me because I don't really like Tarantino's films. "Reservoir Dogs" is pretty good. That's what this seems to aspire to, though it doesn't quite make it.

This is the kind of movie where a lot of it is told in flashback, but I'll give it to you in chronological order, without trying to spoil too many surprises. As I said at the outset there are three young women Tes, Kyla, and Dawn. The latter two we can forget about because they die in the first ten minutes of the movie. Tes (Malin Ackerman) is a former strip club waitress/pickpocket who works for crime boss Mel (Bruce Willis) around the New Orleans area. She and her crew are assigned to go to a diner in the middle of nowhere to intercept a drug shipment (or something). The drugs/cash are the film's MacGuffin, the thing everyone is fighting over and yet they don't really matter.

But as we see early on things go wrong and Tes's underlings are killed. There's a double-cross and then another double-cross and then another double-cross. It'd take too long and spoil too much to say who all is double-crossing who.

Anyway, like the earlier "Smokin' Aces" this is a film by a Tarantino disciple that tries to mimic the master's work, but never quite gets there. It's got a lot of the same pieces, but feels too derivative. (Which is maybe why I never heard of it before it showed up on the Vine newsletter and was released on DVD.) If you're a fan of double-crosses and gore then this is a good rental, but I wouldn't buy it.

BTW, like the earlier "13" I got from Vine the DVD includes no extras. I don't know if the actual sale version does or not. If it does I can't evaluate them since I couldn't see them.

That is all.

Our Idiot Brother

2011-11-28T18:53:00.001-08:00

There are nice guys and then there's Ned. Maybe the screenwriters named him Ned because he's like Ned Flanders on "The Simpsons" only without the religion. He's so nice when a cop comes up to his fruit & vegetable stand asking for some pot because he's having a bad day, Ned agrees to give him a bag. He reluctantly takes $20 for it and then finds himself sent up the river on a drug pedaling charge.

Ned (Paul Rudd) gets out 8 months later and is no longer welcome at the farm where he used to work. At first then he stays with his mom. When he feels smothered, he goes to stay with his sister Liz (Emily Mortimer) and her husband (Steve Coogan) and their young son River. Liz and her husband are the type of parents who don't want their kid to eat sugar and make him play some weird musical instrument so he can get into a fancy school. Ned upsets that by teaching River about karate and stuff.

Soon he ends up with his other sister Miranda (Elizabeth Banks)--I have no idea which sister is the oldest or youngest. She works for Vanity Fair and is trying to break a big story about Lady Arabella, who was involved in some scandal. Ned's honesty screws that up too.

He ends up sleeping in a raft at the apartment of his other sister Natalie (Zooey Deschanel). She's supposedly a lesbian, but has been sleeping around with a guy. Ned's honesty ruins things for her too.

It's all a little too obvious that the real "idiots" are the sisters, not Ned. As screwed up as his life is, theirs aren't much better, just they refuse to admit it. You might be able to figure out where everything is going.

But overall this was a fun, lighthearted film. Ned's good-natured blundering is funny and makes him a likable character. He's not exactly in the same mold as Forrest Gump (because he's not that dumb) but he is someone you root for despite the dumb things he does.

This is a good movie for adult couples who want something light and fun. There's really too much sex talk (and an unfortunate shot of Steve Coogan's naughty parts) for this to be a family film.

The extras on the DVD I received are three deleted/extended scenes (one is real short) and an alternate ending. Unlike some movies that claim to have an alternate ending but end up having one or two lines changed, this one really is a largely different ending. I think the original works better, but the alternate ending gives more closure about the characters.

That is all.

(3/4 stars)

13

2011-11-23T18:27:00.001-08:00

I guess since this was about Russian roulette and listed Jason Statham as one of the stars I expected it to be more exciting. I was definitely not on the edge of my seat, even when guys had guns to each other's heads.

Another complaint I have is I didn't really feel I knew much about most of the characters. In many cases I didn't even know their names. It took a little straining to remember the "hero" is named Vince, in large part because for 2/3 of the movie he's referred to as "Number 13."

The reason for this is that Vince finds an invitation to a Russian roulette tournament. The mechanics of this are a little hazy to me. I think Vince is working at renovating this guy's house. The guy overdoses on morphine after he gets the invitation. Vince finds it and since he needs money for an operation for his dad (I think), he goes to New York to take the other guy's place.

The tournament is held in a mansion (or something) out in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how far you have to get from New York City for that. There are at least 17 players. Each one has essentially a sponsor. I'm not really sure who Vince's was. At the house we meet some of the other participants. There's #17 (Mickey Rourke) who was in a Mexican prison before being smuggled into the US for the tournament. He keeps telling his handler (50 Cent) that he knows where there's a large stash of money. 17 and his money really have no bearing on the overall plot.

Vince's main rival is #6 Robert Lynn (Ray Winstone) who was in a mental institution until his brother Jasper (Jason Statham) signs him out to be in the tourney. #6 has won the tourney a few times before. For some reason, Jasper borrows 2 million from someone to gamble in the tourney on his brother.

I think part of the reason I was never too excited is besides being located in a mansion--and not somewhere seedy like a back alley--is there are so many rules. For the first two rounds everyone stands in a circle. They're given a gun and one bullet. They put the guns in the air and spin the chamber around at the behest of the referee who sits in a chair like a tennis umpire. Then each player puts his gun at the head of the guy in front of him. (They are all guys.) When a light with spiders on it (why spiders? I don't know) goes on, they fire. Some people die and others live. For the next round, there are two bullets in the guns. The final round features two players chosen at random to "duel." They get three bullets in their guns. If you can't guess who is chosen to duel they show you A) on the DVD back cover and B)A few minutes into the film. So I guess that's another strike as it spoils a little of the drama.

Anyway, with so many rules and everything so well-mannered (they even let the "survivors" go free!) it felt more like watching tennis than Russian roulette. That and I didn't really know much about the important characters and a lot of characters weren't that important anyway, like #17.

So this definitely could have been a better movie. Maybe the original version was better; I might have to go look for it on Netflix or something.

BTW, there were no extras on the copy I was given from the Vine newsletter. I don't know if the copy for purchase has any extras or what they might be.

That is all.

(2/4 stars)

Limitless

2011-08-11T13:46:00.001-07:00

I wasn't all that keen on seeing this movie, but one of my Gather "friends" recommended it. Also, it drove me up the wall that Netflix wouldn't have it available for a full month AFTER you could buy the DVD, which is also a full month after Blockbuster and On Demand had it. So once I signed back up with Blockbuster I put that near the top of my queue and here we are.

The basic premise of the movie is: what if you could take a pill that would speed up your IQ past those of history's greatest geniuses? Eddie (Bradley Cooper) faces this conundrum. When the movie begins he's a socially-awkward writer suffering from writer's block, living in a messy apartment, and being dumped by his girlfriend.

(On a side note, only in the movies does a writer get a book contract without having written anything and without being famous. That almost never happens in the real world, especially with fiction. So suspend a little disbelief there.)

Then his ex-wife's brother runs into him on the street and offers him an experimental pill called NZT-48. Eddie decides to take it and instantly his writer's block is gone, he's learning new languages at the drop of a hat, and winning back his girlfriend. There's just a couple of little problems. One is that the pill only lasts 24 hours. After it's gone, he goes to the former brother-in-law's place only to discover that the brother-in-law has been killed by some nasty people looking for the pills.

They don't find the stash but Eddie does, along with some cash. He uses the pills and bills to begin amassing a fortune. First he tries counting cards and doing some day trading. When that's too slow, he seeks out corporate titan Carl Atwood (Robert DeNiro) and goes to work helping to broker a huge merger that will net him $40 million.

But there are still the problems of the pills and the people who want the pills.
Overall I enjoyed the movie. The scenario might be implausible, but it's a fun what-if fantasy. Cooper gives a solid performance as Eddie and is fairly convincing as both mousy pre-NZT Eddie and suave post-NZT Eddie.

It probably could have been 15 minutes shorter. It drags a little in the middle. Some of this drag is from a scenario I find puzzling. Eddie reaches into his stash jar for a pill but seems to be out. So he goes to a meeting with Atwood off the pill, which doesn't go well. But then it turns out he has a stash hidden away somewhere. So why didn't he just go get the stash before the meeting? I mean if he's so smart on the pills how could he be so stupid as to run out before the meeting?

Other than that hiccup it's a perfectly good movie. A solid night's entertainment.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 59-100 (2 stars)

Captain America (2011)

2011-07-30T12:44:00.001-07:00

I haven’t gone to see a movie in the theaters since “Iron Man 2” in 2010, because nothing released interested me much. But I’ve always had a soft spot for Captain America, though I’ve never read more than the first couple issues that my grandma gave me in some kind of compilation back in the ‘80s or something. Anyway, this got good buzz from my Facebook “friends” so I thought I’d go see it.

I’d say it was worth the five bucks I paid to see it in 2D—it didn’t seem like the kind of movie to benefit much from the 3D thing. Like most of the Marvel superhero movies it’s a solid popcorn movie, though not as great as “The Dark Knight” in my mind.

When the movie begins, it’s in present day as a government team is digging around the arctic for a strange downed aircraft. Inside they find a frozen Captain America. Then we flash back to 1942, where a scrawny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, formerly the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four) is trying to get into the army to serve in the same unit as his dead father. What he lacks in size he makes up for in courage, but he’s rejected for being too small and asthmatic. That doesn’t deter Steve, who applies later at a World’s Fair, foregoing a double date with his friend Bucky Barnes (a kid sidekick in the 40s comics) and two random dames. Steve’s tenacity comes to the attention of Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who is conducting a secret experiment to create a special serum to make “super soldiers.” He’s already used it on Nazi commander Johan Strauss (Hugo Weaving) but has since defected to America.

Steve is given the serum and comes out looking like a bodybuilder. A Nazi agent sets off a bomb and kills Erskine, making it so that Steve will be America’s only super soldier instead of having a whole army of them. He’s presented with two choices: be locked up in a lab for testing or become an army mascot known as “Captain America.” He agrees to the latter, where at least he can be doing something. It turns out that what he does is dress up in a funny costume and make speeches about buying war bonds. He also makes movies and even has a comic book!

Just as Steve is embracing his fame, he goes over to Italy and meets a hostile reception. When he finds out Bucky has been taken captive by the Nazis, Steve goes alone into enemy territory to break him out. There he confronts Strauss, going by the name the Red Skull because his serum turn his skull red, and becomes the real-life Captain America.

From there Steve, Bucky, and a loyal band of multinational/multiethnic troops try to wipe out the Red Skull and his evil HYDRA weapons plants.

I think what would have made this a little better to me was a little more realism. I know it’s a comic book movie, but I found the Nazi ray guns to be a little too far over the line into fantasy. And the whole “jewel of Odin” thing didn’t really add much to the plot. They could have achieved the same results with more conventional weapons, though those might not have looked as cool to the teens in the audience.

Also, as much as I hate this new trend of breaking movies into two parts, a la Harry Potter, I think this would have been better as two parts. One part to focus entirely on the World War II era and then another to bring Captain America into the modern age. That way they could have dealt better with the issues surrounding him going from 1943 to 2011, like his love interest Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) either being dead or really, really old. Because there’s just not going to be enough time in the Avengers movie to give that more than lip service.

No matter what, though, this was a million times better than the 1990 version Syfy aired at the time this movie came out. It’s worth seeing if you’ve liked the other Marvel superhero movies or just want two hours out of the heat.

BTW, stay after the credits for a preview of the Avengers movie coming next year!

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 66/100 (2.5 stars)

Cedar Rapids

2011-07-24T14:51:00.001-07:00

I knew when I heard about this that I would probably like that movie. The reason is that I could best describe it as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" meets "Up in the Air" and I really liked both movies. If you do too then you'll probably also like this.

The plot involves a 40-ish year old insurance agent who's not a virgin named Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) who works for BrownStar Insurance in Brown Valley, Wisconsin. He's worked for BrownStar since he was 17 but is overshadowed by his coworker Roger, who's one the prestigious Two Diamond Award twice.

But then Roger dies in a perverse way and it's up to Tim to go to the insurance industry conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (really Ann Arbor, Michigan, woo hoo!) to win the award for a third time. He leaves his girlfriend, his old teacher (Sigourney Weaver, who at this point I did not want to see having sex) and gets on a plane for the first time. Boarding a plane for the first time is kind of scary and nerve-wracking, especially doing it after 2001 with all the paranoia and extra security. More probably could have been made of this scenario.

Anyway, when Tim lands in Cedar Rapids he runs into a prostitute named Bree outside. He of course doesn't know what she is and gives her a butterscotch. He's meets his first black person ever inside the room. Ronald (Isaiah Whitlock) owns his own insurance company and like Tim is a total dork. Due to overbooking, they have to take on a third roommate, Dean Ziegler (John C Reilly), whom Tim was warned to stay away from by his boss. And we soon see why as Dean is the polar opposite of Tim: boisterous, cussing, and hitting on everything in sight. Later in the fitness center Tim meets the fourth member of their ensemble, Joan (an unrecognizable Anne Heche) who if you've seen "Up in the Air" is basically the Vera Farmiga character.

It doesn't take long for Tim to start being turned to the dark side. It all begins with some cream sherry in the bar. (Cream sherry, the Devil's nectar!) Soon he's doing all sorts of things he never thought he would do. The most serious of which is finding out the truth behind Roger's awards the past two years and about his boss's plans for the company.

I thought a lot of this movie was hilarious, in the same way as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" in that it's fun watching a straight arrow turn to the dark side. Something sadistic in our nature. It's just funny as Tim encounters alcohol, drugs, and sex and tries to reconcile them with his Ned Flanders world view.

What the movie lacks is a good love interest for Tim. We know Sigourney Weaver is too old for him. We know Anne Heche is married. And we know the prostitute is a prostitute. Since those are the only options available, you wind up missing something on the romantic front. They needed some cute assistant at the office or something he had ignored for him to end up with. Maybe it's in the deleted scenes.

Anyway, this is a fun movie and mercifully short and just about 85 minutes. Make sure to watch the first half of the credits for a couple of bonus scenes. If you work in an office and like adult humor then this is a good bet.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 70/100 (3 stars)

The Company Men

2011-07-10T09:51:00.001-07:00

I really enjoyed this movie. If it's not very subtle in its message that's all right because it's message is on target. There is a labor crisis in America that affects everyone from the top on down.

"The Company Men" focuses on three separate segments of the workforce, all of whom work for GTX, a conglomerate that started by making ships for the Navy and so forth. Of course now with defense cuts and so forth the shipbuilding segment of the company is being phased out.

Heading this division is Gene (Tommy Lee Jones) who co-founded the company with CEO Jim (Craig T. nelson). Gene is conflicted about the company's downsizing and has been publicly vocal about his ethical concerns in putting people out of work to make the stock price go up. When he winds up getting a pink slip himself, he still has millions but nothing to do with his time or money.

One of Gene's oldest associates is Phil (Chris Cooper) who started out in the shipyards after a tour in Vietnam. Phil is in his late 50s and when he gets the ax, finds no one wants to hire him despite all of his experience. Too young to retire but too old compared to the college kids coming up who'll work for cheaper, Phil is caught between a rock and a hard place with seemingly no way out.

And then there's Bobby (Ben Affleck) who was a middle-manager for GTX. Despite making only $150K or so a year, he lives in an affluent suburb of Boston in a million-dollar home and drives a Porsche. When he gets his pink slip, he's left scrambling to find work and keep his head above water. To try and make ends meet, he has to take a job from his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) working as a carpenter.

All that's missing here is an even younger employee just trying to break into the market. But still you get a pretty good idea of the bleak job market. Many people like Phil find they can't get a job and the job they've been working for 30 years or more doesn't have any value. Others like Bobby have been living beyond their means from paycheck to paycheck. All the while CEOs like Jim continue drawing millions, refusing to give up perks like corporate jets, primo vacations, and giant offices in order to save someone's livelihood.

As I said, this is about as subtle as Michael Moore's "Capitalism: a Love Story" but it's hard to deny that it's not true. It's a changing job market and millions are being left behind, marooned on an island while others have to scale back their lives and their dreams. The end reminds me of a documentary I saw years ago about the economic crisis in Brazil. At one factory the head honchos decided to fire everyone and close the factory down. The workers decided then to simply break the locks, fire up the machines, and keep working by pooling their own resources. Maybe we need more of that spirit here.

Unless you're a rabid Tea Partier who still believes CEOs like Jim are riding to the rescue, I'd suggest watching this.

That is all.

My score: 90/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 69/100 (3 stars)

True Grit (2010)

2011-06-14T08:35:00.001-07:00

I think it was Roger Ebert's review that said what the Coen Brothers did in remaking "True Grit" was make a really good Western. I have to agree with that. The first time after watching this On Demand it surprised me just how straightforward the plot was. No real twists or turns or much out of the ordinary. Just a simple, straight ahead Western. For a Western it might be really, really good but since the closest to a Western I've watched all the way through is "Dances With Wolves" I really wouldn't know.

The straight ahead plot starts first with a murder. 14-year-old Mattie Ross's father is killed by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and he promptly skips town to light out for Indian Territory. Mattie refuses to take this lying down, so she hires US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to follow Chaney. Before they can set out, Mattie is visited by Texas Ranger LaBeouf (Matt Damon), who has also been pursuing Chaney for shooting a Texas senator. He wants to take Chaney back to Texas so he can collect a reward, but Mattie refuses, wanting Chaney to die for killing her father, not for killing a Texas senator.

Without her knowledge though Rooster and LaBeouf set out together and agree to share the reward. Mattie catches up to them, nearly drowning herself and her horse in the process. This leads to a falling-out between Rooster and LaBeouf when Rooster refuses to send his employer home. So Rooster and Mattie go off on their own to search for Chaney.

As you'd expect there are some gun battles and really everything except a tribe of Indians in war paint to attack them. Though it's mostly through dumb luck that they eventually find Chaney for the final showdown. Is that a spoiler? Well, what kind of Western would it be without a final showdown?

Anyway, as you'd expect from the Coen Brothers, this is a well-made film that intersperses violence and humor in about equal doses. The acting is all top-notch, as you'd expect from this all-star roster. What it reminds me of mostly is "Road to Perdition" which combined a violent gangster movie with a coming-of-age story. Only it's here on the trail in Indian territory in the 1880s or so that Mattie comes of age.

My main complaint, as I mentioned in the beginning, is that this is all so simple. Mattie is the spunky girl coming of age. Rooster is the gruff loner with a heart. LaBeouf is the noble Ranger. The only real non-archetype is the outlaw Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) who is the villain and probably evil but not really TOO evil. Maybe it was just me but I couldn't help thinking if they'd cast someone a little younger for LaBeouf they could have had a little romantic thing going on with him and Mattie. It seemed towards the end like it could go that direction, but a guy in his mid-30s and a 14-year-old girl would probably have made people too uncomfortable.

Anyway, since it's finally on DVD (which for some reason took six months when most movies go from theater to DVD nowadays in about half that) it's a good rental. It's not as good as other Coen Brothers movies like "No Country for Old Men" or "Fargo" but it's definitely better than most of the schlock on the New Rental shelves. If you're someone like my dad who grew up with the John Wayne version you might not care for it much. I mean, come on, Jeff Bridges is not The Duke.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 80/100 (3 stars)

PS: In the credits I noticed Buster Coen played "Mr. Damon's Abs Double." What the heck is that? A stunt double for his midsection?

The Green Hornet

2011-06-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

I think the best backhanded compliment I can give this is that I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. I've hated just about everything Seth Rogen has ever done except his supporting role in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and the Green Hornet always seemed like a third-rate hero to me. So I was prepared to find this unwatchable. But it wasn't.

That's not to say it's anywhere near the level of great superhero movies like "The Dark Knight" or "Spider-Man 2" or "Iron Man." It is a small step above the truly awful ones like "The Spirit" and "Jonah Hex" though.

I think what makes the movie bearable is that it's in on the joke. Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is presented as a complete buffoon. In a flashback, we see that young Britt tried to stop some bullies from picking on a girl.

When he fails and gets in trouble, he's taken to his father (Tom Wilkinson, previously in "Batman Begins") who tells him that trying doesn't matter if you fail. So Britt just stops trying. He becomes content to fritter away his life partying.

That is until his father is killed by a bee sting. A moment where you have to suspend disbelief is that Britt's father, who finds him to be a total disappointment, gives him his entire estate, including control of The Daily Sentinel.

Britt has no interest in running a newspaper until he and his father's mechanic/coffee maker Kato (Jay Chou) go to the cemetery to chop the head off his father's statue. In the process Britt and Kato (mostly Kato) foil a mugging--and possibly worse.

From there they decide to become heroes. This is where Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz) comes in. Though she's working first as a temp and then as Britt's secretary, she has a degree in criminology. Britt and Kato use her knowledge in order to find some criminals for them to beat up. As well they use the newspaper itself to publicize their vigilante actions to bring more attention to themselves, kind of the opposite of the Spider-Man movies.

And actually I have to say I found the whole idea of the hero posing as a villain to be a good twist on the concept. As they say, if the criminals think you're a hero then they know there are certain lines you won't cross. If they think you're one of them, then everything is on the table. Kind of a play on the Batman's philosophy.

All of the criminals in LA pay tribute to Chudnovsky (Christoph Waltz of "Inglorious Basterds" fame), a criminal who becomes insecure about his name, his clothes, and how scary he is after visiting an upstart rival played by Rogen buddy James Franco.

From there Britt and Kato take on Chudnovsky with the help of a really sweet ride called the Black Beauty that has machine-guns, missiles, flamethrowers, and lots of other goodies. And in the process Britt has to grow up a little bit, though not too much since this is a Rogen picture.

Anyway, as I said earlier, this might have been unbearable if the movie weren't in on the joke. Kato is clearly the real hero and Britt the sidekick. Everyone but Britt realizes this. The gas gun the Green Hornet uses in this movie comes about because Kato is afraid of Britt having a real gun, so he gives him something nonlethal. The movie knows that not only Britt but the whole film itself is supposed to be stupid fun and it never really betrays that by getting too serious.

There are of course a number of problems with it. For one thing, about half of Rogen's "acting" seems to be expressing "Wow!" sentiments at Kato and the Black Beauty, who are the real stars of the movie. The film slows down in the second act, after Britt and Kato first take on Chudnovsky. And as at least one of my Gather "friends" noted, the Lenore character doesn't make much sense. She has a degree in criminology and she's working as a temp secretary? In this economy that is slightly believable, but not a whole lot. They probably could have solved that problem by giving her a kid and saying she had to take whatever job was available to provide for him/her. That could also have provided some comic fodder of Britt interacting a kid who's clearly smarter than him. I'm just saying.

Anyway, this isn't a great movie by any means, but it's not completely terrible either. Now that it's on DVD and On Demand, it's an OK rental.

(And really I love the ingenious solution at the end of what to do when Britt gets shot. The old killing two birds with one stone thing.)

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)
Metacritic score: 39/100 (1.5 stars)

It's Kind of a Funny Story

2011-02-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

I always think it's too bad that Focus Features never releases any of their movies so anyone between LA and New York can see them. Well maybe you can if you live in a college town with an art theater or can make time for that one showing at the multiplex. They have a good track record with movies like "Lost in Translation," "Atonement," and many more.

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" follows in that trend. I think it was released in theaters for like two weeks in November, between Harry Potter and the big holiday releases. At least I vaguely remember seeing commercials for it, though maybe it was my imagination.

Anyway, the funny story is about Craig, a 16-year-old who is feeling pressured by his father to get into a special summer program that will set him up to get him into Ivy League schols so he can become CEO or president or something like that. On top of that he's got a crush on his best friend's girlfriend Nia. And maybe some other things too.

So one night he calls the suicide hotline and then goes to the emergency room. There he persuades the doctor to admit him to the mental hospital. Because of a convenient renovation the teens and adults are forced to live together. Almost immediately Craig starts to realize that he's made a terrible mistake, because the people in there are genuinely crazy. Though none of them are so crazy to be dangerous. They're all pretty much harmless.

He soon makes friends with Bobby (Zach Galifianakis, the bearded guy from "The Hangover") who sort of shows him the ropes of the place. Unlike "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" the nurses and orderlies are professional and somewhat caring in their treatment of the patients.

Craig also finds a kindred soul in Noelle (Emma Roberts) another teen who's actually tried to kill herself a few times. (Why isn't really explained.) While he falls for her he starts to realize hidden talents and to come to grips with his problems. And at the same time he helps Bobby and his Egyptian roommate and becomes sort of a mascot to the psych hospital.

The high concept way to describe this would be to say it's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" meets "Scrubs." There are a number of fantasy gags like in "Scrubs," including a sort of music video of "Under Pressure." Though the movie never resorts to slapstick gags or toilet humor. It was nice to see that Galifianakis could be more than the dumb fat guy in a movie. The movie manages to deal with serious issues of mental illness without making it too much of a joke.

My only complaint is that maybe it's a little too sweet at times. It might have been nice to get a little deeper into what was going on with Noelle and Bobby and some of the other patients.

But overall I found this to be a really enjoyable comedy/drama. If you like movies like "Little Miss Sunshine" then you'll probably enjoy this too. That is if you can find it first.

That is all.

My score: 90/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 63/100 (2.5 stars)

Easy A

2011-01-31T06:28:00.001-08:00

Here's the timeline of me watching this movie:

10 minutes in I wonder why I'm watching this
15 minutes in I grabbed my cell phone and started playing Solitaire
30 minutes in I got bored of Solitaire and opened my netbook to check Emails/Gather/etc.
60 minutes in I got up to use the bathroom, tidy up some stuff while the movie was still running

A couple of "friends" recommended this movie, but it didn't do anything for me. It was predictable pretty much from start to finish, so that when I got up to use the bathroom and stuff I didn't care because I knew by then what was going to happen, although the zany scheme at the end to save the day wasn't even that zany.

The been there, done that story involves Olive (Emma Stone) who is ignored at school because...um, she dyes her hair red and gets good grades? That's about all I could think of. She doesn't even have glasses like most Hollywood movies about high school outcasts!

Anyway, she tells her friend for no real reason that she had sex with some guy named George (one thing that struck me is where the friend says there's no one sexy named George; I guess she's too young to remember former Sexiest Man Alive George Clooney) and then gets a bad reputation. Some gay kid then goes to Olive and bribes her to stage some fake sex so people will think he's straight. Word gets around and soon Olive is the school slut--except she never sleeps with anyone.

You could probably figure out the rest of the plot. [Mild spoilers!]

There's your Mild Spoiler space. At first she thinks it's cool but then realizes it sucks. There is of course some hot sensitive guy she likes who she finally gets at the end after confessing everything on YouTube. (Why anyone would believe her when she's obviously a liar is beyond me.)

More Mild Spoiler space. The movie wants to be "Juno" mixed with John Hughes, but it's just another dull, cookie cutter Hollywood teen movie. Emma Stone makes a good sassy heroine, but the story lets her down by being way too predictable.

Anyway, save yourself some time and just watch "Juno" instead or even better, get MTV's "Daria" series from the late '90s on DVD. Or you could rent some John Hughes and watch the master at work.

That is all.

My score: 25/100 (1 star)
Metacritic score: 72/100 (3 stars)

The Social Network

2011-01-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

That "The Social Network" has won numerous awards as the Best Film of 2010 pretty much sums up what a disappointing year it was for films in my opinion. I just watched this on DVD and I was pretty unimpressed. Really I think it would have made for a better hour-long CNBC documentary on Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook.

Writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher try to inject some life into what is otherwise a pretty dull tale. Essentially what they do is try to set Zuckerberg up as a 21st Century Charlie Kane, going so far as to create a fictitious Rosebud in the form of a former girlfriend named Erica (Rooney Mara), whom Zuckerberg perhaps sees as "the one who got away." They also interweave testimony from two legal hearings against Zuckerberg.

One hearing is for a lawsuit brought on by his former partner Eduardo (Andrew Garfield, soon to be Spider-Man), who put up the cash for Zuckerberg to start "the facebook" which eventually became what we now know as Facebook. Eduardo thinks that the site needs to find some advertisers to make money, while Zuckerberg thinks that would compromise the "coolness" of the site. The former Harvard roommates eventually drift apart, much like Kane drifted apart from his former roommate, played by Joseph Cotten. And just like in "Citizen Kane" there's a final betrayal that fractures their relationship, leading to the lawsuit.

The other hearing is brought on by the Winklevoss twins and another guy, who wanted Zuckerberg to create a dating service called "Harvard Connection." But Zuckerberg had a better idea. Instead of just breaking things off with the twins, he makes excuses and then rolls out "the facebook" on his own, cutting them out of the loop. After exhausting other remedies, including going to Harvard's president, the twins and their partner sue Zuckerberg.

Actually while they were already pilfering so much of one of the greatest films in history, Sorkin and Fincher might as well have gone the rest of the way and used the same style of having a reporter interview everyone to try and find the real Zuckerberg. The real Zuckerberg is what's missing from this movie. We get to see that he's socially awkward, smart, a gifted programmer, and driven to succeed. I'm not sure we really get to see what makes him tick. We never get to see his parents. (Are they alive? Where do they live? Does he have siblings? Aunts, uncles, cousins? I have no idea. Maybe I should check his Facebook page.) "Citizen Kane" at least gave us some glimpses of Kane's background. "The Social Network" just has Zuckerberg springing fully formed from Harvard and bursting onto the scene.

Like Charlie Kane, the film shows Zuckerberg as essentially being a victim of his own success. By achieving fame and fortune he's alienated those (one, really) who cared about him. Probably if they made this movie ten years from now they could include where Zuckerberg builds his palatial house and lives in seclusion from the outside world after a failed attempt to become governor. Overall it's fine, but as I said, a straight documentary would have been more interesting to learn about Facebook and then you can always watch "Citizen Kane" for the rest of it.

Though the greatest accomplishment is that now I probably won't think of Jesse Eisenberg as "that guy who looks like Michael Cera and was in 'Zombieland.'" I have my doubts that he'll become an A-list star after this (I doubt he'll win the Oscar or Golden Globe), but he's on his way to some good parts now.
Anyway, I should probably go see "The King's Speech" which is the other heavyweight Oscar contender. I doubt it could be less impressive than this.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 95/100 (4 stars)

The American (2010)

2011-01-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Movies like "The American" and "Greenberg" exemplify why we still need film critics. In looking at the customer reviews on the Blockbuster website for both films, the majority opinion is that these are slow and boring. To which my rebuttal is, "Yes and they were supposed to be." Slow, that is, not boring. Though to some people anything without an explosion or car chase every two minutes is boring. If these people had done their due diligence by reading a few critical reviews, they would have known that before renting it and complaining.

If you're reading this, then you're taking the first step towards doing that. Good for you! Let me say that "The American" is not a frenetic actionfest like the Bourne movies, though it is similarly part of that subgenre of films about a hired gun getting tired of the business and wanting to quit. (Besides the Bourne movies, I could think of "The Merry Gentleman," "The Matador," "Bangkok Dangerous," and "Grosse Pointe Blank" off the top of my head that also fit into this category.) What you get with "The American" is a slower-paced, more thoughtful variation on this topic.

When the movie begins, Jack (George Clooney) is hanging out in the wilds of Sweden in a cabin with a woman. They go outside one morning to get some fresh air, but then some bad guys try to kill Jack. It's not a spoiler to say that they do not succeed and the woman is killed, for which Jack feels guilty.

His contact Pavel sends him to a small town in Italy, though Jack soon takes off for an even smaller town in Italy. There he pretends to be a photographer and makes friends of a sort with the local priest. He also begins visiting a local prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido, who looks exceptional in the several scenes in which she is topless--so sue me for noticing!).

Eventually he takes a job to design a special sniper rifle for a woman named Matildhe, who appears each time with a different hair color. Meanwhile, problems begin to escalate as the Swedes track Jack down in Italy and he's entangled by his feelings for Clara and dissatisfaction with his life.

There is a low-speed chase and some gun play, but probably not enough for action enthusiasts. Something else that probably throws off the general public is that this isn't the Clooney from "Ocean's Eleven," the suave, debonair criminal. This is more the Clooney from "Solaris," somber and brooding. That is generally the air of the movie overall. This and that Clara is an unabashed prostitute probably don't make it the best "date night" fodder. But it is an interesting look at a man who is grappling with his personal demons and the bad choices he made in life.

My main complaint (other than the subtitles when people speak in Italian are all but impossible to read on a normal 27-inch television screen) is that the movie doesn't say much that's overly new. As I said, there's a whole subgenre dedicated to this kind of character and generally "The American" plays out the same way those do: the assassin is cracking, then there's a last job, a love interest enters the fray, some fights/chases where the assassin tries to escape those who want to make sure his retirement is very short, and then the end. But to it's credit "The American" takes this more seriously and is more plausible than most of those other movies I mentioned.

So now you have a better idea what to expect--and knowing is half the battle.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 61/100 (2.5 stars)

Inception

2010-12-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

Really the only way to watch this and not laugh yourself silly is to just turn your brain off and go with the flow. I'm not sure what sort of dreams Christopher Nolan has, but they must be pretty wild to come up with all these rules used in "Inception." For instance, a guy gets shot and screams in pain. Don't they say the way to know you aren't dreaming is to pinch yourself because you don't feel pain in dreams? That seems true to me, but not apparently to Christopher Nolan, who wrote, produced, and directed "Inception."

From articles I read when this first came out, I guess it took Nolan a number of years to come up with the script. But really after all those years of work this comes out like "The Matrix" only less imaginative and without all that "Chosen One" stuff. (Kind of like how it took James Cameron 15 years to rip off the story of "Dances With Wolves.")

Anyway, the ridiculous story involves a man named Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, who already did the whole reality/fantasy thing with "Shutter Island" earlier this year) who through vaguely explained processes can break into your dreams and steal your secrets. His right hand man is Arthur (Joseph Gordon Leavitt) and when they try to get secrets from Saito (Ken Watanabe, who was Ra's Al Guhl in Nolan's "Batman Begins") things go sour because of Cobb's dead wife Mal.

But then Saito says that he wants them to break into his rival's son's head and implant an idea to break up his company, which would be "Inception" instead of extraction. (You know because that's a lot easier than the traditional method of just finding a way to blackmail the guy or something.) That rival's son is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy, who was the Scarecrow in both of Nolan's Batman movies) who has a strained relationship with his dying father.

Cobb then goes to see his father or father-in-law Michael Caine (who was in Nolan's last three pictures--seeing a pattern?) who gives him the name of a student who can help him design dream worlds. That student is Ariadne (Ellen Page, who's already been one ancient Greek-named character) who also provides a good way for Nolan to educate us on the rules of entering and designing dreams.

From there they kidnap Fischer and then there are dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams to plant the idea, which involves a lot of car chases, gun battles, and a zero-G fight that would have been cooler if we hadn't all seen "The Matrix" 11 years ago. That is where my biggest disappointment comes in; the dream sequences are so ordinary. None of that stuff you see in the previews about cities folding over on themselves and such comes into play. There's a normal city, a hotel, and then a hospital/fortress in the arctic. It's pretty blah.

I'm dogging on the movie, but I will say that it wasn't boring. It's just dumb. If you can turn your brain off and not question any of the stupid rules and mechanics of it then you'll probably enjoy it.

Of course the main conceit that it's hard to distinguish reality from dreams is hardly original. I've thought of that since I was like 7. (Though actually I used to think, "What if I'm actually on my deathbed as like an old dude and all of this is like a memory?" Did I just blow your mind?) I even wrote a story that involves a guy who can manipulate someone else's dreams. That was 5 years ago. Take that, Christopher Nolan!

Something else that stood out to me is at the end Nolan uses the exact same credit font and style as at least the Batman movies. At some point did he consciously decide that he can only do credits with that font and that style? And since I'm ragging on everything else, could Hans Zimmer dial down the Teutonic horns a little? This isn't a Norse opera for crying out loud.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)
Metacritic score: 74/100 (3 stars)

The Expendables

2010-11-28T08:51:00.001-08:00

"The Expendables" obviously isn't a great movie in terms of great films like "Citizen Kane" or even "The Godfather." It is at least a movie that knows it's not a great movie and to its credit it doesn't try to be anything it isn't. Basically what you expect with Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, and Jet Li (among others) involved is a kick-ass action movie with lots of blood and stuff blowing up. And that's what you get.

In typical retro action movie style, there's a thin story that provides the excuse to blow stuff up. There's a phony island in the Gulf of Mexico or something called Vilena, where a rogue CIA agent named James Munroe (Eric Roberts) has created a puppet government so that he can produce/sell drugs without sharing any profits.

The Expendables of the title are a group of mercenaries led by Barney (Stallone) and his partner Christmas (Statham) who get the job to take out the evil general in charge of the island. This is provides a cameo for both Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger which wasn't necessary, but is just a fun tip of the cap for great action heroes of yore.

Barney and Christmas recon the island, where they run into Sandra, who is the general's daughter but has gone to ground to avoid running into daddy. Things go sour, with Barney and Christmas barely escaping. But then Barney decides to go back mainly to get Sandra out of there. Except he doesn't know that one member of his team has betrayed him.

The rest is a lot of blowing stuff up. The effects aren't all that great, but you get plenty of explosions--buildings and humans. The really big, loud gun one member of Barney's team uses is particularly nasty--and freaking cool. It's the kind of gun I'd love to have in one of those first-person shooter games.
As I said, the story is paper thin, the characters are flat, and the dialog is corny, but that's what you expect. We're not talking about cinema here.

The only real failure was that if you're going to create a super team of past action heroes, you need Van Damme, Segal, and of course the almighty Chuck Norris. Jackie Chan would be cool too. I mean come on, the first two are just doing straight-to-video movies and the only mentions Chuck Norris gets are in connection with those jokes floating around the Internet. So really, it's not like it should have cost that much money.

Actually now that Schwarzenegger is no longer the governor (or soon not to be) maybe they can do a sequel where his team could have the guys I just mentioned and they initially go up against Stallone's team before joining forces to take out some bad guy. Wow, someone get Stallone's agent on the phone! This thing pretty much writes itself!

If you want a good retro action flick, this is one to watch. I wouldn't buy it, but it's worth the rental.
That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 45/100 (2 stars)

The Kids Are All Right

2010-11-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

If a gay rights group were to have a poster family for a same-sex household, this would probably be the one they'd pick. Matriarch Nicki (Annette Bening) and her "wife" Jules (Julianne Moore) are in their 40s and still seemingly in love. They have a pretty and smart 18-year-old daugher Joni (Mia Waskikowska, that girl from the "Alice in Wonderland" movie) who is Ncki's biological daughter and a 15-year-old son Laser who is Jules's biological son. Nicki is the one who's brought home the bacon as a doctor while Jules has raised the kids after dropping out of college, though now Jules is trying to start a landscaping business.

Everything seems fine until Laser rocks the boat by asking Joni to call the sperm bank where their mothers went to get pregnant. They find out that their father is Paul (Mark Ruffalo) who runs an organic farm and small restaurant. The kids covertly meet with Paul and while it's awkward they want to see him again.
Eventually Nicki and Jules find out and they want to meet Paul too. Things get more complicated when Paul hires Jules to landscape his backyard. Maybe you can guess in what way. What happens with that and with Paul spending time with the kids just about destroys this unconventional family.

A couple things I found interesting is that after the kids meet Paul, they seem to get pushed more to the side as the movie focuses more on the Nicki/Jules/Paul triangle. It seemed like some issues with the kids (especially their sexuality issues) sort of got left on the table. Also for a movie about a lesbian couple the only sex depicted was hetero sex. That should make the average moviegoer feel more comfortable. I mean gay kisses are one thing, but gay sex is another, right?

The movie seemed to lag at times, but for the most part I thought it was good. There's just the one plot twist with Jules/Paul, but that's pretty much it. The rest is about as organic as the stuff Paul grows. The movie makes the point that a family with two mothers is still the same as a traditional family in a lot of ways. A point I made a year ago and that "My Two Dads" made back in the '80s.

I don't think this had a long theater run, but you might hear about it more during awards season. I wouldn't be surprised if Annette Bening or Julianne Moore were nominated for Supporting Actress. You know, big names in an issue movie is the kind of stuff Hollywood goes for.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 86/100 (3.5 stars)

Winter's Bone

2010-11-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

I think I remember hearing about this movie from Roger Ebert during one of those film festivals like Cannes or Toronto or whatever. Anyway, when I saw this was out, I thought I'd check it out. You might want to remember this too, because it could wind up being one of those films like "Crash" or "Hurt Locker" that's relatively overlooked when it comes out (probably because it hardly played in any theaters) but makes some noise in awards season.

The movie focuses on rural Missouri, which looks about like something from "The Road" or some other post-apocalyptic movie. In this wasteland is the Dolly family, the matriarch of which is 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence). She has to care for her younger brother Sonny and younger sister Ashlee because her mother is almost catatonic and her father is on the lam for cooking meth.

The problem for Ree is that before he disappeared, her father put the house up as collateral for the bond. If he misses his court date, the family will be out on the street--or living in a cave. To avoid this, Ree sets out to find her father.

But the Ozarks have their own set of laws, which are similar to those of the Mafia. Some of her father's acquaintances (or accomplices) try to keep Ree from digging into things. With her home at stake, though, Ree isn't going to be stopped easily.

If this is even a somewhat accurate depiction of mountain life, it's pretty terrifying. As I said before, it's like a post-apocalyptic world up there, or a Third World, where most everyone is living in poverty. To get by, Ree survives on donations from neighbors and squirrels and other game she can kill herself.

Relative newcomer Jennifer Lawrence is someone you should keep an eye on not just during awards season, but in the future. She gives a great performance here, keeping the character grounded in reality, without any melodrama or hysterics. (The complete opposite of Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" for example, who spent that whole movie either screaming or sobbing.) It's up to her to carry the film, and she does so.

This isn't a nonstop thrill ride or anything like that, but a taut and engaging drama. I recommend getting in on the ground floor with this one, before everyone else starts talking about it.
That is all.

My score: 88/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 90/100 (3.5 stars)

Jonah Hex

2010-10-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

I have to be honest and admit I put this at the top of my queue precisely because I read the terrible reviews. I've watched a number of terrible superhero movies and this rates in that awful category with such films as "Ghost Rider" and "The Spirit." Though I wouldn't say this was quite as bad, it's a far cry from "The Dark Knight" or "Iron Man."

What's especially telling is that when you factor out credits, the movie is only 70 minutes long. Consider ones like "The Dark Knight" or "Superman Returns" were 150 minutes or more, and you get the sense that there were some real problems with this movie. I mean, other than kids movies, who makes an action movie that short? I would be really curious to see just how much was left on the cutting room floor. If this was what they left in, then what they cut out must have been really awful.

Anyway, this follows the pretty standard formula. Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is put of the Confederate Army but turns in his unit led by the sadistic General Turnbull (John Malkovich) to the Union Army when he can no longer handle the savagery. Turnbull escapes and with the help of an evil Irishman, captures Hex and his family and burns Hex's wife and kid alive. He also brands Hex's face with his initials but lets Hex live. Later Hex decides that he'll get rid of the mark by putting a very hot axe blade to his face, thus burning his face even worse.

There's something about him nearly dying but being revived by Native Americans, which is rendered in cartoon for some reason. This then gives Hex the ability to touch dead people and temporarily bring them back to life. He goes out then to the Old West and works as a bounty hunter.

It's 1876 when Hex finds out that Turnbull is alive and so goes in search of him. Taking a page from the equally bad "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" Turnbull is making some kind of battleship that shoots explosives ignited by weird glowing orbs that was all designed by Eli Whitney as a "nation killer" except the Army decided it didn't need a Death Star but let the plans fall into Turnbull's hands.

Helping Hex along the way are a black weapons merchant who designs a sort of rocket launcher with a crossbow that shoots dynamite. There's also the prostitute Lila (Megan Fox, who again teases males everywhere by remaining fully clothed) who periodically gives Hex a freebie and serves as his Mary Jane Watson in the plot. (If you watched the "Spider-Man" movies you know what I mean.)
I'm sure you have no idea how it works out.

Anyway, as I said the movie was so short that it's pretty much over before it begins. Probably just as well since what there is of it is pretty paint-by-numbers with pathetic dialog, notably in the scene where a chubby Aidan Quinn as President US Grant tells his troops they need to find Hex.

I found the black weapons guy to be kind of insulting. It's like the filmmakers were trying to say, "Well, Hex was a part of the Confederacy but he's not racist! Look, he has a black friend!" That may be something taken from the comics, but still. What's also weird is that the Native Americans never seem to get any airtime when they bring Hex back to life. That seems like something that was probably left on the cutting room floor. There are also some weird cutaway scenes with Hex fighting Turnbull in a plain of red clay. Not sure what the point of that was.

This might not have been as bad as I expected, but it was pretty bad nonetheless.

That is all.

My score: 35/100 (1.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 33/100 (1.5 stars)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

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

I could sum it up by saying I felt the same way as when I watched "Star Trek" last year: on its own the movie is OK, but in comparison with its predecessor it's not that good. I only watched the original Elm Street once and that was on basic cable, though I have to admit of all the late 70s-80s super killers Freddy Krueger scared the crap out of me. I think it was just that creepy burned face. One thing that bothered me then with the remake is that the face looks wrong. It doesn't look as scary or even very real. It looks like some CGI'd it, like "The Mummy" or something.

The plot follows along the same lines as the original. Some high school kids are terrorized by the evil spirit of Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), who wears an ugly striped sweater and wields a hand of razors that he uses to slash his victims to pieces. He appears in the kids' dreams where their parents can't protect them. Not that any of their parents seem to be interested in protecting them, or are even around 90% of the time.

After a few deaths, two kids are left standing. Nancy (Rooney Mara, aka soon to be known as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and her friend Quentin (who's obviously a fan of Team Edward from his pastiness). They try to figure out who Freddy is and how they can destroy him, all without falling asleep.

I was looking forward to this even though I wasn't a big fan of the original. Having seen "Little Children" and "Watchmen" I thought Haley would be well-suited to playing the psychotic pedophile. And generally he's creepy and scary, but is he Freddy Krueger? Not really. He doesn't have the same panache as the Robert Englund version. Maybe some would say the original was kind of cheesy, but that's what made it enjoyable and helped it spawn eight sequels or so.

That's kind of the way it is with the movie in general. It would be an OK horror movie if taken on its own, but since it's called "Nightmare on Elm Street" there's a lot to live up to. The movie just doesn't.

BTW, I watched this after midnight, alone, in the dark and slept like a baby afterwards. So in my estimation, not that scary.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)
Metacritic score: 35/100 (1.5 stars)

Robin Hood (2010)

2010-09-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

They really should have called this "Robin Hood Begins." Essentially this is the same as a recent spate of "reimagined" origin stories like "Batman Begins" or "Casino Royale" or "Star Trek." Really only the first one of those worked for me; the other two strayed too far from the source material for me.

In this, Robin Longstrides (Russell Crowe) is a warrior with King Richard the "Lion Hearted" returning home from the Crusades. He has his buddy Will Scarlet with him and soon meets and befriends Little John as well. King Richard, Robin, and the others are ransacking French lands for the money and supplies needed to get back to England. But then during a battle Richard is killed.

Afterwards, Sir Robert Loxley, is taking the crown back to England when he's ambushed by the French and killed. Robin Longstrides and company drive off the attackers. Robert asks Robin to take his sword back to his father in Nottingham. So Robin takes Robert's clothes and steals his identity to get on board the ship to England. He gives the crown to the king's mother, who in turn crowns her son John. (It's been a few years before history class, but I thought you had more of a process than that.)

Then Robin and his band head up to Nottingham. There he meets Lady Marian (Cate Blanchett), Robert Loxley's wife. Robert's father is old, blind, and dying, so he asks Robin to pose as his son so that the king won't be able to take over the land. As you'd expect, Robin and Marian start to fall in love.

Meanwhile, John's most trusted adviser is plotting to stir up rebellion in order to deliver England to the French. The only way to stop him is for Robin, King John, and everyone else to band together. Since they aren't speaking French in England now, you can probably guess what happens.

This movie was not as boring as I feared, but it wasn't all that great either. The biggest mistake was director Ridley Scott casting his old buddy Russell Crowe in the lead. At 46, Crowe is too old to play a dashing outlaw, especially one at the start of his career. He's also too dour to be the charismatic ringleader of the Merry Men. From a practical standpoint it also doesn't make sense to cast someone that old because it sort of lessens the sequel potential.

On the plus side, at least the traditional elements were there: Robin, Little John, Marian, Friar Tuck, the Sheriff, King John, and so forth. Sherwood Forest doesn't really come into it until the end, though. At least though it wasn't like "Casino Royale" where they took out Q, most of the neat gadgets, and so forth that Bond pictures. So it's got that going for it.

The fight scenes are pretty reminiscent of Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Gladiator" which are both superior to this, though "Robin Hood" is more enjoyable on a popcorn level than "Kingdom of Heaven." There seem to be a couple points in the story where things are a bit rushed, especially at the end.

But overall, it's better than the Kevin Costner version. Which isn't saying much. I'd still rather watch "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 53/100 (2 stars)

Harry Brown

2010-09-19T17:20:00.001-07:00

If you've watched movies like "Death Wish" or "Gran Torino" then you pretty much already know how "Harry Brown" is going to play out. The only difference is that this vigilante movie is set in London instead of a US city like New York or Detroit or Chicago. But crime, gangs, and drugs are pretty much universal in any big city.

Harry Brown (Michael Caine) was a decorated Marine during fighting with Northern Ireland years ago. That was until he married his wife Cath, when he swore never to fight again. He settled down and they had a daughter who died at age 13--a fact you don't know unless you watch the deleted scenes.

In present day Harry is old and his wife is dying from cancer--another fact you don't really know unless you watch the deleted scenes; all you know in the regular movie is that she's dying. At the same time, his only friend Leonard is being harrassed by street punks led by the sadistic Noel.

Not long after Harry's wife dies, Leonard gets fed up and decides to confront Noel and the other punks. As you'd expect, this doesn't go well. Leonard is killed and Harry decides that he's going to take revenge on those responsible.

The rest of it pretty much goes according to formula. At least the film stays somewhat grounded in the real world in that Harry never becomes Jason Bourne, performing any gravity-defying stunts. At the same time, it never really strays too far from the safe and predictable. As I sort of indicated, some of the deeper stuff about the characters got cut from the theatrical version.

The actors probably deserved a script that took a few more chances, but it's not a terrible film either. If you liked "Gran Torino" then it's much the same, except no message about tolerance or anything.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 55/100 (2 stars)

The Ghost Writer

2010-08-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

This may come as a shock, but most books written by celebrities aren't really written by the celebrities themselves. They use what's known as a "ghost writer." The ghost writer does interviews with the subject celebrity, writes the manuscript, and then usually receives no credit for it--hence why they are called "ghosts."

When former British PM Adam Lang's ghost writer turns up dead on a beach from an apparent suicide, a British screenwriter (Ewan MacGregor, credited as "The Ghost" and come to think of it, I don't remember if he had a real name in the film. It's kind of like the assassin character in "Layer Cake" that way.) gets a call from his agent promising him $250,000 if he goes to Lang's New England compound to finish the book. Naturally he does this, though first he's mugged after being given another manuscript by a lawyer. (BTW, The Ghost's publisher is played by a very fat, very bald Jim Belushi. What the hell happened to him? He looked like he was trying out for a remake of "Kojack." Seriously.)

Things don't go much better once he gets to the compound. Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is under siege as a war crimes court is indicting him for turning over supposed terrorists to the CIA for torture. His head secretary Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall) keeps the place under very strict security, to the point where The Ghost isn't even supposed to use the Flash drive with the original manuscript on it. Lang's relationship with his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) is strained and you instantly suspect that A) Lang is fooling around with the secretary and B) Ruth is up to something. One of these is definitely true.

Once Lang goes off to Washington, The Ghost begins looking into what happened to his predecessor. Is it surprising anyone to say that it wasn't an accident? I mean, would there be a movie if it was an accident? OK, maybe, but not an interesting one.

That's about as far as I should go with the plot summary or else I might ruin the mystery. And really this is more of a mystery than a "thriller." There is a sort of chase that involves The Ghost dodging some goons on a ferry, but it's not like "The Bourne Identity" or anything. What disappointed me is that Lang isn't involved enough in the plot. He's there initially and then leaves for over half the movie, returning at the end. I thought there'd be more of a relationship and bonding between him and The Ghost. (Because, really, Pierce Brosnan is just awesome. Really, what hasn't he been great in, except maybe "Mars Attacks" and "Mama Mia"? Also, Ewan MacGregor is pretty awesome too. He was clearly the best thing going in the crappy "Star Wars" prequels and other movies like "Trainspotters" and "The Men Who Stare At Goats" are good too. So really, having those two guys playing off each other would have been great! Sadly, not enough was made of that opportunity.) Also, it was too obvious that Ruth was involved somehow, though I won't say how.

There's also the sort of creepy irony in that Lang has to stay in the United States out of fear of being extradited to the war crimes court by another country. The movie was co-written and directed by Roman Polanski, who inversely can't set foot in the United States because of a murder conviction, from which he fled many years ago. (This was recently in the news again when he was arrested in Switzerland, though ultimately not extradited to the US.) So by involving that with Lang, it almost seems like Polanski involving himself in the movie. How you feel about that might depend on how you feel about his legal situation. (I really have no opinion because most of that happened when I was a little kid.)

Anyway, it's still an interesting movie, though it drags a little. It's the kind of movie where even after everything seems wrapped up, you know there's got to be one more twist to it. It's also the kind of movie where you might want to watch it twice to see what clues you missed on the first time. I didn't, but I also didn't have time to watch a 2-hour-plus movie twice.

That is all.

My score: 65/100 (2.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 77/100 (3 stars)

The Joneses

2010-08-18T06:33:00.000-07:00

The old expression is that you shouldn't try to "Keep up with the Joneses." In the movie "The Joneses," however, a "stealth marketing" firm hopes that you will. In lieu of traditional advertising or even "viral marketing" like using YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, they go a step farther by planting a group of actors in an affluent neighborhood and setting them up with all sorts of trendy goods to plug.

The "family" is aptly named the Joneses. The movie begins when they arrive in a gated community in their new Audi and wearing fancy new clothes and so forth. Patriarch Steve (David Duchovny) is new to the game. His "wife" Kate (Demi Moore, looking hotter than she ever has before) is the old pro and Steve's boss. Their two teenaged "children" Nick and Jen are also old hands at this. (What I wondered is why they have two teenagers and not younger children. Shouldn't they have like 3-4 kids to hit on every age group? That probably would have been too messy in terms of the story.)

Basically how it works is that for a year the Jones clan pretend to be a family and show off all their high end goods to convince the people around them to buy that stuff. Nick and Jen infiltrate the local high school while Kate targets the hairdressers and Steve hits the links at the country club. By virtue that they all are very attractive and friendly and have really neat stuff, slowly everyone buys what they have and sales for those companies go up. They even have a "grandma" who stops by on occasion to break down numbers with them.

But soon things begin to unravel for the Joneses. Steve has trouble adapting to the concept of being a family while not being a family--he sleeps in a separate bedroom from Kate. She struggles with her feelings for Steve and that he starts to outperform her in the sales department. Nick has issues with a girl named Naomi whom he befriends--and her brother. And Jen has a problem in being attracted to older men, which includes Steve early on. There's also the problem of their neighbors Larry and Summer, who do try to keep up with the Joneses, much to their detriment.

I really liked this movie. It never seemed to drag throughout its 90 minute running time. The idea of rampant consumerism and our need to compete with each other is a good one, especially at this time of year with back to school sales followed by the XMas shopping season, which seems to go on forever anymore. But more than that, there's also a lesson on the meaning of family. While the Jones "family" starts off as a group of actors, by the end they start bonding like a real family.

So overall it's a fun movie and the kind that makes you think a little too. (And did I mention that Demi Moore looks really hot? And her "daughter" ain't hard on the eyes either. Yowza!)

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 55/100 (2 stars)

Creation

2010-08-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

I remember a couple years ago when the movie "21" came out I thought it was OK, but it was too fictionalized. The History Channel documentary about the real group of MIT students who learned how to fleece Vegas by counting cards was a lot more interesting because it was real instead of Hollywood-ized with cheesy plot twists and romances and stuff. The same could be said of "Creation" where a biography of Charles Darwin would be a lot more satisfying because it wouldn't be as Hollywood-ized.

"Creation" doesn't focus on Darwin's entire life. Mostly it focuses on when he's writing his blockbuster book "The Origin of Species." For someone who changed the way many people see the world, Darwin was not a social crusader. He was a shy, nerdy guy who lived in the English countryside with his many children and his wife Emma. While Darwin is a scientist and has lost his faith in God, his wife is very religious.

As he begins his book, Darwin is beset with physical and mental problems. His body is failing him with tremors and fevers. At the same time he's haunted--literally--by the death of his daughter Annie, who shared Darwin's love of science.

Of course it's a foregone conclusion that Darwin writes his book and it's published. How he manages to do this requires some pre-Freudian psychiatric help.

Anyway, as I said in the beginning, a documentary on Darwin would probably be more interesting and insightful. Whether you believe in Creationism or evolution, there's not really anything here that will challenge your beliefs either way. The story focuses mostly on Darwin getting his groove back, which is a shame because there's so much more depth and importance to his story and his work.

Paul Bettany does a good job though of presenting Darwin as a man who changed the world but didn't really want to. His real life wife (as of the writing of this) Jennifer Connelly isn't given much to do as his wife except occasionally to question him.

Overall I'd say this is one you can miss.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)
Metacritic score: 51/100 (2 stars)

Kick-Ass

2010-08-08T12:41:00.001-07:00

I had some reservations about this movie after reading Ebert's review of it when it first came out. Overall, though, it wasn't bad. It is violent and sometimes gory--like when someone's leg gets cut off with some kind of spear thing--so you really don't want your young kids seeing it. Mostly it works best if you consider it a parody of overly violent comic books/graphic novels that have cropped up in the last 30 years or so.

When it starts out Dave is pretty much like Peter Parker in the first Spider-Man movie, only with average intelligence. After getting mugged (again) he decides to buy a wetsuit and somehow gets some batons and decides to go out and fight crime. Though you'd think that a comic book fan would realize you can't just go put on a costume and fight crime, not unless you're an alien (Superman) or in some freak accident (90% of Marvel heroes). Or maybe if you get doped up on steroids (Captain America) or undergo years of ninja training (Batman) or find a suit of magic armor (like this).

But he doesn't, so naturally he gets his butt kicked. Still, after he manages to drive off some gang members and it's caught on video, he becomes an Internet sensation. This annoys a real superhero calling himself Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) who's been a lot smarter about it by keeping on the down low while training his young daughter Mindy how to be a deadly ninja assassin called Hit Girl. Big Daddy's been trying to knock off a gangster who put him in jail years ago and operates a lumber business.

Things get more dangerous for Dave when the gangster wrongly thinks that Kick-Ass is responsible for a raid on his operation that was in fact carried out by Big Daddy. The gangster's son (the McLovin kid from Superbad) sets a trap by becoming a "hero" called Red Mist.

It all becomes your typical over-the-top comic book-type story from there. Again, if you don't take this very seriously then it's fine. For instance, the Hit Girl character pretty well illustrates the creepiness of kid sidekicks. I mean, do you really want a bunch of prepubescent ninja assassins running around? That scares the hell out of me.

Otherwise the only real complaint would be that Nicolas Cage sucks up another superhero movie after the terrible "Ghost Rider." The cheesy child molester mustache is bad enough, but then in Big Daddy mode he does his Adam West impersonation as well. It would have made more sense to impersonate more modern Batmen like Michael Keaton or Christian Bale--not George Clooney.

Basically if you're a comics fan or superhero movie fan then this is pretty entertaining. In some ways not as good as the Woody Harrellson vehicle "Defendor" I previously reviewed, though the effects are probably a little better.

That is all.

My score: 65/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 66/100 (2.5 stars)

Chloe

2010-07-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

The basic conceit behind "Chloe" isn't all that original. Catherine (Julianne Moore) thinks that her husband David (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her. She has reason to think this after David blows off a flight from New York back to Toronto for his surprise birthday party and the next morning Catherine sees a message on his phone from an attractive young student signed "XXOO" which of course means hugs and kisses. Instead of just confronting him about the phone message, Catherine decides to set a trap for David and catch him in the act. She meets a prostitute named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) in the bathroom of a hotel and sees her later on the street. Eventually she hires Chloe to seduce David and thus get the goods on him. This concept is so shopworn that it was used last year in the Mike Judge comedy "Extract."

If that's where the movie had stayed it probably would have been pretty dull. Instead, Catherine gets a lot more than she bargained for in Chloe. As Chloe tells her about the various things she's doing with David, Catherine finds herself getting turned on and maybe wanting Chloe to do a few of these things to her as well. And Chloe is more than willing to do this. So the story becomes about this bizarre relationship between Catherine, Chloe, and Chloe's family.

There's of course a surprise twist at the end that changes everything. I won't ruin that. I thought overall this was a very taut thriller and I couldn't exactly see what was coming before it happened, which is always a good thing for a suspense movie. And to put on my sexist male hat for a moment, it has one of the hottest girl-on-girl scenes in a non-porn movie since "Mulholland Drive." (Yeah, really, crucify me for enjoying that.)

Overall, a riveting story with great actors and some steamy love scenes. If you're an adult, what's not to like? (And the band Chloe mentions, Raised by Swans, is good too. I actually bought an album off Amazon and liked it. So there you go.)

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score: 48/100 (2 stars)

Greenberg

2010-07-17T06:44:00.001-07:00

When you think of Ben Stiller, you think of slapstick comedies like "Meet the Parents," "Tropic Thunder," and "Zoolander." This probably explains why there are so many negative reviews on Blockbuster's website complaining that his latest film "Greenberg" is too slow and boring. So it's important to say that while this is a comedy and it stars Ben Stiller, it isn't a Ben Stiller comedy.

Rather, "Greenberg" is far more for grown ups than "Grown Ups." The movie centers around Roger Greenberg (Stiller) who's recently been released from a mental hospital after a nervous breakdown brought on by anxiety. His brother is taking his family on vacation in Vietnam for six weeks and asks Roger to look after the house. He's not alone in this as there's also his brother's assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig) who is also an aspiring singer.

It doesn't take long for Roger and Florence to hook up, but Roger quickly sabotages the relationship as he's pretty much sabotaged every relationship in his life. And that's really the whole point of the movie. Here we have a 41-year-old guy who's alienated most everyone in his life due to his own neuroses and probably a fear of intimacy. Can he finally get his [stuff] together to make things work with Florence? We shall see.

Or at least some people will see. Those who are expecting cheap and easy laughs like "Meet the Parents" probably shouldn't see this. If you're an adult who likes quirky comedies like "Punch Drunk Love," where Adam Sandler similarly toned down the hamboneness, then you'll probably enjoy this.

That is all.

My score: 85/100 (3.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 76/100 (3 stars)

The Messenger (2009)

2010-06-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

There's a show on TLC or Discovery Channel or one of those called "Dirty Jobs" where the host spends a day doing various jobs most of us would balk at like cleaning up after pigs, going into sewers, and so forth. One job you'll never see him do is also one of the dirtiest jobs imaginable: informing a soldier's family about his/her death.

This is the dirty job assigned to Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) when he returns from Iraq after being wounded in a fire fight. Though Will really doesn't want to do the job, he doesn't have much choice about it. So off he goes with Lt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to deliver the bad news to a soldier's family. Stone gives him the rules, such as they park a block or so away so the family can't see them pulling up, they don't wait around for next of kin to appear, and they never EVER touch the next of kin.

The first time he delivers the bad news himself, Will is nearly attacked by a grieving father (Steve Buscemi) but keeps his cool. The next time around he and Stone visit the house of a woman named Olivia, who seems to take the news far better, which is actually creepier when you think about it. When someone gets this kind of news you expect them to be angry or start screaming, not to thank you and keep folding the laundry.

Will finds himself drawn back to Olivia and starts helping her fix up the old car and taking care of things around the house. If this were a Nicholas Sparks-type romance they'd fall madly in love, making out on some secluded beach and going back to her place to do more than that. Instead, "The Messenger" remains grounded more in the real world, where both Will and Olivia have trouble coming to grips with the traumas in their lives. This doesn't make for happy viewing, but it does make for more thought-provoking viewing. (Though I thought the scene between them in the kitchen goes on for an uncomfortably long time.)

Besides this there's also a burgeoning friendship between Will and Stone. It's not because they have much in common other than their job so much as they both don't really have anyone else. Their friendship culminates in a drunken escapade that they're very lucky doesn't land them in the stockade.

When I watched "Brothers" I commented that someday someone would make a really good movie about soldiers coming home from Afghanistan. With "The Messenger" I think we're far closer to that. It's a little slow and it's definitely not happy, but at the end of the day it reminds you that the horrors of war aren't limited merely to the battlefield.

That is all.

My score: 87/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 78/100 (3 stars)

Defendor

2010-06-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

You probably haven't heard of this movie. I don't think it had a major theatrical release. I just heard about it as a preview for another movie and decided to put it on my queue to watch. You can get it through Blockbuster or maybe Netflix.

Anyway, in the last decade superhero movies were an in thing and a sub-genre of these is the sort of Don Quixote-type story where an amateur nut decides to go out and try being a superhero. A recent American one in this vein is "Kick-Ass." A slightly older Japanese variation is called "Zebraman." The latter starts off interesting and then gets kind of crazy. The former from the reviews sounds gory and morally questionable.

"Defendor" strikes a balance between these. There's not really any gore and we're not talking about a 12-year-old getting beat up, so that's good. At the same time, the story remains in the ballpark of sanity, which is also a benefit.

As you might have guessed, this is the story of a construction worker named Arthur (Woody Harrellson) who was abandoned as a child and is a little slow. His mom died from using drugs, so he decides to dress up in a helmet, black sweater, and painted-on mask with a duct tape 'D' on his chest as the hero Defendor to find Captain Industry, who he thinks is responsible. For weapons he uses his grandfather's trench club from World War I, marbles, and jars of live wasps.

On his first night he interrupts a dirty undercover cop as he's trying to get a little freebie from a junkie/hooker named Kat (Kat Denning). Kat comes to live with Arthur and gives him information about a Serbian drug dealer that Arthur things is Captain Industry.

Arthur's bumbling attempts to get the goods on the drug dealer lead him to get beat up, shot by a paintball gun, and ultimately arrested. The judge orders him analyzed by a doctor (Sandra Oh) who feels for Arthur. While he's in jail and being analyzed, Arthur also becomes a real hero to the people of the city.

But can a fake hero really take out real criminals? Tune in same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

I thought this was a pretty fun movie. Of course I was predisposed to like this movie since I wrote a story along similar lines a few years ago. Still, Arthur is a sympathetic character and you can't help rooting for him even if he is probably insane. I mean he's sort of like if Forrest Gump decided to put on some tights and fight crime. And as I said, there's not really any gore or graphic violence.

Overall, if you like superhero movies, this isn't a bad one.

(And if you like superhero stories, this isn't bad either.)

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Crazy Heart

2010-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, the glorious life of a professional musician. A little over a week ago I was at a show for a folk singer at a cafe, the kind of place so small they had to move tables aside so people could see the stage. There were maybe a dozen people or so, some of whom probably hadn't even shown up for the concert but just wandered in for a drink. I can't imagine the performers got paid much more than gas money for the gig.

"Crazy Heart" is the story of another such performer: Bad Blake, a country & western singer from the Hank Williams school, long before the more commercial, glitzy acts like Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood and so forth. Bad's best days are long behind him. He's 57, broke, an alcoholic with four ex-wives and at least one ex-son.

When we meet Bad he's driving his old Suburban into a bowling alley in Pueblo, New Mexico, where he plays for a dozen or so patrons, mostly older folks. After the set he goes back to the motel wit one of those older folks for a little nightcap.

That pretty much summarizes Bad's life for the last couple of decades. He continues to Santa Fe, where a local reporter named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) wants to interview him. Jean has at least one ex-husband and a young son named Buddy. Though she should no better, she can't resist Bad and soon they're doing more than just interviews.

Bad still has some friends in the music business, especially his protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell, because who else would you cast to play a country singer but an Irishman?) who wants Bad to write some songs for him--if Bad can sober up long enough to write anything down.

I spent most of the movie waiting for bad things to happen to Bad. There's a car accident and he loses Jean's son in a mall. Other than that, nothing too bad happens to Bad. The movie makes sobering up and turning your life around seems like you could do it in about a week if you feel like it.

I couldn't help thinking of a line from Bret Easton Ellis' new novel Imperial Bedrooms:

He had to be punished for all of his sins. That's what the movie demanded. (Later, as a screenwriter, I learned it's what all movies demanded.)

I think in this case that's certainly what I was demanding. Instead, Bad seems almost rewarded for his lifetime of sins. All we needed was for the son to show up and give him a hug in a tearful reunion. (Is it a spoiler if I tell you what doesn't happen?)

Overall the first 90 minutes or so are good. It's the last 20 or so where it falls down in trying to make redemption seem so easy. I think someone once said nothing worth having is ever won cheaply. That should be especially true for your soul.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 83/100 (3.5 stars)

Iron Man 2

2010-05-31T14:55:00.001-07:00

I waited three weeks to finally see this because the prevailing opinion I got from professional reviewers and amateur ones was that this was OK, but not as good as the first one. On the whole I'd agree with that assessment. "Iron Man 2" doesn't embarrass itself like, say, "Batman and Robin" but it isn't in the same league as "The Dark Knight" or even "Spider-Man 2." Basically it's just a mediocre sequel that's enjoyable but doesn't add a whole lot.

When last we saw billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. who has bucked traditional wisdom and thanks to CGI become an action star in his mid-40s) he was revealing to the world that he is Iron Man, pretty much so the director could cue the "I Am Iron Man" song. Anyway, now that he's made this admission, he finds out why the other superheroes keep their identities secret. First off, the government (led by a chubby Gary Shandling) wants the Iron Man technology. Second, a bitter ex-physicist in Russia named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) starts work on his own arc reactor so he can take revenge on Stark, whose father stole the arc reactor technology from Vanko's father--supposedly.

On top of all of this, Tony is dying because the mini-arc reactor keeping shrapnel from piercing his heart is poisoning his blood. He decides to foist the daily running of his company to his loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and takes to drinking and acting erratically to while out the end of his days.

This includes taking over for the driver of his Indy car in a race in Monaco. There as you've probably seen from the commercials, he runs into Vanko, who uses some kind of crazy electrical whips to blow up Tony's car. After Tony stops him and they have their little "Dark Knight"-style jail confrontation, Vanko is sprung by a competitor from Tony's so that he can use his skills for evil.

After that, it's on.

The movie's about two hours long and it feels like it at parts. Besides Vanko there are some other new characters. Some like Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) might show up in future Marvel superheroes movies like the "Avengers" movie in the works for 2012 or so. As a result, some characters like Pepper Potts seem to get less time than in the first one.

Anyway, I already said at the beginning of my review this was OK but not great. On the whole it's enjoyable enough, with the same blend of humor and action as in the first one. Still, it doesn't really add much depth to the characters to make it a really good sequel. You'll get your money's worth, but it's not anything you'll really remember much after you leave the theater.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 57/100 (2 stars)

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

2010-05-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

I watched this in my hotel room in Toronto while on vacation, so obviously I didn't see it with all the 3D bells and whistles. Which if you think about it is how most people will see it when it comes out soon on DVD, unless you have one of those new 3D TVs.

Anyway, after watching this I realized why this movie seemed so familiar--because it was pretty similar to Disney's Narnia franchise. Really you could have called this "Alice, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It follows roughly the same plot, only Alice goes down a rabbit hole instead of through a wardrobe. She ends up in a magic world where animals talk that's ruled by a wicked queen--the Red Queen. And of course before you can say "Keanu Reeves" Alice becomes The One who has to save Wonderland from the Red Queen and her main monster the Jabberwocky. Replace Wonderland with Narnia, the Red Queen with the White Witch, and Alice with the four kids and you have "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." Though there isn't so much obvious Christian symbolism in "Alice" which is good or bad depending on your point of view.

If you saw Disney's animated "Alice in Wonderland" back in the day, this is supposed to be a kind of sequel. Basically it takes place 13 years after Alice originally went to Wonderland, which she thought was just a dream. This comes when her boring boyfriend proposes to her in front of a snobby audience. Alice with her father's whimsical spirit decides instead to light out after the white rabbit and ends up going down the hole.

Because I didn't have the 3D and because the plot seemed so familiar, I didn't really love this movie. It wasn't terrible and at least not as trippy as the original Disney version, but it wasn't great either. I read the Alice books way back in grade school, but I don't remember them well enough to compare them to this movie. There are probably some similarities. One probable change is that since they spent millions to get Johnny Depp for the Mad Hatter, they had to give him a more significant and sympathetic role. What was really missing was some kind of love interest for Alice, though maybe in the sequels she could hook up with the Mad Hatter.

Anyway, as I said this isn't a bad movie. (The worst part is Avril Lavigne caterwauling the theme song at the end.) It should be an enjoyable family rental even without the 3D. Or you could watch it in a hotel room like I did.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 53 (2 stars)

The Merry Gentleman

2010-04-09T18:18:00.001-07:00

You might never have heard of this movie because I don't think it was every in wide release. It does help answer the question, "Whatever happened to Michael Keaton?" Since the Batman movies in the early 90s he's been in a few movies like "Jack Frost," "White Noise," and whatever the Lindsey Lohan Love Bug movie was called but nothing really major. Someone could have started a death hoax on Twitter and it wouldn't have really surprised me because I hadn't really seen him in anything in so long.

In this case Keaton directs and stars in "The Merry Gentleman" as a hitman who like most hitmen in movies is starting to regret his choice of careers. After completing an assignment to kill some old guy--who or why is never really said--he stands on the ledge of the building and contemplates jumping. That is until Kate (Kelly MacDonald of "No Country for Old Men" and "Choke") sees him and screams, startling him so that he tumbles back safely.

Kate has recently come to Chicago from New York or some place like that after her husband gave her a black eye, which was probably the latest in a series of black eyes. She's starting her life over again and has guys practically throwing themselves at her. There's a guy at the office XMas party and one of the cops who investigates the murder of the guy Frank killed. A dinner between the cop and Kate goes horribly wrong because she doesn't realize that he's making a move on her.

On the way home from this disastrous meeting, Kate decides to buy an XMas tree. Unfortunately the tree is bigger than her, so that she has a terrible time getting up the stairs, until Frank shows up to help her with it. In turn, Kate takes Frank the hospital when he passes out from pneumonia probably caused from too many cold Chicago nights on rooftops waiting to shoot people.

Naturally they begin to spend more time with each other, but things are bound to get complicated.

Don't get the wrong idea that this is a romantic comedy or even romantic in any way. If there was any kissing it was pretty brief and there's no sex at all. When Frank and Kate are hanging out they hardly say anything to each other because they're both keeping so much from each other.

That's the overriding problem with the movie. It becomes frustrating because there's so much left unsaid and so much more that you'd like to know about Frank and Kate. The way it ends was particularly unsatisfying. Not that I necessarily want them to end kissing against the setting sun, but something a little more concrete would have been nice.

Overall this isn't a bad movie, but there's too much missing for it to be a great movie either.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 55/100 (2 stars)

An Education

2010-03-31T18:55:00.001-07:00

The old expression is that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. This holds especially true in love. When 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is offered a ride home in the rain by the much-older David (Peter Sarsgaard) she is instantly smitten. David has a sports car, he likes music, books, films, art, and all the other things that a wanna-be worldly girl like Jenny wants in a man.

It doesn’t take long for David to not only seduce Jenny but her parents as well. Her father (Alfred Molina) is almost as impressed with David’s knowledge as Jenny. He’s especially impressed that David seems to be rich and connected to famous people like CS Lewis. So with little prompting he allows Jenny to spend weekends with David unchaperoned, including a trip to Paris.

Even after Jenny learns some dark secrets about David, she decides to stay with him because he’s the cure to her life of constant studying Latin and Victorian literature to try and get into Oxford. Her teachers try to dissuade her when she starts getting in too deep, but Jenny shucks this off as jealousy.

This is all a good setup for a mature and thoughtful romance. It’s too bad the final act takes a predictable turn. It would have been nice if the movie had tried to think outside the box a little bit more in resolving the relationship between Jenny and David. Instead it falls back on a cliché like so many movies do.

The title "An Education" has a double meaning. First there's the issue of education in Jenny's father's relentless quest to get her into Oxford. What Jenny starts to wonder after spending time with David is what's the point of this education if she's going to end up lonely and bored like her teachers? (This taking place in 1961 there weren't many other opportunities for young women like her.) The title also refers to the education Jenny receives about life from her relationship with David. That is perhaps far more important.

Carey Mulligan does a great job of portraying the vulnerable and naïve young girl who like so many before her thinks she knows far more than she does. Peter Sarsgaard (born in Illinois) does a good job at portraying an older British guy without coming across like a creep.

Overall this was another movie like “500 Days of Summer” also from last year that’s a romantic movie but isn’t your traditional romance. If you want that you could go watch “The Last Song” or some other Nicholas Sparks tripe.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)
Metacritic score 85/100 (3.5 stars)

Brothers

2010-03-28T10:20:00.001-07:00

In years to come there will probably be a better movie about soldiers returning home after the war in Afghanistan. Until then there's "Brothers" a melodramatic look at what happens when a soldier returns from the dead.

That soldier is Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire). He has a wife Grace (Natalie Portman) and two young daughters. He also as the title suggests has a brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who was just released from prison for holding up a bank or something. While Tommy is trying to get back on his feet, Sam is sent for another tour in Afghanistan.

Not long after getting there, his helicopter is shot down. He's presumed dead. It's not giving away anything to say that he doesn't die. Instead, he's captured by the Taliban or some facsimile thereof. Meanwhile, Tommy gets a job as a contractor and decides to help Grace by remodeling her kitchen. He becomes closer to Grace and her children in the process though they don't go so far as sleeping with each other.

Meanwhile, Sam and a fellow soldier Joe Willis are being tortured. Willis cracks first, making one of those silly videos where he condemns America. When Sam breaks he does something far more horrific.

Again, probably not spoiling anything to say Sam is rescued and returned to America. I mean, that was the whole point of the movie. The problem then is Sam has trouble fitting back into normal life with his family and society in general. He also has to reconcile the things that he did in Afghanistan. Making it more awkward is that Grace and especially her kids have come to rely on Tommy.

Eventually it all boils down to an All-Star freak out by Sam that you could see coming from two miles away. Again, this isn't a great movie. It spends too long getting the pieces into place and not enough with them afterward. The whole thing is a little predictable and melodramatic. As I said at the beginning, someone will probably make a better movie on this subject in years to come.

Though it might be unintentional, the movie does highlight an important issue, which is that we in this country do a lousy job with our returning soldiers. We bring them home and just throw them to the wolves without much in the way of psychological care. This leads to problems down the road in the way of suicides and murders. You'd think after Vietnam we would have learned a lesson, but this isn't really the case. Soldiers, especially those who have done and seen terrible things like Sam in the movie, should be given help to readjust to normal life.

That is all.

(BTW, this movie is based on a Danish movie from 2004, which I'm willing to bet is better in terms of less melodrama.)

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 58/100 (2 stars)

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2010-03-26T21:40:00.001-07:00

It's refreshing to watch a movie intended for kids and adults that doesn't need to rely on a gimmick like 3D. Instead, this is an old school movie that relies on puppets to tell its story, which is loosely based on a story by Roald Dahl, the guy behind "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "James and the Giant Peach," and others.

As you'd guess from the title, the story involves Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) and his wife (voiced by Meryl Streep). After getting stuck in a cage, Mrs. Fox confesses that she's pregnant and makes Mr. Fox promise that if they get out alive that he'll stop stealing chickens and do something respectable.

When they do survive, Mr. Fox goes straight for 2 years (12 fox-years) by becoming a reporter with the local newspaper. He and Mrs. Fox move into a burrow with their son Ash. All seems right with the world.

Except that Mr. Fox has an itch to get back to his old ways. He starts by buying a tree to live in, which gives him a great view of the farms of Mr. Boggis, Mr. Bean, and Mr. Bunce. There's a rhyme about them saying that one is fat one is short and one is lean but they're all equally mean. With the help of Kylie the possum, Mr. Fox steals chickens, geese, and alcoholic cider from the farmers. He hides all of this from his wife so that she thinks he's still on the straight and narrow.

But Mr. Fox's actions have unexpected consequences when it creates total war between the human farmers and the animals living around them. It will take far more than one fox's cunning to save the day.

The movie is about as good as anything Pixar has put out. It's a fun little romp that both kids and adults can enjoy. And as I said at the beginning it doesn't require state-of-the-art computer animation or 3D glasses. Nor does it need the gross-out humor movies like the "Shrek" franchise employ.

The puppetry looks a little odd and it really isn't all that great when lots of motion is needed. Still, as someone who used to enjoy the Muppets it didn't really bother me. And I never knew foxes were so good at digging. I learned something.

Probably when you're thinking of someone to create a movie like this, the creator of "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums," and "The Life Aquatic" isn't going to be your first choice. And yet Wes Anderson manages to pull it off as well as Tim Burton and company did for "Nightmare Before Christmas."

This is a good rental for the whole family.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 83/100 (3.5 stars)

The Men Who Stare At Goats

2010-03-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago in this galaxy, the US Army ran a short-lived program to use alternative methods to train psychic soldiers known as "Jedi warriors" after the Star Wars films. The program was headed by a man named Bill (Jeff Bridges, the 2009 role that didn't win him an Oscar) who traveled around California picking up various New Age techniques. The goal was that these Jedi warriors could be used to peaceably solve situations. Bill brought into the fold young soldiers like Len (George Clooney) and trained them to use their minds to find people in distant lands, become invisible, and walk through walls. (These were only moderately successful.) It was when the program brought in Larry (Kevin Spacey) that things took a turn for the worst. Larry wanted to turn the Jedi to the dark side by using their powers offensively. As the title suggests, they could stop the beating heart of a goat simply by staring at it.

This is what a young reporter named Bob (Ewan McGregor) uncovers in 2003 in Iraq. Back in his native Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bob encountered a former member of the program, who seems like a crackpot. It isn't until after Bob finds out his wife is cheating on him and he signs up to report on the war in Iraq that Bob runs into Len and decides to go with him into Iraq for a secret mission.

The mission leads them to several dangerous situations, including criminals, terrorists, and bumbling American security contractors. Ultimately Bob grows as a person while uncovering his true purpose in life.

How much of the Jedi program is bunk is left up to you to decide. Certainly in the Iraq scenes most of their "powers" seem like pure crap. In earlier scenes taking place in the early 80s, Len seemingly has the ability to find a missing person in Italy from a couch in America and to stop a goat's heart. But did he really? Who knows.

Naturally this movie isn't as well made as the Oscar-winning Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker." It takes a more darkly humorous slant of things, especially when Len and Bob are picked up by the security contractors. Seeing them in action it's no surprise that so many Iraqis turned against American forces there. The movie wasn't quite as funny as I thought it would be from the previews, but it wasn't terrible either.

What I think it could have used was to be a little bit longer than its 90 minute running time. That way it could have explored the subjects and characters a bit more fully. As it is, most of the movie is spent just getting all of the characters together in the same room. By the time that's done, there was very little time for them to do much.

This is the second movie I've seen on remote viewing. The first was a thriller from a few years ago called "Suspect Zero" starring Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart. That focused simply on the remote viewing program, where a "psychic" would see and draw a distant scene. If you think this is pure imagination you're wrong. I remember seeing a special on TV about this on Nat Geo or History or TLC or one of those channels about this. It was pretty interesting when the reporter actually tested one of the "psychics" and he passed the test.

In a deleted scene for this movie, Bill teaches his men the martial art aikido. This actually happened. Years ago on a dare I bought a book called "In Search of the Warrior Spirit" that described a similar army program to train soldiers in aikido and other martial arts in the late 80s. The program was abandoned, but as you can see, there is definitely some truth to this stuff.

Overall, this isn't bad for a rental, especially if you're interested in the paranormal.

BTW, do you suppose they cast Ewan McGregor purely for the ironic value of having the guy who played Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels in a movie about "Jedi Warriors?"

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 54/100 (2 stars)

Lesbian Vampire Killers

2010-03-22T12:04:00.001-07:00

(The title for the American release was actually watered down to the more generic "Vampire Killers.")

This movie is like "Snakes On a Plane" or "Hot Tub Time Machine" in that the title succinctly summarizes what you'll get. Though to make it clear, it's about killing lesbian vampires, not people who are lesbians and kill vampires. But "Killers of Lesbian Vampires" while more accurate lacks the same panache.

At any rate there was no way I could resist watching a movie called "Lesbian Vampire Killers" any more than I could resist watching "Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter" a few years ago. The latter is an extremely cheesy movie made on a shoestring budget where the title also tells you exactly what you're getting: the Son of God fighting vampires who were stalking lesbians. (For some reason makers of cheesy vampire movies are drawn to lesbians.)

What surprised me is that this movie is actually from the UK and also that it's not as cheesy and cheap as JCVH either. Granted it's not "Avatar" in terms of effects either, but it doesn't look completely homemade. The closest comparison you could make would be "Shaun of the Dead" only with lesbian vampires instead of zombies. In both cases we have an average British guy paired with his chubby friend.

The average guy is named Jimmy and his chubby friend is named Fletch. Jimmy has just been dumped (yet again) by his girlfriend while Fletch has just been fired from his clowning gig for punching a kid--yet again. With the two of them at loose ends they decide to go on holiday. But Jimmy's money is tied up in his ex-girlfriend's car and Fletch has no money, so they throw a dart in a pub and decide to go to the town of Chagwich to hike. Chagwich is of course terribly creepy, but it's made better by the presence of four young women who are there to study the town's folklore.

That folklore would consist of a queen of vampires who has placed a curse on the town so whenever a girl turns 18 she becomes a lesbian vampire. Only the descendant of a baron who defeated the queen previously can end the curse. Guess who that is?

Jimmy, Fletch, and the girls head through the forest to an even creepier cottage and from there the vampire killing begins. Like in "Shaun of the Dead" the guys are not exactly experts when it comes to lesbian vampire killing. They're helped though by a vicar in the town who is trying to end the curse before his daughter's 18th birthday.

The movie was pretty fun in terms of B-movie horror films. Obviously it wouldn't win any awards for cinematic achievement, but what else do you expect from a movie called "Lesbian Vampire Killers?" Best of all is that the film doesn't take itself too seriously with characters (especially Fletch) pointing out the ridiculousness of it all.

Basically I'd say if you liked "Shaun of the Dead" then you'd probably like this one too. Though from a misogynistic point of view I would have liked some more boobs and more than lesbian kissing, if you catch my drift.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

The Box

2010-03-18T08:16:00.001-07:00

This movie is based on a short story by Richard Matheson. Matheson is perhaps best known as one of the main writers for the original "Twilight Zone" series. I might be wrong, but I think Matheson along with Charles Beaumont and creator Rod Serling wrote the bulk of the original 162 episodes. At any rate, Matheson's story for "The Box" would probably have worked better as a 30-minute TZ episode than a nearly two hour film.

The movie focuses on the Lewis family in Virginia in 1976. (Why 1976? I have no idea.) Patriarch Arthur (James Marsden) is a scientist at NASA who built a camera for the Viking rover and dreams of being an astronaut. Wife Norma (Cameron Diaz) is an English teacher at a private school, whose right foot was maimed in a terrible accident. Their son Walter is a student at the private school.

Then one day a man with a burned face shows up calling himself Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) and leaves a mysterious box on the Lewis' doorstep. The wooden box has a button on the top of it that is protected by a glass dome, which is locked. Steward returns later to give the key to Norma and to present her with the worst game of "Let's Make A Deal" ever. If she pushes the button she will receive a million bucks in cash. But the catch is that someone she doesn't know will die. Or she can refuse and take a mere $100 for her participation in the experiment.

Norma initially is reluctant, but when she learns that the school is cutting Walter's free tuition and that Arthur was passed over for the astronaut program, she changes her mind. I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that she pushes the button. If she didn't what would be the point of the movie?

This of course results in complications and an even crueler "experiment" to bring things full circle. I don't want to say much more than that so as not to spoil the plot.

Writer/director Richard Kelly earned fame for "Donnie Darko" a movie that generally people either love or loathe. I am in the former category. I thought "Donnie" was a great, dark coming of age tale mixed with creepiness, suspense, and just general weirdness. What actually ruined "Donnie" for me was reading the FAQ on IMDB that explains the movie; it was much more fun to BS about what everything meant.

With "The Box" Kelly employs the same tactics. There's a lot of weird stuff that happens and not a lot of it seems to make sense. People's noses start bleeding, there's a creepy kid in Norma's class who later shows up at a wedding reception, and zombie-like people shambling around following Norma and Arthur at times. Unlike "Donnie" this seemed to make more sense after it was over. If you want a hint, think of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Legion." (Which one of those is more correct would probably depend on your religious beliefs.)

I didn't really like the movie as I was watching it. It was slow and dull and after nearly two hours I was more than ready for it to just get to the punchline. What made it better for me was thinking about it after it was over. At first the experiment didn't seem to make sense because on one hand it seems to show that people are greedy and on the other that they're noble and capable of sacrifice. It would seem to be a wash then. Thinking about it some more, I decided what it really shows is that humans are capable of redemption, so that while Norma pushes the button and causes someone to die, she is also capable of atoning for this. If I watched this a second time I'd probably like it better--so long as I don't read any IMDB FAQs.

It certainly is better than Kelly's previous film "Southland Tales" but that's like saying Ben Affleck's latest performance is better than "Gigli"--there was nowhere to go but up! As I said at the beginning, this probably would have worked better as a 30-minute or even 60-minute "Twilight Zone" episode, but not 115 minutes. There is actually a "Twilight Zone" about a box three bumbling criminals finds that takes pictures of the future. As with many TZ episodes this leads to catastrophic consequences. I can't remember if that was a Matheson episode or not. Watching that again would be more enjoyable than sitting through "The Box" again.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 47/100 (2 stars)

Capitalism: A Love Story

2010-03-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

The simple way to describe this movie: This is vintage Michael Moore from "Roger & Me" and his hilarious, though short-lived television series "TV Nation."

That was great for me, because Moore in recent years had fallen out of favor with me. I just didn't like "Bowling for Columbine." The message of the film seemed muddled to me and I didn't approve of ambushing frail celebrities Dick Clark and Charlton Heston--one is dead and the other had a debilitating stroke since that movie, which brings to mind the old adage: pick on someone your own size--or age group.

Anyway, the economic "crisis" of 2008 provided great fodder for Moore to get back to his roots of expounding on the evils of corporate America. In typical Moore fashion it involves a scattershot approach and a couple sequences of him being run out of buildings by security guards. At least no elderly celebrities were ambushed.

Since this is a "documentary" (though with Moore that's used very loosely) there's no point trying to describe the "plot." As I said, Moore uses his scattershot approach to explore different aspects of the hold capitalism has on our lives and our government. He features families being evicted, priests speaking out against capitalism, a sit down strike in Chicago, and a look at the political maneuvering that resulted in the big "bailout" of Wall Street--among other things.

Moore made a couple of great points here.

I'm glad someone finally said this: the reason America experienced such great prosperity after WWII is that all of our rivals in the industrial world had been leveled. It's easy to win the race when everyone else is lying on the ground. It wasn't American pluck, grit, hard work, determination, brains, or anything else we like to attribute it to. Mostly it was geography that we were isolated from most of the front line fighting (except for Pearl Harbor and parts of Alaska) and were sitting on a jackpot of natural resources--many of which we have since squandered, like oil.
During WWII, FDR was working on a "Second Bill of Rights" that included the right for every American to have a job that paid enough to live on, affordable housing, universal health care (sound familiar?), and a paid vacation. All of these things came to pass: in the nations we defeated. Why? Because FDR's advisers were the ones who helped write the constitutions of Germany, Japan, and Italy, also known as those evil "socialists" who overtook our automotive industry.
Wall Street is the biggest, most lucrative casino in the world. Nothing is more evidence of this than "derivatives" the financial instruments that allow companies to "bet" on just about any outcome. Don't ask me to explain how it works--or anyone else either.
Our government is owned by Wall Street fat cats. This was evidenced by the fact the "bailout" was passed a second time after going down in defeat when millions of Americans demanded it to fail. As well, officers of Goldman Sachs were and are holding key positions of power within the Federal regulatory system. Hank Paulsen, the head of the Treasury who wanted the bailout was also a former Goldman Sachs employee. Gee, why would he be so eager to bail them out? As well, Countrywide, one of the biggest contributors to the housing bubble that burst made special loans to a large number of government employees. The FBI was onto a lot of this well before it happened, but many of its white collar crime officers were conveniently transferred to other units in the wake of 9/11 and Iraq.
YOU can make a difference. The Chicago sit down strike was a great example of that. So too was a family who with the help of their community broke back into their own home to squat in it. Typically we think we're alone and powerless against the big, faceless corporate machine, but this isn't always so.

There were a couple of points Moore left out.

Is the irony that Moore is a millionaire who's reaped the benefits of the capitalist system in selling books, theater tickets, and DVDs to the people. Not to mention that his movie is bankrolled by big corporations like Paramount, who themselves are owned by bigger corporations.
Another interesting irony would have been to point out a lot of these bankers participating in the bailout were a part of either the "Greatest Generation" that fought WWII or the Boomer generation who protested corporate greed in the '60s. This was a squandered opportunity to me and is kind of surprising considering how much stuff Moore threw on the screen.
It's disingenuous to make it seem as if Wall Street is completely culpable for what happened. Someone had to take out those bad mortgages and refinancing loans. That person is YOU. (OK, maybe not you exactly but the 99% of people who aren't Wall Street fat cats.) It's like how I don't like Wal-Mart and what they do to small towns or how they treat employees (evidenced in the movie by their former policy of taking out "Dead Peasant" insurance on their "associates") but I still go there to save $1 on hamburger or $0.10 on a can of peas. Come on, you do it too. A point in the movie is about how little pilots are paid. Well guess what, WE hold some responsibility there. It's not just evil CEOs responsible. It's because YOU the consumer don't want to pay an extra $50 or $100 for an airline that would treat its pilots better when you can pay super low rates for Southwest or some other airline that packs people on like cattle and pays pilots "less than a manager at a Taco Bell" as the movie says. But I suppose that would clash with Moore's populist message that the fat cats are the ones to blame.
I was disappointed Moore couldn't work in the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken from "TV Nation." Seems like a perfect venue for that.

Still, even if you don't agree with it and it makes you angry at the fat cats or Moore, the point is that you'll get a lot more out of it than watching "New Moon" or "She's Out of My League."

That is all.

My score: 85/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 61/100 (2.5 stars)

Gentlemen Broncos

2010-03-05T20:25:00.001-08:00

After the mediocre "Nacho Libre" husband-wife team Joshua and Jerusha Hess attempt to reclaim the glory of their sleeper hit "Napoleon Dynamite." Instead of another quirky fairy tale like "Napoleon" what they create instead is more of a parody than anything. Like bad sequels everywhere, "Gentlemen Broncos" takes a strength from the original and then overuses it to the point of tedium.

Like "Napoleon Dynamite" this movie focuses on a delusional loner, only in this case his name is Ben. While Napoleon drew winged creatures and such, Ben just writes really terrible sci-fi stories. His latest is something called "Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years" that maybe was supposed to be a take on series like "Dune" or something.

Anyway, Ben goes off to the Cletus Festival for writers. Along the way, he meets an older girl named Tabatha who "borrows" some money to buy tampons and winds up buying a bunch of snacks for her friend Lonnie instead. At the festival, Ben's favorite writer Dr. Chevalier announces a contest where the winner will have his/her story published. Ben decides to enter "Yeast Lords" but his entry never comes back.

That's because Chevalier steals the story for some reason. At the same time, Ben sells the movie rights for the story to Lonnie and Tabatha, who make a terrible film reminiscent of the "Sweded" versions of famous movies in "Be Kind, Rewind."

Inexplicably Chevalier's book is wildly successful, leaving Ben with the terrible decision about whether or not to confront his hero about the theft.

The movie features a lot of zany characters like Ben's "guardian angel" who has a pet snake and likes to shoot poop-tipped blow darts at things and Ben's mother who is his equal in delusions of grandeur concerning her line of nightgowns and popcorn creations. These all fell flat with me, feeling like pale imitations of those in "Napoleon Dynamite." As well, the relationship between Ben and Tabatha never seems to be defined. At times she seems to like him and at other times she uses him. Though I'm not sure where their relationship could go since at least to me she looks 10 years or so older than him.

As well, as a sci-fi fan the idea that Chevalier would want to steal Ben's terrible story and that it would be successful seems mildly insulting. It's almost as if the Hesses are saying sci-fi fans are so dumb they'll buy anything no matter how stupid it is. This might have some truth to it, but not to the extent presented here. Really from the clips of the book presented (where inexplicably Sam Rockwell plays Bronco) it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to read the book, let alone steal it from someone else.

In the end, the filmmakers try to to recreate the magic of "Napoleon Dynamite" to the point of using the same format for the credits. Unfortunately the movie takes its quirkiness to such extremes that it becomes a campy parody.

That is all.

My score: 40/100 (1.5 star)

Metacritic score: 28/100 (1 star)

Whip It!

2010-02-24T18:30:00.001-08:00

The easy way to describe this movie is that it's "The Mighty Ducks" with an X-Games attitude and a healthy dose of Girl Power! Instead of hockey--or baseball, basketball, football, or some other mainstream sport--it focuses on roller derby in Texas. Of course roller derby was popular in the '70s but a small league still exists in the '00s in Austin. There are five teams of women who bump and push in order to allow the "jammer" to pass the pack and score points. (That's really all I need to say about the rules since the roller derby isn't important to the story.)

Basically this could have been any sport, as it follows the pretty standard formula of a teenage girl defying her parents to do what she wants to do. Bliss (Ellen Page, with the same snarky attitude and vintage rock T-shirts so that she's basically Juno on skates) is 17 and living in a small Texas town, where her mom enrolls her and her younger sister in beauty pageants while her father sits at home watching football. Bliss hates the pageants while her sister loves them.

Then while shopping in Austin she sees a flier for roller derby and decides to go with her best friend Pash to watch the game. She decides she loves roller derby and decides to try out. Except that she hasn't skated since she wore pink Barbie skates. You have to suspend disbelief in that she goes from barely being able to skate to being the fastest on the track.

She gets drafted onto the "Hurl Scouts" who are of course the last place team of not-so-lovable losers like the Mighty Ducks, Bad News Bears, and so forth. You should already know what's going to happen there. It should also come as no surprise that she meets a handsome boy (pop singer Landon Pigg) and falls in love.

Basically there aren't any real shocks in this movie, just a couple of mild surprises. As I said, it could have been about any sport instead of roller derby. And really it probably has been about any sport in movies from the "Bad News Bears" to "Bend It Like Beckham." There's really not much more to say than that. It's an OK movie for a rental, but it's not memorable.

(On a sexist note, for guys there are a lot of women but no nudity or anything. Not that you're into that sort of thing...)

BTW, this like "Gran Torino" was one of the first major movies to be filmed on location in Michigan, which is one of the reasons I rented it. Woo hoo!

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 67/100 (2.5 stars)

A Serious Man

2010-02-15T18:27:00.001-08:00

There's no way that "A Serious Man" could deal with anyone other than Jews. Only people who have endured thousands of years of persecution since the days of the pharaohs could possibly be believable in a movie about someone who seems tormented by an vengeful God for no apparent reason.

In a prologue, a man is out at night in probably a European village in the 19th Century or so. When his wagon breaks down, an old man shows up to help him. As repayment, the man takes the old gent back to his house to warm up. The only problem is that his wife recognizes the old man as someone who died three years earlier. She believes the old guy to be an evil spirit and goes so far as to stab him in the heart. He stumbles off bleeding into the night. Was he really an evil spirit? Who knows.

Compare this many years later to Larry Gopnik, a physics professor in Minnesota. Larry seems to have a pretty good life in the suburbs with his wife and two kids. Larry's son is having his bar mitzvah soon and Larry is up for tenure at his school. The only problem seems to be his brother (Richard Kind, who's made a career of playing annoying characters) Arthur who sleeps on the couch while working on some crazy theory to unravel the secrets of the universe.

Then abruptly everything goes ff the rails for Larry. His wife announces that she's been seeing a friend named Sy Abelman and wants a divorce. (Worse yet she wants a consensual religious divorce so she and Sy won't be excommunicated.) His son is smoking pot and owes a bully money. His daughter is stealing money to save up for a nose job. A Korean student who's failing Larry's class tries to bribe him for a passing grade. And someone's been writing letters to the tenure committee trying to trash Larry's reputation. (And his TV antenna isn't working right and his neighbor wants to build a boat house practically on his property...we could go all day.)

As things go from bad to worse, Larry futilely tries to understand why all of this is happening and what he can do to make it stop. He seeks the advice of rabbis and his lawyer but can't seem to find any answers. The movie ends very abruptly with no real answers being given. Who of us mortals can possibly understand God's mind? Nobody. Much like the man at the start of the movie, Larry's done nothing wrong and yet for some reason outside forces seem to choose him to avenge themselves on.

The movie is funny, but not the laugh-out-loud rubber chicken funny. As Ebert said, it's "wince-wince funny." You have to keep asking yourself, as Larry certainly does, "How can this possibly get worse?" Through it all, Larry isn't exceptionally whiny or annoying, more like confused--and rightfully so. What did he do to deserve such a fate?

In the end, the answer that there is no answer probably won't be very satisfying. Still, if nothing else, it'll be a cathartic experience.

That is all.

My score: 65/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 79/100 (3 stars)

PS: Don't confuse this with "A Single Man" also from 2009 that deals with a homosexual man in the '50s or so.

The Seventh Seal

2010-02-13T19:39:00.001-08:00

This goes in my "Classic Films You Should Watch." Even though it's in black-and-white and even though the dialog is in Swedish with English subtitles and even though there are no killer robots, spaceships, superheroes, zombies, or vampire romances.

This is the kind of movie I new I should probably watch like how I think I should probably read "War & Peace" or "Ulysses" at some point but the reason I don't is I figure it'll be boring and confusing. In this case, though, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie wasn't boring at all--despite that it's what I said in the first paragraph.

"The Seventh Seal" of the title comes from a Bible verse about the end of the world. Before the Seventh Seal is opened and the world destroyed the angels gather themselves for a half hour, giving the world a sort of respite. It's the same respite a Swedish knight finds when he returns home from the Crusades in the 14th Century. Not long after he and his squire arrive on the beach, the Grim Reaper shows up to collect the knight's soul. But the clever knight challenges Death to a game of chess, giving him a reprieve.

During a break in the game, the knight and his squire travel towards the knight's castle. They stop at a town that's been ravaged by the Black Death (bubonic plague) to the point that the scholar who convinced the knight to go on the Crusades has turned to stealing from the dead. A trio of actors show up at the town as well to perform, though they're upstaged by Flagellants, religious zealots who whip themselves as penance for the plague. When one of the actors runs off with the wife of the local blacksmith, his fellow actor is nearly killed by the blacksmith. The knight, blacksmith, and actors then all head to the knight's castle along with an unseen party: Death.

The movie searches for the meaning of life and death through the differing views of its characters. The knight is seeking some meaning to life and glimpse into what awaits him in the afterlife. His cynical squire figures that there is no heavenly reward waiting any of us. The actor takes a more upbeat view, thinking he sees angels and devils everywhere. As for the blacksmith, he's pretty oblivious to everything except his slutty wife.

As well the movie illustrates the insanity that breaks out in times of crisis. Besides the zealous Flagellants and thieving professor there's also a young girl being burned at the stake for suspicion of witchcraft. With death, insanity, and Death lurking everywhere, it's no wonder the knight has a hard time finding any reassurance about the presence of God.

This is an interesting and insightful look at the world and yet as I said at the beginning it's not boring either. I especially liked the squire character, whose cynicism and pragmatism is a great balance to his master. The actor, or fool might be the better term, is also an interesting character because he contrasts with the squire.

Overall, this is a great movie and if you're willing to actually watch a movie that will challenge you and make you think, rent this some time.

That is all.

My score: 100/100 (4 stars)

Munich

2010-02-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

Typically Steven Spielberg likes to mix serious issue-driven movies in between action blockbusters. So between "War of the Worlds" and the much-maligned fourth "Indiana Jones" movie we have "Munich" which is about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Long before 9/11, when most Americans really started paying attention to terrorism, a group of Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli men hostage at the Olympic Village during the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. Ultimately the 11 Israelis are killed while three of the Palestinians are released to flee safely to Libya.

In the wake of the attack, the Israeli government decides to hunt down and kill 11 Palestinian terrorist operatives. Put in charge of the team is young Avner (Eric Bana) who has never led a team in the field before and whose wife is 7 months pregnant. He's sent to Europe with the rest of a team that will attempt to hunt down and kill the 11 Palestinians being targeted.

They start in Rome by killing a poet who also has ties (supposedly) with the Palestinian group responsible for Munich. The Israeli team tracks down and kills six more with the help of a French information trader named Louie and his father. But Avner and his team are soon in over their heads and become targets themselves. In addition, the Palestinians respond to the killings with more acts of violence in what is an endless destructive cycle.

The movie makes the case that ultimately Avner's mission is pointless. The terrorists he kills are soon replaced, often by people who are even worse. At the same time, the Palestinians kill more Israelis, who then kill more Palestinians. In effect responding to terror with terror or violence with violence is self-defeating. All that really happens is that some of Avner's team is killed and he is nearly driven mad from the paranoia of not knowing who's gunning for him.

For a "thriller" this wasn't very thrilling. It was mostly boring. At times it was even laughable how bad Avner and his team are, especially their bomb maker. (There's an explanation for this that probably should have been obvious.) The irony is that they have Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, on their team and yet they are as far removed from Bond or Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer as you can be. Anyway, at over 2 1/2 hours the movie tends to drag. The characters and their moral quandaries didn't really interest me a whole lot.

What really failed for me were bits of the Munich incident shown as Avner's dreams or flashbacks. This makes little sense as Avner was nowhere near Munich, so he couldn't possibly have seen what's going on. Especially the last bit where he's having sex with his wife and seeing the execution of the hostages was downright creepy.

Anyway, this is too long and dull to recommend, which is a shame because the overall point of it is a good one.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 74/100 (3 stars)

Inglorious Basterds

2010-02-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Quentin Tarantino fan and I've never really understood the attraction. "Pulp Fiction" was OK but to me seemed way overrated. "Inglorious Basterds" didn't do anything to convert me. It did help me in possibly understanding the disconnect I experience versus other people, notably film critics. Most of his movies like this one are an homage to campy '70s drive-in fare; since I don't remember the '70s there's really no way I can share in his nostalgia. So it always ends up like a joke that everyone gets except for me.

"Inglorious Basterds" is a campy homage of war movies, notably the 1978 Italian original. Though in this case the plot sounds completely different. In 1941 in occupied France Colonel Landa (Golden Globe and probable Oscar winner Christopher Waltz) known as the Jew Hunter kills a family of Jews hiding at a dairy farm. But an 18-year-old girl named Shoshanna escapes.

Three years later, just before the D-Day invasion, Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) assembles a squad of Jewish soldiers who drop into Europe and launch a guerrilla war against the Nazis. They employ brutal tactics, most notably scalping the victims or leaving any survivors with a swastika carved onto their foreheads. Because of this brutality they're known as the "Basterds."

Meanwhile, Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi propaganda machine are planning to screen a new film called "Nation's Pride" in Paris. At the behest of the war hero/star of the film, the screening is moved to a little cinema run by a young woman. If you can't guess who this woman is then you must be blind, deaf, and dumb. When the Basterds get word that the German high command is going to be there, you can figure they have to be there too.

What's odd to me is that the Basterds are the least interesting part of the movie. Thankfully there's only a couple of scenes where we have to see their gory tactics. (There's nothing pretty about watching people getting scalped.) The Basterds remain one-note characters throughout, most without even a token personality like in most war movies. The only ones you're likely to remember are Aldo because he's Brad Pitt and "The Jewish Bear" (Eli Roth, who's no stranger to gory movies as creator of the "Hostel" films) because he smashes a dude's head in with a baseball bat.

The story about Shoshanna and the cinema was far more interesting. I'd dare to say that "Inglorious Basterds" would have been better without the Basterds hamming it up. A simple cat-and-mouse between Shoshanna and Landa would have been far more interesting because these were the film's most developed characters. It wouldn't surprise me if Waltz does win the Oscar for Landa, not after Heath Ledger won for the Joker last year, setting the precedent.

What I really don't like about this movie is the alternate history component. I'm reminded of Michael Chabon's excellent Pulitzer-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" about two Jewish comic book authors in the early days of World War II. As reports come in about Nazi atrocities, the comic book authors (and many in the industry) wrote fantasy pieces where their hero kills legions of Nazis and captures Hitler to end the war. The problem is that the authors feel only a momentary burst of satisfaction, because when all's said and done it's just a fantasy. I could imagine that Jews watching this might cheer for a moment before realizing that same spiritual emptiness because this fantasy changes nothing that happened.

As I said at the beginning, I have no nostalgia for old '70s films (except maybe "Star Wars") so this film isn't very effective to me. I squirmed in my seat numerous times not just from the scalpings but also through some of the lengthy dialog scenes, especially the interminable scene in the basement of a tavern. Others, especially film critics, disagree.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 69/100 (2.5 stars)

Zombieland

2010-02-04T19:53:00.001-08:00

Since the drive-in days of the ‘50s and ‘60s, zombie movies have become a genre unto themselves, launching the careers of filmmakers like George Romero. In the 40-50 years of zombie movies, there have been a variety of takes from the serious like “Night of the Living Dead” or “28 Days Later” to the not so serious like “Shaun of the Dead.” “Zombieland” is definitely in this latter category. You could consider it an Americanized “Shaun” relying more on gags than the dry wit of its British counterpart.

As you’d guess from the title or the previews, the movie is about a world that has been overrun by zombies. How this happened isn’t made entirely clear. There’s vague mentions of something like mad cow disease that turned people into flesh-eating ghouls. Most normal people have been wiped out, but not a young man known only as Columbus (Michael Cera clone Jesse Eisenberg) who lived mainly because he’s a paranoid shut-in. In order survive, Columbus lives by a series of rules that are often repeated throughout the movie. Rule #1 is Cardio as in staying in shape to flee from zombies. There are rules about being careful when using the bathroom (where zombies like to trap their prey) and wearing your seatbelt. Most importantly is not forming attachments to anyone.

This rule is seriously challenged first when Columbus is picked up by Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) a professional zombie killer who is searching for a Twinkie. This search leads them to a supermarket where they meet the con girl sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) who are on their way to Pacific Playland outside LA where supposedly there are no zombies and where the girls went before the zombie apocalypse. The girls appropriate Tallahassee’s truck and weapons before the boys catch up to them and they decide to all go together.

The movie is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. There’s a lot of running and killing zombies. Tallahassee doesn’t just shoot them; he uses everything from a banjo to hedge clippers in his quest for Zombie Kill of the Week. Between zombie battles is a lot of fun humor, especially a scene involving Bill Murray. This humor is far more obvious than “Shaun of the Dead,” which makes it much easier for American audiences.

Overall this is a fun, albeit short movie coming in at just about 85 minutes. According to IMDB there’s already a sequel in production that I hope can match the fun of this one.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 73/100 (3 stars)

Moon

2010-02-01T18:56:00.001-08:00

A frequent theme of the original "Twilight Zone" series was the danger of isolation. The very first episode deals with an astronaut who returns to a small town only to find everyone is missing. As it turns out the astronaut is still asleep and undergoing a test to see how long it takes someone to crack. The point of the episodes was that the human psyche is fragile and extended periods of loneliness would cause it to break.

This same device is used in "Moon." The story involves a lone man named Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who is working on Earth's moon, overseeing the mining of a material that is converted into energy to power the Earth. Big combine-like machines called harvesters till the soil while Sam monitors them from his base and occasionally fixes them with the help of the computer system known as Gerty (voice of Kevin Spacey) that also tends to Sam's needs.

Sam's contract calls for him to be there for three years, after which he will return home to his wife Tess and toddler Eve. But with two weeks left to go, Sam starts showing signs of cracking. He has headaches, he sees things that might not be there, and he has trouble focusing. This leads him to crash his rover into one of the harvesters. When he comes to back in the infirmary, Gerty tells him that he'll be OK. But Sam suspects something is up. Is he right? Or has he finally cracked?

I thought the movie would be more psychological like "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Solaris." It's a little more straight-ahead than those and certainly not nearly as dense as 2001. Instead of a psychological thriller it's more of a mystery as Sam tries to figure out what's going on with the base and the company. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will tell you that Gerty is sort of a red herring.

If you're more into the thrill-ride type of sci-fi movies like "Star Trek" or "Avatar" then this probably is too slow for you. If you're a fan of the old "Twilight Zone" or "Solaris" or "2001" then this is more up your alley. I thoroughly enjoyed it. On a side note, Sam Rockwell seems like one of the most underrated actors around. There's nothing I've seen him in that I haven't enjoyed. Maybe now that he's co-starring in "Iron Man 2" he'll get his due.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 67/100 (2.5 stars)

Surrogates

2010-01-31T08:45:00.001-08:00

Unless you're an A-list celebrity or supermodel you've probably had a bad hair day--or several of them--or some wrinkles that just won't go away no matter how much Botox you use. Wouldn't it be great then if you could have a remote-controlled robot body that never gets old and always looks perfect? That's the basic premise behind "Surrogates." Or to put it another way: it's like "Avatar" only instead of controlling a ten-foot-tall blue alien you're controlling a robot that looks human.

Like another 2009 sci-fi movie "District 9," "Surrogates" starts off with news footage showing how in fourteen years technology goes from a monkey being able to control a robotic limb with its mind to 98% of the world having better-than-perfect reproductions of themselves. It's hard to swallow this the way it's presented. The first part of the technology, the monkey controlling a robotic limb, is actually very real and could lead to the next generation of prosthetic limbs that can actually replace the missing one. But I think this technology is still in the experimental phase. To go from that to what's presented in "Surrogates" in less than 15 years is unbelievable. But if you can suspend disbelief there, the rest of the movie is a serviceable sci-fi thriller in the league of "I, Robot" or "Paycheck" though not in the same league as "Blade Runner" or "Minority Report" in its execution.

OK, so suspending disbelief let's say that 98% of people, even all those goat herders in Afghanistan or Mongolia, are using surrogate robotic bodies. We still have some humans who reject the use of surrogates, seeing them as an abomination. One of these "meatbags" stalks a wealthy seemingly young man. He pulls out what looks sort of like a modified Dustbuster, and fires a burst of blue energy that fries not only the young man, but the actual young man controlling the surrogate. Such a thing has never happened before.

What's worse is that the young man turns out to be the son of Lionel Carver, the creator of surrogate technology who was forced out of his own company when he started making inconvenient statements opposing their widespread use. FBI agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is brought in to investigate the crime. As you'd expect, this investigation leads him to uncover a conspiracy involving a variety of different parties who are all trying to kill each other.

I couldn't help wondering if this movie might have done better at the box office if it had featured Will Smith like "I, Robot" or "I Am Legend." But then Smith isn't really old enough to have enough contrast between him and his surrogate. Since he's pushing 60, Bruce Willis is a better choice for this as you can clearly see the difference between his wrinkle-free surrogate with its creepy blond hair and the bald, wrinkled actor with his graying goatee. The script wisely doesn't have him perform too many "Die Hard"-type stunts in non-surrogate mode, though unlike those other movies he doesn't get set up for many good quips here either. The script also doesn't probably have enough twists or turns, clocking in at less than 90 minutes. What disappoints me is that we see the big factory/headquarters of VSI, the surrogate manufacturer early in the movie when surrogate Tom Greer is investigating the murder but we never go back there. Clearly a chance was squandered to have some fun in there, where maybe Tom could have battled an army of out-of-control surrogates or something. Oh well.

Also, unlike the aforementioned "District 9" or "Blade Runner" this script doesn't have too much on its mind concerning the background issues. The issues about the surrogates and the questions that arise aren't really dealt with all that much. (A couple of questions I have: Wouldn't this put industries like restaurants out of business if everyone's robots who don't need to eat? Though maybe oil changes would do booming business. Also, wouldn't the population start dying out? Presumably surrogates don't have sperm or ovaries. I suppose you could make babies in labs. But what happens if you're in a bar and you meet a nice girl/guy surrogate and fall in love? Is that even possible anymore? Do you move your controller beds in together or just stay separate? Of course one issue that is sort of raised is: what happens if you see that hot girl surrogate in the bar and find out it's a fat guy controlling her?) See, there's a lot to think about here but the movie doesn't really try to build any depth to its world, preferring to just use the surrogates as a prop for chases and fights.

Anyway, I thought it was a perfectly serviceable movie, just not especially memorable. It might be more memorable if that robot technology ever does start really taking off. A definite rental.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 45/100 (1.5 stars)

Julie & Julia

2010-01-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

In sort of homage to the movie focusing on two completely time periods, I'm going to write this review as two completely different reviews.

The first review is the one for you, anyone who reads this. On average I've noticed most people who comment on my reviews are female (or at least claim to be) and I think they'd enjoy this movie far more than I did, so I'm gong to direct this portion of the review at them. OK, here goes.

When her life seems stuck in a rut, Julie Powell (Amy Adams)--with some advice from her husband--decides to spice things up by creating a blog and vowing to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Childs' massive "Mastering the Art of Fine French Cooking." As you'd expect, this involves a lot of time and expense, which isn't easy considering Julie is just a phone jockey at an insurance company dealing with 9/11 victim families.

At the same time the movie chronicles how a bored ex-government worker named Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) decides to spice up her life in Paris by learning French cuisine. As an American she faces an uphill battle against French snobbery, but in the end she becomes a real chef and endeavors to create a cookbook of French recipes for Americans. This is a massive undertaking requiring much time and effort.

So you see how the lives of the two women are parallel. In time Julie gains a lot of respect for Julia Childs, becoming sort of obsessed with her. (The feeling is not mutual.) And Julia gains the respect of cooks and publishers. Woo hoo.

Basically it's a nice, gentle movie with no real shocks or twists--except maybe burning something. I have never watched the real Julia Childs so I have no idea how well Meryl Streep impersonates her. (I've heard negative comments on this but obviously the Golden Globe people thought differently, but then again they thought "Avatar" was the best drama, so I'm not sure I'd trust their judgment.) I've never read the blog or book by Julie Powell either, so I have no idea how much of this is accurate. (I thought I read in a review that she did not really come up with the blog in the manner portrayed by the movie, but I can't be sure.)

If you're looking for some harmless fun and great culinary ideas, then this is a good movie to watch.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 66/100 (2.5 stars)

#

OK, now let me say for those few men who might ever see this: there is absolutely nothing in this for you. Nothing. The closest we get to action is that Julie has to kill some poor lobster to the strains of "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads, though I think actually her husband does the deed.

There's no nudity, which come to think of it is just as well. Do you want to see Julia Child naked? No, no, a thousand times no!

From a purely artistic standpoint, this movie is as limp as a stick of butter left out in the sun. Julia Childs is shown as plucky with a great can-do attitude. Julie is slightly whinier but just as plucky. Their respective husbands are supportive and that's it, though once Julie's husband grows a backbone and walks out on her. Of course he comes back! There are no surprises in this movie, except that the two women don't meet. Since they probably took so many other liberties with reality, what harm could one more have done? Really, they could have hugged and swapped recipes and it could have faded to black and most everyone would go home happy.

I was actually depressed by the time this movie ended. What really bums me out is to think that Julie Powell got a book deal and a movie deal and yet her only discernible talent seems to be being able to follow directions from a cookbook. It's the same feeling I get whenever I see Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, complete no-talent whores who have never done a damned thing in their lives to deserve anything they have. (OK, Julie Powell might not be a whore. At the least she probably doesn't have a sex tape on the Internet--yet.) She certainly didn't do anything that most anyone else could have done, so long as they could read directions in a cookbook. You could say she stood on Julia Childs' ample shoulders.

And yeah, I'm jealous. I'll admit it. It's the same envy whenever someone like Madonna comes out with a crappy children's book or someone like Monica Lewinsky gets a huge advance for a book. What the hell do they know about writing? Not a bloody thing! I work and strain, trying to produce a real story and wade through all sorts of muck trying to get the thing published while these no talent ass-clowns just saunter right up to a six-figure advance on a whim or because they were classless enough to get involved with some huge scandal. This is the world we live in. And it's not fair! It's not fair at all!

F**k you Julie Powell, wherever you are.

That is all.

(PS: What I learned from this movie is that all you need is some good schtick to realize dreams of fame and fortune. You think Emotionally Unstable Film Critic has possibilities? They could get Lewis Black to play me in the movie version since Sam Kinnison and Chris Farley are long dead.)

500 Days of Summer

2010-01-26T18:44:00.001-08:00

I might start ranting incoherently here, so be warned.

Anyway, it's rare when a movie moves me. This one did. It's the kind of experience where as you're watching it you kind of start nodding your head and saying to yourself, "Yeah, brother, I have been there." Because let's face it, most adults have had someone who hurt them emotionally at one time or another.

The narrator says at the beginning that "This is not a love story" and that's true. Most love stories just focus on the falling in love part. Cinderella meets Prince Charming they overcome an obstacle, have a few laughs, and ride off into the sunset. Other movies focus on the end of the relationship with the cheating, anger, recrimination, and ultimate separation. This movie focuses on the whole process from beginning to end, squeezing it into 500 days. (And that's not giving anything away because the movie follows a non-linear structure where we jump from beginning to end to middle and so forth.)

Basically to put it linearly, at Day 1 we have Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) working at the New Hampshire Card Company, which as you might expect is located in Los Angeles, CA. During a meeting, Tom's boss is interrupted by his new assistant Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and just about instantly Tom is smitten.

The problem is that she doesn't seem all that interested in him. So for the first 25 or so days Tom goes through trying to get her attention to cursing her as a tease. Then comes a karaoke party after work where they both have a little too much to drink and sing some bad songs and finally things start taking off.

Except there's a problem. Of course there is! While Tom thinks he loves Summer, she's not wanting to make things too involved. Even after they sleep together, even after over 200 days together, she insists they're "just friends." Yeah, brother, I've been there. Sorry gals, but if a man's been inside you then either you're his girlfriend or his whore--which do you want to be? There is no such thing as casual sex or a f**k buddy, OK? Not in the real world. Not even in the movies! (See, I warned you.)

Well of course this leads to things unraveling. While she seems to get off relatively easy, Tom has a much more difficult time letting go. Really he spends about 200 days ultimately wallowing in misery and clinging to slim hopes of a reconciliation.

At least in my mind, this movie perfectly captures the whole relationship game. That's why it moved me, as I said in the beginning. I could so empathize with what Tom went through that I couldn't help but go back through my own memories. Thanks for opening old wounds! Yeah, brother, I've been there. Maybe not quite to this extent, but close enough. God willing I won't be there again, but the problem with the game of love is that you frequently go tilting at windmills. Or maybe it's more like the old lady at the slot machine who keeps pulling the lever 24 hours a day thinking THIS time will be the lucky one. And maybe it will be--ah, there's the rub. Those of us still in the game always cling to that hope, however slim it might be.

Before I get off too far on another rant, not everything in this movie worked for me. The overly precocious little sister Tom gets relationship advice from just grated on my nerves. That is one area where Tom and I clearly diverged, because my sisters are completely useless for relationship advice. (That's the subject of another rant.) It's not enough to ruin the movie for me, or even take off a half star.

Even if you have found your True Love or close enough to it, you can probably still relate to this story at one point in time. Most everyone has a Summer in their life. An evil, soul-snatching, heart-crushing...OK, I'll stop now.

BTW, during the movie it says that Summer quoted a song from Belle & Sebastian's "Boy With the Arab Strap" in her yearbook. Ironically I'd bought a couple of B&S albums this month. So I took that as a sign to go buy that ablum. Anything that prompts me to spend money definitely moved me.

That is all.

My score: 90/100 (4 stars)

Metacritic score: 76/100 (3 stars)

Bad Movie Reviews

2010-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Since I unplugged the cable about six months ago, I've been watching a local digital channel called "THIS" that seems to broadcast a lot of old (and mostly unmemorable) MGM/UA and affiliated movies. They save the best (by which I mean the worst) for Saturday nights. As a fan of the old "Mystery Science Theater 3000" show I've always enjoyed watching really terrible movies. So here are a few of the best of the worst:

ROTOR: This was apparently trying to cash in on the cyborg movie trend in the late '80s with "Terminator," "Robocop," and so forth. In it a cop/scientist/rancher (seriously) in Texas creates a cyborg called ROTOR (don't ask me what it means) to fight crime in a future time. The problem is the thing is rushed online and not all the bugs are worked out. After pulling over a speeder, ROTOR shoots the man and then begins pursuit of the female passenger.

WTF Moment: The hero calls a skunk-haired Amazon to help battle ROTOR and proceeds to take her to a hotel, where she promptly whips off her blouse to reveal a black tank top ala Rambo and they just as promptly leave the hotel, never to return.

Robot Jox: This was also trying to cash in on the robot fad. In this Cold War parable (or perhaps parody) the two remaining big nations fight not in long, costly wars but gladiator competitions featuring giant robots. On the American side is Achilles (aka Jim) and on the Russian side is Alexander. They do battle in their big robots for the fate of Alaska. (Really this is overdue for a Hollywood makeover with CGI and 3D. James Cameron could make a billion with it!)

WTF Moment: The biggest WTF is that the movie was penned by Joe Haldemann, winner of the prestigious Nebula and Hugo awards for classic sci-fi novels like "The Forever War." Maybe he should stick tobooks.

Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs: This secret agent spoof makes "Austin Powers" seem like "Citizen Kane." It stars Vincent Price as the titular character (who if he has a gold foot I don't remember seeing it) who as you'd guess is making bombs shaped like women to kill NATO generals in the '60s. The only man who can stop him is pop singer Fabian as the womanizing secret agent. Which he might do if he stops kissing random women long enough.

WTF Moment: There are many to choose from here. The pair of bumbling doormen who accidentally become secret agents are a WTF unto themselves. The biggest WTF might be when they confuse Fabian for a Chinese agent.

Some Girls Do: Another secret agent spoof from around the same time, only this one plays it much straighter. A British secret agent who looks disturbingly like Bond-era Sean Connery uncovers a madman's plot to use female robots to assassinate world leaders.

WTF Moment: I suppose it would be at the end where the trusty sidekick goes running off with a double-agent. Who needs patriotism when you can screw a hot turncoat?

Killer Klowns From Outer Space: It is exactly what the title promises. Clowns from outer space land on Earth to begin ensnaring the people of a small town in cotton candy cocoons. And you thought clowns were scary when you were kid!

WTF Moment: The actor who played the crusty old dean in "Animal House" plays a crusty old cop in this movie. I bet every day he came to the set thinking, WTF? How did I end up here?

Morons From Outer Space: Again, exactly what the title promises. It could also have been called "Rednecks From Outer Space" but that probably wasn't politically correct enough. Basically white trash aliens crash on Earth and become superstars. (Really, a remake with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour might be in order.)

WTF Moment: I'll admit I fell asleep halfway through this. When I woke up the last fifteen minutes or so were a total WTF for me.

Blacula: For reasons that are best not contemplated, an African prince and his wife show up at Dracula's house in the 18th Century or so. The prince becomes a vampire while his wife dies. He's locked in a coffin until freed in 1970s Los Angeles where he proceeds to dine on the local African-American population all while stalking a young woman who looks suspiciously like his former bride.

WTF Moment: Why are two homosexual men from California buying Dracula's house and moving everything in it to Los Angeles? Does that even remotely make sense?

That is all.

Career Opportunities

2010-01-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

When John Hughes passed away last year, most everyone mentioned his popular '80s movies like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club." Probably no one mentioned "Career Opportunities," which Hughes wrote and produced in 1991. But the good thing when you have a Netflix-type program is that it's easy to click on someone's name and find out all the stuff they did and watch it just for the Hell of it. As it turns out, there's probably a good reason no one brought up this movie, because it's not very memorable.

The story features some familiar themes of the aforementioned Hughes classics. Like Ferris Bueller, Jim Dodge (Franky Wright) is a big talker to the point of excess so that he's known as the Town Liar. While he likes to spin tales about working for the FBI or some big company, really he can't hold down a job to save his life, much to the consternation of his family, who wants the 21-year-old to move out of the house.

To help make that happen, Jim's dad gets him a job at the local Target department store as the night cleanup boy. (Watch for an uncredited cameo by John Candy as the Target manager.) The first convenient plot device is that his supervisor locks him in the store and then takes off to rendezvous with someone else. This leaves Jim alone in the store--or so he thinks.

While roller skating around the store just for fun, he comes upon Josie (a young Jennifer Connelly) whose father is the richest man in town. Turns out she was going to shoplift some stuff to get arrested and embarrass her father, but didn't have the guts so she hid in a dressing room. (There's your second convenient plot device.) They share some "Breakfast Club"-style angst about their parents and plans for the future.

This is all fine, but then the movie wipes out with the addition of two criminals (Dermot Mulroney and his brother) who somehow break into the Target. When I read the description I thought this being from John Hughes who wrote "Home Alone" we'd have the same kind of Rube Goldberg-type slapstick traps. Certainly in a Target store there were plenty of possibilities for that kind of mayhem. At the least there could have been some great cat-and-mouse between Jim/Josie and the thieves. None of this comes to pass.

The ending is handled so sloppily that it left me with several questions. First off, the thieves do such a terrible job looking after their prisoners, so why doesn't Jim or Josie use the phone to call for help? (Maybe they don't want it to become a hostage situation or fear retribution, but it never even comes up.) Or since the robbers aren't paying attention, couldn't they set some "Home Alone"-style traps or at least find a couple of butcher knives? And how does Jim know about a shotgun kept in the store since it's his first night in the store and his supervisor wasn't exactly the communicative type?

None of it really made sense. Without the thieves this could have been a perfectly adequate teen comedy, but the sloppy final act just brings the whole thing down and really none of the issues raised in the first 3/4 of the movie are dealt with--notably the problem Jim and Josie have with their respective parents.

Probably the only reason to watch this is if you're either such a huge Hughes fan that you have to watch everything he's done or you're a huge fan of Jennifer Connelly's cleavage. Seriously the shots of her cleavage are as numerous as those of Megan Fox in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." And then there's her riding on the mechanical horse going up-and-down, up-and-down...OK, I'm losing focus here. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, basically there's not much reason for most people to watch this unless you fall into the categories above.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars--the extra half-star for those cleavage shots!)

Jennifer's Body

2010-01-21T18:18:00.001-08:00

The worst thing a horror movie can be is boring. If you can even call "Jennifer's Body" a horror movie it's boring with a capital B. When there's as much bloodshed in the end credits as in the rest of the movie, you know you're in trouble. Though sadly even this bloodshed is portrayed in still images that don't show much so you're not getting much bang for the buck.

Like a combination of "Carrie" and "Scream" the movie is about a high school girl named Jennifer (obviously) who eats boys. This happens because an indie-rock band tries to sacrifice her to Satan to help their career. (Who knew the world of indie rock was so cutthroat?) This gives Jennifer awesome super powers, so long as she eats boys. Like her period, this needs to happen about once a month.

Her best friend Needy (who like in all high school-related movies is completely unattractive because she wears glasses) was at the bar when Jennifer ran into the band and suspects something is up. She especially gets suspicious when boys start dying. Blah, blah, blah whatever.

As I said, this movie was boring. I don't know why it got an R rating. There's a little gore and some bad language (and a girl-on-girl kiss) but not anything too much. Sadly anyone hoping to see Jennifer's body in "Jennifer's Body" will come away disappointed. The nudity is pretty PG-13 for whatever reason.

I suppose this isn't all that surprising because writer/producer Diablo Cody (of "Juno" fame) and director Karyn Kusama don't exactly have the reputation of George Romero or Wes Craven. They should probably just leave the horror movie business to professionals.

That is all.

My score: 25/100 (1 star)

Metacritic score: 47/100 (2 stars)

The Hangover

2010-01-19T18:29:00.001-08:00

I haven't been a fan of the so-called "frat pack" movies like "Old School," "Anchorman," and "Wedding Crashers." I just didn't really find Will Farrell and Vince Vaughn very funny. So I didn't have much hope for a movie directed by the guy who did "Old School" and the lame "School for Scoundrels." So I was pretty surprised that I enjoyed the movie.

As implied by the title, "The Hangover" is about four friends who go to Las Vegas on the eve of a wedding. Doug is the groom-to-be who's being given one final taste of single life. The problem is after a night of partying, Doug has vanished. Adding to the problem is that his groomsmen: sauve already-married Phil (Bradley Cooper); whipped soon-to-be-engaged dentist Stu (Ed Helms); and chubby, hairy future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) don't have any memory of what happened after a toast on the roof of Caesar's.

Most of the movie then is devoted to Doug's friends trying to figure out important questions like: whose baby is in the closet, how did Stu lose a tooth, and how did a tiger get in the bathroom? And in figuring this out they hope to figure out what happened to their friend so they can get him to the wedding on time without getting caught.

I think what made this movie for me is that it's set up like a mystery. If it had been straight-ahead one thing after another it might have still had funny moments but it would have been more generic. Instead, it becomes fun to try and outguess the guys as they piece together the clues. Sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong but the guessing keeps you involved with the story.

Of course as you'd expect there's some crudity involved. There's plenty of bad language, though most of the sexual situations are saved until the end. So obviously if you're not into lower-brow humor this won't be your cup of tea. Still, I thought it was a lot better than the movies I listed at the beginning.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 73/100 (3 stars)

The Hurt Locker

2010-01-18T20:22:00.001-08:00

I have to say this might be the first great fictional movie about the Iraq war. (Or Second Gulf War or whatever future generations will call it.) To this point I think most movies dealing with the war have focused more on soldiers coming home from it like the recent "Brothers." Unlike other war movies like "Platoon" that focused naturally on a platoon or "Saving Private Ryan" that focused on a squad of eight, "The Hurt Locker" narrows its focus down to just three men.

These three are Sergeant Will James, Sergeant JT Sanborn, and Specialist Owen Eldridge. They're a bomb disposal unit stationed mostly in Baghdad in 2004, or shortly after the "shock and awe" campaign wound down. James is not initially part of the unit, but is brought in when the former by-the-book team leader (a cameo by Guy Pearce) is killed by an insurgent bomb.

During his first mission with the team, it becomes clear that James is reckless when he sets off a smoke bomb for no reason, refuses to communicate with the rest of the team, and puts a gun to an Iraqi taxi driver's head. In another time and place this might have earned him some trouble, maybe even a court-martial but there's no denying that James is really good at his job. He's something of a virtuoso when it comes to bomb disposal.

And this presents a problem because James seeks out risk, often putting Sanborn and Owen in harm's way. At one point Sanborn seriously toys with the idea of triggering a bomb and calling it an accident. An ambush out in the desert involving some British soldiers (or perhaps mercenaries) brings the team together for some male bonding that's capped off by good old harmless wrestling. That's short-lived as James continues to take needless risk to endanger his unit.

I was riveted by this movie. It doesn't have the mythic pretensions of "Platoon" or the grandiosity of a "Saving Private Ryan" and the only known actors just make cameos. The gritty style and lack of known stars makes it seem more realistic. And the focus on three individuals means there's not much confusion about who's who or characters who contribute only one or two scenes. We don't necessarily get to know these characters in-depth but by the end we know enough about them and the struggles they face. And it does this without really preaching about the rightness or wrongness of the war so whether you agree with it or not there's nothing politically to set you off.

What's interesting to me is you can draw a parallel between this and another recent critically-acclaimed movie "Up in the Air." They both focus on characters who perform a job most people would find very undesirable. And both characters also have trouble connecting with people and giving up their unconventional way of life. Except I think you'd have to agree that Will James is far crazier since he constantly risks his life--and those of others--to do his job.

That is all.

My score: 100/100 (4 stars)

Metacritic score: 94/100 (4 stars)

Duplicity

2010-01-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

As far as caper movies go this one hums along fairly smoothly until the end when it tries to be too clever for its own good. In trying to pull off one last double-cross (or is it triple or maybe even quadruple-cross) it attempts a surprise ending like an M. Night Shyamalan film that seems nearly as implausible.

The story begins in 2003 in Dubai, where MI-6 agent Ray (Clive Own) meets CIA agent Claire (Julia Roberts). They wind up in bed together, where Claire proceeds to drug Ray and steal some valuable intelligence from him. Fast forward five years to where Ray and Claire are brought together again. Only this time they're working for rival corporations--or so it seems. In reality they're working for the same company only Claire is a mole in the corporation run by Howard Tully (Tom Wilkerson) while really working for a company run by Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti) to get the inside dirt on a major product announcement.

This isn't the first time Ray and Claire have met before, as the film demonstrates in several flashbacks. They're looking to pull one over on their employers and make a fat wad of cash so they can retire somewhere--together. It seems they fell in love after the Dubai tryst because as fellow spies they're the only ones who can understand each other.

Anyway, I'm not going to spoil any of the big twists and turns for you. I will say that the biggest twist at the end is so disappointing because it either requires the villain to be clairvoyant or our heroes to be complete idiots. This would only work if it had been demonstrated early on that the villain was a genius or the heroes were idiots. Really as I said writer/director Tony Gilroy gets too clever for his good by piling on one twist too many.

Other than that, I was shocked to find out Julia Roberts was nominated for a Golden Globe for this movie. She acts like such a frigid bitch throughout the movie that I have no idea why Clive Owen (or anyone else) would want to sleep with her. I'd be afraid she'd eat me afterward. Owen has much more warmth and charisma and yet he doesn't get a nomination. Maybe the people in charge couldn't think of another actress.

At any rate, it's not a terrible movie but I found it disappointing. You'd be better off turning it off at the 105-minute mark or so.

That is all.

My score: 60/100 (2.5 stars)
Metacritic score: 69/100 (2.5 stars)

District 9

2010-01-14T18:40:00.001-08:00

I think it's safe to say "District 9" is everything "Avatar" isn't. Its still not Fellini or Bergman but a definite upgrade in terms of story. Really, if "Avatar" had been this good I'd have paid extra to see it in the 3D/IMAX.

Like "Avatar," "District 9" is the story of humans and aliens coming into contact with each other. While "Avatar" takes place on a distant world in the 22nd Century where humans are the aliens, "District 9" takes place on Earth in the present.

And while the Na'Vi are sleek and pretty, the aliens of "District 9," known as Prawns are something else entirely. As the name suggests they look like something you'd find at your local fish market or Long John Silver's or to describe them another way if you combined a shrimp and a grasshopper and made it about as tall as a human that's what you'd get. The Prawns are not philosophical, religious, or in touch with nature. They're essentially scavengers who subsist mostly on cat food.

In about 1982, the Prawn mother ship came to Earth, hovering to a stop over Johannesburg, South Africa of all places. When no one came out of the ship, a human team went in and found the Prawns pretty much living in their own filth. Though they were aboard a spaceship, it seemed the Prawns had no idea how to run it or fix it.

Fast forward to the present, where a ghetto known as District 9 has been set up outside Johannesburg. District 9 has become overcrowded and nearby residents are sick of the aliens (the irony here being that victims of apartheid are as intolerant of the Prawns as whites were of them) and so a new District 10 is being set up farther away. Rounding up the aliens is the job of the generically named Multi National United conglomerate.

Wikus van der Merwe is the man in charge of the operation, in part thanks to being the son-in-law of a company honcho. Wikus and some other company weasels, along with an armed escort, descend upon District 9 to serve eviction notices to the Prawns so everything is nice and legal. Except when Wikus barges into the shanty of a Prawn whose human name is Christopher Johnson he comes upon a strange tube that sprays him with some weird alien goo.

In no time Wikus starts coughing up a black substance and is taken to a hospital, where he finds that his left arm has become a Prawn arm! This draws interest from MNU (including Wikus's father-in-law) because the alien weapons found on the ship only work with alien DNA, but Wikus can use them with his alien arm. The company then naturally wants to experiment on him--and they're not going to take no for an answer.

When Wikus manages to escape, he goes on the run to the only place no one will look for him: District 9. He has to find some way to avoid being taken by MNU while searching for a way to change himself back that just might lie with Christopher Johnson and his son.

While "District 9" isn't exactly subtle with its message, it's not quite as shrill as "Avatar" either. As I pointed out earlier it's ironic people who have suffered from intolerance show the same intolerance to the Prawns. Then you have Wikus himself, who starts out as a doofus, a mid-level bureaucrat condescending to the aliens and later has his eyes opened not only by becoming half-Prawn but by seeing what his company has been up to. For the most part I thought Wikus stayed true to himself throughout most of the movie, never turning into Braveheart. He does at least get his chance to act heroic. Unknown actor Sharlto Copley does a good job of making Wikus seem more or less like a normal guy who's caught up in extraordinary events.

It's equally impressive that the movie is helmed by first-time director Neil Blomkamp. Instead of trying to dazzle us with effects, Blomkamp uses a documentary style through much of the film and maintains more of a gritty look that you probably wouldn't want to see in 3D. You also wouldn't want to see some of the stuff that earns the movie its R-rating--at least if you're not squeamish--like pulling out fingernails, teeth, and bits of skin as well as people exploding and a lot of F-bombs.

From a pure geek standpoint I have to add I thought the Prawn weapons were cooler than anything in "Avatar." You can see why the humans would want to get those to work since they kick ass, especially the mechanical suit thing. Though I wonder why humans can't just reverse-engineer at least some of the technology in the weapons. That they don't work with human DNA wouldn't seem to stop you from tearing one apart.

Overall because the Prawns aren't the noble savages of the Na'Vi and not all the characters seem out of central casting, "District 9" to me is a better quality product than "Avatar." If you haven't already, definitely check it out.

That is all.

My score: 100/100 (4 stars)

Metacritic score: 81/100 (3 stars)

Extract

2010-01-12T18:18:00.001-08:00

Take one part "Office Space," one part "King of the Hill," and throw in a little stoner comedy for flavor and you get a bland comedy from Mike Judge (creator of the two items above) called "Extract."

Unlike "Office Space" that focused on an office with its meaningless TPS reports and jammed printers, "Extract" focuses on a factory. As the title suggests the company makes flavor extracts that are used in cooking. Reynold's Extract was founded by Joel (Jason Bateman) who has since become bored with dealing with his unruly employees. His partner Brian (JK Simmons) doesn't even bother to remember their names, referring to most of them as Dinkus. Lucky for both of them, General Mills is ready to swoop in with an offer to buy the company.

But then an accident (in a very sensitive location) to an employee named Step threatens everything. A con woman named Cindy (Mila Kunis) convinces Step to hire a sleazy ambulance chaser (Gene Simmons) to sue for big money, which in turn threatens the General Mills deal.

At the same time, Joel is facing a marital crisis. After taking some drugs supplied by his friend Dean (a long-haired Ben Affleck) Joel decides the best way to deal with the situation is to hire a gigolo to tempt his wife and thereby gauge her affection for him.

The way this all plays out isn't as funny as it could be. It's not as funny as the best parts of "Office Space" or even the best episodes of "King of the Hill." For my part I think I could just relate to TPS reports and jammed printers better. Also, there's not really much funny about paying someone to cheat on your wife.

While it's not a terrible movie, it's not a great one either. Most everyone involved has done better work than they've done here. I wouldn't even recommend it as a rental; wait for it to come out on cable.

Here are some fun facts relating to the movie.

Mike Judge (King of the Hill), Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), and Mila Kunis (That 70s Show/Family Guy) have all starred in comedies on the Fox network.

Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck also appear together in the 2009 thriller "State of Play" while Bateman and JK Simmons were both in the 2009 comedy/drama "Up in the Air."

Though he isn't credited, Mike Judge plays one of the workers named Jim (which is easy to tell because you can hear shades of Hank Hill in his voice)

Really, with the right clothes and hair Beth Grant looks just like an older Sarah Palin

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5/4 stars)

Metacritic score: 62/100 (2.5/4 stars)

Brick

2010-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

Over the years, long after its hey-day in the 40s, filmmakers have tried to keep the film noir genre alive. But with "Brick," writer/director Rian Johnson takes a new twist on this genre by setting his noir story, written in the style of Dashiell Hammett, in that most dangerous world of high school.

This version of a California high school is a far cry from "High School Musical," "Hannah Montana," and most shows on the CW. Instead of focusing on cliques of jocks, preps, and nerds, it focuses on rival factions of drug dealers. One faction is run by a 26-year-old with a crippled foot called The Pin. The other is run by a hotheaded motorhead named Tug. While the two gangs are allies, the alliance is like a powder keg that needs only a spark to explode.

That spark is provided by Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose former girlfriend Emily has gone missing. She makes a panicked call to him from a pay phone, which sets Brendan on the hunt to find her. After he finds that she's dead (not a spoiler as it's the first scene of the movie) he's determined to find out who killed her and why.

Brendan has to practically turn the school upside down, nearly getting himself killed in the process. The only one he can trust is his loyal friend and sidekick The Brain. Then there's the lovely cheerleader Laura, but whose side is she on?

This is the kind of movie you need to watch at least twice because there are so many intricate twists and turns that you're bound to miss something the first time. With a mystery that's always a good thing. I haven't watched a lot of film noir, so I don't know how true or untrue it is in tone.

Because it takes place in high school, there are some odd, almost funny moments, like how The Pin operates out of his mom's basement. Either she's pretty clueless, in denial, or in on it. For that matter none of these kids seem to have very attentive parents or teachers. For high schoolers they don't seem very concerned with going to classes or doing homework. And really it's a pretty dangerous school with fights in the parking lot and armed hitmen running around.

I enjoyed this movie the first time and even more the second time. And there's no singing--except a few seconds at a party--so that's a bonus too.

BTW, did anyone who watched "Third Rock From the Sun" ever think the kid from that show would go on to have a successful film career? It's kind of bizarre.

That is all.

My score: 90/100 (3.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 72/100 (3 stars)

Avatar

2010-01-03T13:02:00.001-08:00

I watched this in regular 2D, which might have been a mistake. Without the 3D/IMAX gimmicks you're really left with a very vanilla sci-fi/fantasy movie. That was in part why I wanted to watch the regular version because if it really was a good movie then I'd want to deal with the added expense and bother of 3D/IMAX.

Anyway, the movie is like nothing you've ever seen before--provided you haven't watched Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, Fern Gully, Return of the Jedi, or a host of other movies. It starts out in the 22nd Century where The Company (which Cameron used in Aliens) is mining something called Unobtainium (a mineral that's hard to obtain--get it?) on the moon of a gas giant called Pandora. Because the air is toxic and pretty much every animal and vegetable is reactive and deadly, the humans use versions of the native Na'Vi they make by combining human DNA with Na'Vi DNA--sort of like Jurassic Park. Each one is specially made so that only one human can control it by computer--sort of like The Matrix.

Former Marine Jake Sully's brother was supposed to go to Pandora to drive one of the avatars, but he died. Conveniently he was an identical twin to Jake, which allows Jake to drive the avatar. (This convenient plot device has been used in movies such as last year's Eagle Eye.) So Jake (Sam Worthington) spends six years in stasis (like in Aliens and a host of other sci-fi films) to travel to Pandora to pilot the avatar. The scientist in charge (Sigourney Weaver, star of Aliens) is unhappy because Jake has no experience with Na'Vi culture. But the corporate weasel (Giovanni Ribisi playing essentially the Paul Reiser character in Aliens) in charge says it's too expensive to waste the avatar, so they're stuck.

As a human Jake is a paraplegic, which could be cured if he had any money, but with his avatar he can walk again--and run. He does a lot of running after his first trip into the wilds of Pandora. He gets separated and winds up nearly being killed until he's saved by the Na'vi princess Neytiri.

The following are spoilers only if you haven't seen Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, etc.

Otherwise you know what's going to happen. Jake is taken by Neytiri to her tribe and eventually becomes one of them and they fall in love but the humans attack to clear the Na'Vi out of the way.

Pretty much every twist and turn in this movie is so telegraphed that you'd have to be blind not to see it coming. Like when the big red bird-thing enters the scene, it's obvious what's going to happen with it by the end of the movie. The Na'Vi religion that everything is connected is pretty much the same as The Force in the Star Wars movies, only more tangible in this case. The technology used by the human military isn't all that different from Aliens or Terminator, both Cameron films.

The bottom line is there's some nice world-building in terms of the landscapes and creatures of Pandora--that I'm sure looks amazing in 3D/IMAX--but there's not much beyond that. The characters are pretty much all stock, as are the situations. I think I've already pointed that out thoroughly. For an "original" story there's nothing much original about it.

I'd say to gawk at this in 3D/IMAX while you can. Don't wait to rent it on DVD, because in 2D it's pretty flat.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 84/100 (3 stars)

Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-03T13:01:00.002-08:00

I've never read any Sherlock Holmes books or watched any previous movies, so the most I had ever really encountered the detective was on Star Trek: The Next Generation when the android Data played Holmes on the holodeck. So I really have no idea how faithful this latest version is to the books or previous movies, though I suspect not very.

This version of "Sherlock Holmes" starts off in Victorian London with Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) using some fisticuffs and kung fu to stop a Satanic ritual involving the sacrifice of a young woman. The man making the sacrifice is Lord Blackwood, which creates quite the scandal. Before Blackwood is hanged, he summons Holmes to his cell to claim that he'll return from the grave to not only murder again but to change the world.

After Blackwood is hanged, Holmes is at a loose end. Making things worse is that his loyal sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is getting married. But he finally gets some action when an old flame Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) asks him to find a missing person. That missing person turns out to be in Lord Blackwood's coffin. From there more people are killed, there are double-crosses, chases, and a climactic battle on London Bridge.

Really they could have called this CSI: Victorian London because it's about the same thing. Or "Monk," "Psych," "The Mentalist," "Murder She Wrote" or just about any other mystery series on television only with better actors and special effects. That's not really a dig, just a fact. The movie certainly doesn't try to reinvent the genre, but it does try to have as much fun with it as possible. This Sherlock Holmes is always cracking wise, even in a crisis. The more serious Watson and devious Irene Adler make for good foils for comic bantering. This makes the movie fun to watch from start to finish. Sure some of the plot twists were obvious and the situations not very realistic, but it's an exciting ride. And you have to admire whoever came up with all that stuff about Satanic rituals and what kind of residue certain chemicals make on a rat's tail and so forth. How do you find out that kind of stuff?

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 57/100 (2 stars)

Up In the Air

2010-01-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

I'm going out on a limb and saying this will win for Best Picture of 2009. Not necessarily that it IS the best picture of 2009, but because it's peaking at the right time (the end of the year) and it is a great picture.

The focus of the movie is Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) a consultant who specializes in firing people. His company in Omaha sends him and other consultants around the country to lay people off. Because he's been doing this for a long time, Ryan has gotten air travel down to a science. While the rest of us struggle with luggage, security, kids, and so forth, Ryan cruises in and out with ease.

A large irony is that while Ryan fires people for a living, he values loyalty clubs from American Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Hertz Rental Cards, and so forth. He has flown so much that he's nearing 10 million miles, which only six other people have done with American Airlines.

On the side, he gives "motivational" lectures about how to live without being burdened by all those annoying family members and so forth. He also has a tryst with another frequent traveler named Alex (Vera Farmiga) in Dallas and works out meeting up with her somewhere else along the road.

All of Ryan's plans are threatened when a young woman named Natalie (Anna Kendrick) joins the company. She presses the head of the company (Jason Bateman) to switch over to Web technology, firing people via Web cams. Naturally Ryan isn't happy about this, and even less happy when he's sent back on the road with Natalie to show her the ropes.

Nothing romantic happens between them, because Natalie is about half Ryan's age and has a boyfriend of her own. Instead, they have more of a philosophical dispute. Ryan introduces her to his wonderfully free lifestyle, which she has trouble accepting.

Then another meeting with Alex and a trip back home to Wisconsin to his sister's wedding leave Ryan questioning his wonderfully free lifestyle. This is where the film slows down and threatens to break into sentimentality. The great thing is that while it seems ready to end with the stereotypical kiss and fade to black, the movie resists this urge.

That's because this is a romantic comedy for grownups. Not necessarily grownups in age as in maturity. It's for people who realize that Happily Ever After isn't real and that if Cinderella rides off with Prince Charming before long she'll realize he's cheating on her with one of the ugly stepsisters and so takes the castle and half the treasury in the divorce. For the most part it also resists the slapstick gags and adorable kids that dumb down so many other romantic comedies.

This is also what I liked about Jason Reitman's first movie, "Thank You For Smoking." Where most movies would have had the main character (a sleazy smoking company lobbyist) learn a valuable lesson and change his ways for the better, Reitman resisted the Hollywood ending to have the character remain true to himself. It doesn't work quite as seamlessly here, but still the way it plays out is far more true than most Hollywood movies.

For the first 3/4 of the movie Clooney plays Ryan as Danny Ocean, full of confidence and superiority. It's only in that slower final quarter that the cracks in the facade begin to show and Clooney manages to pull this off. Farmiga also carries off the Alex character who's sexy but not sentimental. The rest of the cast does its job as well, including cameos by Reitman regulars JK Simmons and Sam Elliott.

You'll probably hear more about this as awards season heats up. Make sure you go see this, but understand while there is romance and comedy this isn't your typical date movie. And for that you should be grateful.

That is all.

My score: 90/100 (3.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 83/100 (3 stars)

A Home at the End of the World

2009-12-14T07:42:00.001-08:00

I think my initial problem here is that I read the book a couple of years ago, so I don't remember it extremely well. I really need to go to the library and especially check out the ending. That ending really kills what's otherwise a good film.

"A Home at the End of the World" tells the story of two friends and the bizarre love triangle that develops between them. It starts out in 1967 when nine-year-old Bobby walks in on his older brother having sex. The older brother not long after introduces Bobby to LSD and not long after that dies by accidentally running through a sliding glass door. Picking up seven or eight years later, Bobby's mother is dead as well and he is caring for his father as best he can. Then he meets a shy kid named Jonathan and the two become instant friends.

Unwittingly Bobby corrupts poor Jonathan by introducing him to marijuana. He also unwittingly corrupt's Jonathan's mother (Sissy Spacek) the same way. Given his background, Bobby doesn't really see anything wrong with smoking a joint with his friend or friend's mom. When his father dies, Bobby comes to live with Jonathan's family. In repayment for introducing her to pot, Jon's mom introduces Bobby to baking, which he soon becomes an expert at.

Jonathan leaves to go to college, but Bobby stays in Cleveland until Jonathan's parents decide to move to Arizona for the desert air that should in theory be better for Jonathan's father's respiratory problems. This leaves Bobby homeless, so naturally he calls up Jonathan in New York and asks to stay with him.

In the big city, Bobby goes to Jonathan's East Village apartment that he shares with an older woman named Clare, who dresses and dyes her hair funny colors as if she's younger. It soon becomes evident that Jonathan is gay, but despite this Clare wants to have his baby. Things get weirder with Bobby in the picture. Thus is formed the bizarre love triangle with Bobby and Jonathan both having affection for Clare--and each other.

The reason for the title stems from when Clare does get pregnant and the trio move upstate to Woodstock. Bobby opens a restaurant where Jonathan works as a waiter while Clare cares for the child. It's a very odd situation.

Where it all falls down is in the ending. [SPOILER ALERT!!!]

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OK, you've been warned so if you read anything past this, don't complain I gave away the ending! In his novel, Michael Cunningham mentions AIDS simply as "the disease" which made sense since the book was written in the early '90s when that was still taboo. The problem is that in the movie Cunningham (who wrote the screenplay) is even more timid, mentioning it only in lesions on Jonathan's body. This seems weird to me because the movie came out in 2004, after "Philadelphia" and numerous other shows, movies, benefit concerts on AIDS so it's not nearly so taboo anymore. There seemed no reason to handle the topic so timidly. Of course my theory is this was mandated by some studio exec worried about putting off mainstream audiences or something. No matter what though, it just makes it seem like Cunningham compromised his artistic principles.

And then the movie simply ends. Clare goes to visit her mother--and may not be back--Jonathan is probably dying of AIDS and it just ENDS! WTF? How can you leave the movie like that? That's what I mean by I need to go to the library and see if the book ends that way too.

So that part was really annoying and just kind of spoiled the whole thing for me.

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Anyway, it's still not a bad movie. Actually it reminds me of my book, especially the Bobby character, who remains innocent despite everything that happens around him. From what I can remember the book is better and you're probably better off reading that than watching this movie, though at 90 minutes the movie would take less time.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 59/100 (2 stars)

Night Visitor

2009-12-11T07:59:00.001-08:00

You know what happens when you can't sleep? You end up watching a crappy late-night movie like 1989's "Night Visitor." Or an infomercial with Tom Bosley. Actually the latter might be better.

The movie starts off with a premise similar to Hitchcock's "Rear Window" or the later "Disturbia." Young Billy is using a telescope to spy on his sexy new neighbor Lisa. It seems that Lisa has a new beau over every night. But when Billy tells his friends and invites them over for some group peeping, Lisa chooses that night to go to bed alone.

Desperate to get some proof, Billy climbs up to Lisa's window the next night only to witness Lisa's murder. He's nearly killed by a dude in a black robe and goat mask. In the struggle, Billy pulls off the mask to reveal the face of his weird history teacher Mr. Willard. In an ironic twist just that day or so Mr. Willard had Billy suspended from school for attaching a whoopee cushion and stink bombs to his chair, which was actually committed by Billy's friend Sam Loomis--not the Sam Loomis from the "Halloween" movies though.

Anyway, the police don't believe Billy because he has no proof and a reputation for telling fibs. So in desperation, Billy goes to see Mr. Devereaux (Elliott Gould) a retired police detective for help.

Then the movie just goes off the rails with Satanism, goofy sidekicks, and some Buffalo Bill-type stuff going on in the basement, though the movie predates the film version of "Silence of the Lambs."

Anyway, the most serious problem other than terrible acting from generally a bunch of no-names, is the movie never strikes a consistent tone. It's one of those films that can't decide if it wants to be funny or serious and so winds up trying to do both and failing miserably. Characters like Billy's mom, Sam Loomis, and the police detectives are brought in but never effectively used. This is especially true for the cops, who didn't seem to have any involvement in the endgame after a nonsensical meeting with some kind of shrink about Satanism.

This is purely late-night B-movie fare and on that purely cheesy level it's fine. But after the first half hour or so you might want to flip over to that Tom Bosley infomercial.

That is all.

My score: 25/100 (1 star)

Terminator Salvation

2009-12-09T19:18:00.001-08:00

First off it's important to note that "Terminator Salvation" qualifies as what I'd call a midquel. It's a sequel to some events of James Cameron's "The Terminator" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and the non-Cameron produced "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and yet the movie is also a prequel to some events. Sound confusing? It is.

Basically if you haven't paid much attention to the Terminator series, in 1997 a computer system called SkyNet became self-aware and decided its biggest threat was humankind, so it decided to wipe out all humans by nuking the world in what was known as Judgment Day. (The date of this was pushed back in the third movie to 2003ish.) Many years later, a human resistance led by John Connor defeats SkyNet. But before that victory is complete, SkyNet sends a cyborg back in time to kill Connor's mother Sarah before he is born. Connor sends a soldier named Kyle Reese back in time to fight the cyborg and in the process Reese knocks up Sarah Connor with a baby she of course names Kyle. SkyNet makes to more attempts to kill John Connor when he's a boy and a young man, both of which fail thanks to a friendly cyborg. Does any of this make sense?

Now that you're up to speed on the twisted timeline, "Terminator Salvation" takes place between Judgment Day and when SkyNet sends the original Terminator and Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time. It's the year 2018 to be exact and Earth is pretty much a wasteland ruled by machines. But there are still human defenders. John Connor (Christian Bale) is a leading commander in the resistance though not the head honcho--yet. He has a command with his wife Kate Brewster (Bryce Dallas Howard) who seems pregnant though no mention of this is made.

Connor and a team infiltrate a SkyNet base to find information on a new type of cyborg killing machine called the T-800 (the Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger model in the other films) and in the process find some humans who have been experimented on as well as captives. When it becomes alerted, SkyNet nukes the base with only Connor surviving--or so he thinks.

Another survivor is named Marcus Wright. The last thing he remembers was being put to death 15 years ago for killing some people--exactly what isn't really dealt with. He agreed to donate his body to a scientist (Helena Bonham Carter) working for Cyberdyne Systems, the company that made the ill-fated SkyNet system. Marcus escapes to the ruins of LA, where he encounters a young resistance fighter named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin or Chekov from the "Star Trek" reboot).

Meanwhile, John Connor and the resistance command think they've found a way to beat SkyNet by using a radio frequency that seems to disrupt SkyNet's robots' computer systems. A big raid is planned on SkyNet HQ in the ruins of San Francisco. But when Reese is taken captive by SkyNet, Connor must defy the odds and his orders to try and rescue his future father. This requires working with his mortal enemy.

The first 45-60 minutes of this movie seemed to drag a little for me. Most of it was moving the pieces around the board to set up the final endgame. Most of this in turn was done through chases between revived cars and motorcycle Terminators, flying Terminators, and giant Terminators. Car chases are a staple of Terminator movies, especially telling someone to "Drive" while you shoot out the window, but these chases lacked the same panache as the earlier films.

Once the pieces are in place and we get to the endgame the movie is better. There are even a couple of plot twists you might not see coming. So really the somewhat boring action at the beginning is worth sitting through for a decent payoff.

It's probably unfair to really compare this to the earlier films because they're two different kind of movies. What James Cameron did in 1984's "The Terminator" was to meld the psycho killer stalker genre like "Halloween" with the sci-fi of "Star Wars." The scope especially in T2 became wider but essentially the basic premise remained of running from the killer machine. By contrast "Salvation" is a more straight-ahead war movie with pockets of resistance acting like Allied forces in WWII Europe, a premise that has been used before in movies/shows like the original 1980s "V" series. There's no question I didn't like "Salvation" as much as T2 or T1 or even T3 for perhaps the reason that it was too different from the source material.

As well, the story is relatively thin. Most of the dialog is shouted during chases or fights with stuff like "Hang on!" or "This is really pissing me off!" The relationship between John Connor and Kate Brewster isn't milked for a lot. Christian Bale does his Clint Eastwood/Batman voice through the whole thing, which maybe isn't for the best. Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright is really the standout of the movie, though even that isn't saying a lot.

This being a sequel/prequel there were some nice touches like working in the "I'll be back" line and using GNR's "You Could Be Mine" and the final battle that takes place in a factory reminiscent of the steel plant in T2. (And the digitally generated Ahh-nold, though couldn't he have put some clothes on?) Though really Danny Elfman mangles Brad Feidel's iconic theme song; I mean when you go to a Terminator movie you want to hear BUM-DA-BUM-BUM-BUM or however you'd write it for the original theme, just like if you go to a Star Wars movie you want to hear the original John Williams score.

Overall it's an OK popcorn movie, about equal with "Wolverine" or "Star Trek" and maybe a notch above "Transformers 2" and "GI JOE." Really what an odd "summer" it was with all these prequels, midquels, and reboots.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 52/100 (2 stars)

(BTW, do you think they left in the name of the crew member who was the star of the infamous Christian Bale rant? I should look for that next time.)

In Bruges

2009-12-09T06:53:00.003-08:00

Like "The Ice Harvest" that I watched previously, this is another film taking place during the holidays that is not a holiday film. Instead it's a dark comedy/crime caper about two hitmen who flee to the medieval Belgian town of Bruges after a botched hit.

That hit took place in London, where new recruit Ray (Colin Farrell) was to have whacked a priest, but in the process he kills those most innocent of bystanders--a child. To escape the heat, Ray and his veteran partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are dispatched by their boss to Bruges.

For a hard-living city dweller like Ray, being in Bruges is like being in Hell. He's as petulant and antsy as a small child as Ken leads him around the town to see the sights, including a church that is reputed to have some of Jesus' blood. Meanwhile the proverbial sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads as they wait to hear from their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes) about what to do next.

Things get better for Ray when he sees the beautiful Chloe on the set of a movie featuring a dwarf. Soon Ray and Chloe are becoming an item, but Ray still has trouble reconciling what happened back in London.

When word finally does come from Harry it puts both Ray and Ken in jeopardy.

I first saw this movie over a year ago in the Phoenix Hyatt, but I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. This is what "The Ice Harvest" aspired to be but couldn't pull off--a crime movie that also manages to be hilarious. Because while the characters are hitmen, they aren't generic thugs or toughs. Instead, they're borderline neurotic, especially Ray as he grapples with his demons. In large part it reminds me of "Grosse Point Blank" (which like "The Ice Harvest" starred John Cusack) especially where Ray deadpans to Chloe that he kills priests and children and later during the big shootout scene. Only in this case there's not nearly so much of the romantic comedy element.

This certainly isn't a movie you want to watch with the kids with blood, violence, dwarf jokes, and drug use but it's good adult fare. Really if you're sick of "It's a Wonderful Life" or "A Christmas Story" then go out and rent this.

BTW, after watching this I almost feel sorry for Bruges at being the butt of so many jokes in this film. It does certainly look like a neat place, though I think I'd only want to visit for a couple of days before moving on. Two weeks there might be Hell to me too.

That is all.

My score: 85/100 (3.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 67 (2.5 stars)

The Ice Harvest

2009-12-04T15:59:00.001-08:00

Nothing quite says the holiday like stealing $2 million from your boss and plotting to skip town with your best friend the local porn dealer. Unlike heist movies like "Ocean's 11" the crime isn't the central focus of the store. It's getting away with it that's the problem.

Stealing the money turns out to be incredibly easy. Charlie (John Cusack) is a mob lawyer in Wichita, Kansas who simply goes into the bank and has the manager put a bunch of money in a sack. He goes out to where his friend and porn dealer Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) is waiting. The smart thing to do would probably be to drive straight out of town, but for vague reasons (bad weather, it being XMas Eve) they stay in town overnight with Vic holding on to the money.

This leaves Charlie to hang around town. He goes to a strip club owned by Renata (Connie Nielsen), whom he has a thing for though he's too chicken to act on it. He works up the courage to do a favor for her by stealing some blackmail photos Vic has hidden in a safe. Before he can deliver these, he learns that Roy, an enforcer for Charlie's boss, is looking for him. Things get even worse when Charlie is pressed into being designated driver to Pete (Oliver Platt) who is married to Charlie's ex-wife.

At only about 80 minutes, this film doesn't take much time to expand on the characters or their relationships. Charlie's ex-wife and two kids appear in one scene and other than buying some gas station toys for them he really seems to give them little consideration. Charlie seems reconciled with losing his wife and seems almost happy that Pete is stuck dealing with her.

Since the big crime took place in the first two minutes, there's really not much for the movie to do. As I said, it would have seemed smart to simply keep on driving straight out of town. Some double-crosses and such are worked into the plot to make it a little more interesting, though it's definitely a bush league caper/heist film. It reminds me a lot of "Lucky Numbers" with John Travolta trying to rig the lottery that was trying to be as smart and clever of a crime movie as "Get Shorty" and couldn't pull it off.

The bottom line is that everyone in this movie from the actors to director Harold Ramis (director of "Groundhog Day" and star in "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters" among others) to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and co-writer Richard Russo have done better work than this. While a substandard crime movie, it's also not nearly as much raunchy XMas fun as "Bad Santa" which also starred Billy Bob Thornton. The boobs, violence, and f-bombs just don't add to the fun, perhaps because neither character is a drunk Santa.

In any event, I wouldn't waste your time or money on this when there are many better crime movies and holiday movies out there.

That is all.

BTW, did you know that Billy Bob Thornton has a group called the Boxmasters with an XMas CD? Neither did I until Amazon gave one of the tracks away for free.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Chaplin

2009-12-02T06:52:00.001-08:00

I usually stay away from biopics because let's face it, they aren't REAL. Sure they're based on real events, but they're always dramatized because let's face it, life doesn't package itself neatly into a convenient 2-3 hour story. And there are some like "A Beautiful Mind" and "Frost/Nixon" that take substantial liberties with their subjects. All that said, I really enjoyed "Chaplin."

As you might have guesses from the title, "Chaplin" is the story of Charlie Chaplin (played by Robert Downey, Jr.), the most famous man of the silent film era. His "Little Tramp" character appeared in dozens of films from the 1910s-1930s even after sound (or "talkies") made silent films obsolete.

Like most of the world's great clowns, though, Chaplin's life was anything but happy. His mother Hannah (Geraldine Chaplin, granddaughter of the real Chaplin) tried to be a singer on the London stage but suffered from stage fright and was ultimately driven to madness. His father was probably a drunk whom Charlie never saw. Since standing in one night for his mother on stage, Charlie became drawn to show business. In particular he performed on vaudeville, performing prat falls and somersaults to mimic a wealthy drunk.

One night at the club where Charlie is performing, he meets a dancer named Hetty (Moira Kelly) and becomes instantly smitten, although she's only sixteen. She promises to wait for him as he goes off on a tour of America, from which he never comes back. This is because while performing in Butte, Montana of all places he gets a telegram from George Sennett (Dan Ackroyd) in Hollywood. It's while working for Sennett that Chaplin develops the "Little Tramp" character.

But before long, Chaplin has become popular enough to strike out on his own, where he writes, directs, and stars in his own films at his own studio. While he's tasting financial success for the first time, he gets word that Hetty has married someone else. In a pattern repeated through much of his early life, Charlie marries a young girl named Mildred (Milla Jovovich), who soon divorces him because he's working all the time and because he has no respect for her non-existent intelligence.

In one of the movie's funnier moments, it parodies a silent film as Chaplin, his half-brother, and cameraman/editor (played by a then-unknown David Duchovny) save the footage for "The Kid" and splice it together in Salt Lake among other places before police at the behest of Charlie's ex-wife can take custody of it.

The Roaring 20s were a great success for Chaplin, who was then one of the biggest stars in the world, but his personal life remained a mess. He goes through a couple more young wives, one of whom gives him two sons. A return trip to London reveals that Hetty is dead, emphasizing that you can't go home again.

As the '30s dawn, talkies become the thing but Chaplin refuses to adapt to the new technology, at least for a while. At the same time, he gets more political in his movies and outside of them as well. This brings him to the attention of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (Kevin Dunn), who sees Chaplin (and much of Hollywood) as subversive. Chaplin really draws the ire of Hoover and the general public by being an outspoken critic of Hitler and the Nazis before America's entry into the war. He goes so far as to finally have the Little Tramp speak in "The Great Dictator."

From there Chaplin's professional life mostly gives way to his personal life and the various trials he faces thanks to Hoover and Joseph McCarthy.

As I said at the beginning, biopics aren't really REAL in portraying their subjects, but the good ones at least present the subjects in an interesting way. "Chaplin" was to me not just a good biopic, but a great one. Though it has to gloss over much of Chaplin's life to fit into 2 1/2 hours, I found it fascinating. If nothing else I'd like to read a real biography or perhaps the actor's autobiography for a little more insight into this man who helped popularize movies, making reviews like this one possible.

BTW, as far as biopics go, maybe in 20-30 years we can get the Robert Downey, Jr. story. I bet that one would be pretty fascinating too.

That is all.

My score: 100/100 (4 stars)
Metacritic score: N/A

Be Kind, Rewind

2009-12-01T06:29:00.001-08:00

Anyone familiar with Michael Gondry's work like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Science of Sleep" knows he specializes in what could best be described as "quirky" movies. Or if you're less charitable you might call them downright weird. So it's no surprise that "Be Kind, Rewind" follows in this tradition. Since I didn't hate it, I guess I'll call it quirky. Or maybe whimsical.

Another word would also be implausible. There's maybe a .0000000001% chance that this could ever happen in real life. First and foremost because though it takes place in the 21st century, the action revolves around videotapes. Yes, honest to God VHS tapes! In particular a backwards little store in Passaic, New Jersey that still rents videotapes for a buck. The store has only one real customer, an old lady named Ms. Falewicz (Mia Farrow) who's friends with the owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover).

Another frequent visitor is Jerry (Jack Black) a conspiracy nut who lives in the nearby junkyard and has a beef with the power company for some reason. Before he leaves for a trip to Kansas City, Mr. Fletcher tells his only employee Mike (Mos Def) to keep Jerry away from the store--and with good cause as it turns out. One night Jerry decides to try sabotaging the power company and in the process magnetizes himself. When Mike makes the mistake of letting Jerry into the story, all the videotapes are erased. This becomes a real problem when Ms. Falewicz threatens to tattle on Mike to Mr. Fletcher unless she gets a copy of "Ghostbusters."

In desperation, Mike grabs an old video camera and Jerry and they reenact the movie with homemade props from the junkyard. (Another of the probably implausible elements is that aren't commercial videotapes made so you can't record over them?) When Mr. Falewicz's young charges see this, the parody movies become a neighborhood phenomenon.

But just as it seems they'll be able to save the video store from demolition, disaster strikes...

The overall story avoids some of the cliches in the old "plucky kids trying to save beloved landmark from crusty old developer" formula. For one thing the developer isn't all that old or crusty. Mostly I think this is a film that's supposed to be about how film and imagination can bring us together--or something like that.

As you might expect, the best parts of the movie are where Mike, Jerry, and new friend Ama are making their homemade movies, which they called "Sweded" for whatever reason. The parodies of "Ghostbusters," "Rush Hour 2," and "Robocop" are hilarious and really make you wish the whole movie were simply composed of these instead of trying to have a story. It reminds me when my siblings and I used to do riffs on "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" in the backyard. You might be better off seeing if the official site for the movie is still working than watching the actual movie.

Other than that, Jack Black is a little more restrained than sometimes, which is a good thing. As far as rapper-actors go Mos Def is at best the homeless man's Will Smith and has done better work in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "The Italian Job" than his bland, befuddled character here. They probably could have used a better actor for the Mike character, one who could play off Jack Black a bit more. Oh well.

Still, this is good for a rental--on DVD of course.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 52/100 (2 stars)

Doubt/Michael Clayton/Gran Torino/Up

2009-11-29T19:28:00.001-08:00

"Doubt"

As a former Lutheran, I've never been a big fan of the Catholic church and "Doubt" certainly wasn't going to improve my opinion. It's 1964 in New York and Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has recently come to the parish. His new school beliefs about embracing the parishioners leads him to come into conflict with the old school nun Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep). Caught in the middle is young Sister James (Amy Adams) who thinks Father Flynn is having an inappropriate relationship with the school's first black student. Did he or didn't he? That's the question but "Doubt" certainly leaves a lot of doubt about this.

I'm not one to usually comment on technical things like direction but some of the strange camera angles reminded me of the old "Batman" TV show, which is never a good thing and it really seemed to serve no purpose. As well, the surprise confession at the end seemed kind of forced to me.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic Score: 68/100 (2.5 stars)

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"Michael Clayton"

Someone has to do the dirty work, even in corporate law. Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a big law firm's "fixer" or the guy who comes to your home after you've hit someone with your car or killed a hooker or something like that to spearhead damage control. Meanwhile, Michael is facing financial problems after his junkie brother botches a bar Michael invested in. Then things take a turn for the worse when a friend and fellow attorney Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) goes off his meds and freaks out in a meeting with clients in a case concerning an agrochemical conglomerate. As Michael involves himself in this situation, he finds that something stinks--and it's not the cow manure down on the farm.

Two things that bugged me is first the movie starts with a scene that in the film's chronology takes place near the end. Of course there's no way I as the viewer could realize this until later, which is really confusing and disconcerting. Also, the end depends upon one of the oldest cliches in film, the old villain confessing into a recording device. Otherwise it's a passable thriller, but not all that thrilling.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 82/100 (3 stars)

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"Gran Torino"

When I saw the previews for this, the premise seemed ludicrous to me. An octogenarian Dirty Harry battling an Asian gang a quarter his age? Why don't they just steal his walker and push him down?

Of course it's not really Dirty Harry. Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a former Ford assembly line worker in a Detroit-area neighborhood that has gone to seed, like much of the city itself. Walt is recently widowed and has no one except his ingrate family who are basically waiting for him to die so they can sell off the house and take possession of the rest of his stuff like his cherry 1972 Gran Torino. But someone else tries to take it first--a young Hmong kid named Thao. A veteran of Korea, Walt doesn't like Asians much--or anyone really--but when a local gang picks on Thao and his family, Walt intervenes to help them.

This was a nice story of a jaded old coot bonding with a needy young man. How this comes about manages to seem believable. Even Walt confronting the much younger Asian and black kids in the neighborhood didn't seem as absurd as I'd feared when I first saw the previews. And the end really comes as a surprise, especially for those who remember Eastwood from the Dirty Harry pictures, though I'm not sure his plan would really work in real life.

BTW, an interesting fact is Eastwood was one of the first to take advantage of new tax credits to film in the actual Detroit area instead of trying to have Toronto or Vancouver sub as the Motor City.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 72/100 (3 stars)

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"Up"

I keep waiting for the Pixar movie that's finally going to let me down. But they do it yet again with "Up." A sweet movie that still manages to tackle some grown up issues. The movie itself is completely implausible, but only an idiot expects what is ostensibly a kid's movie to be plausible.

In really the most touching part of the movie, it begins with a montage about how young Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner) comes to meet Ellie. They both worship adventurer Charles Muntz (voice of Christopher Plummer) who goes to South America in search of a rare bird back in the '30s. Carl and Ellie go from best friends to husband and wife and dream of someday joining Muntz in Paradise Falls. But someday never comes for Ellie. So on the verge of being thrown in a retirement home, Carl ties a bunch of balloons to his house and floats away. He has a stowaway in Wilderness Explorer Russell, who has no choice but to accompany Carl to Paradise Falls. When Carl finally gets to Paradise Falls and meets his idol, he discovers his hero has feet of clay.

As I said, this is a really sweet movie that is enjoyable for the kids without all the gross out fart gags prevalent in "Shrek" and other computer animated kids movies. At the same time it also deals with loss, love, and loneliness in a way that kids and adults can understand. Basically if you liked "Wall-E" then you'll like this too.

My score: 100/100 (4 stars)

Metacritic score: 88/100 (3.5 stars)

That is all.

Alien Trespass

2009-11-25T19:26:00.001-08:00

Those who are old enough to remember nights at the drive-in would probably remember the type of B-movie "Alien Trespass" aspires to be. For the younger generation, it's like something you'd see on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" only without Crowe T. Robot, Tom Servo, and Joel/Mike in the front row cracking wise. Though it doesn't achieve B-movie perfection, it is a fun little movie.

The movie starts off with an introduction by the former head of a fictitious studio that in the '50s produced a movie called "Alien Trespass" that was supposed to be the greatest sci-fi film of its time, up there with classics like "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Except before the studio could release the film, there was a contract dispute with the film's star, M. Eric "Merrick" McCormack, the supposed grandfather of "Will & Grace" and "Free Enterprise" star Eric McCormack. The film was hidden away for over 50 years until a construction crew uncovers it and now at long last it can be screened. (This is of course all a put on.)

The actual film begins on a night in the small town of Mojave. Dr. Ted Lewis (McCormack) works at the local observatory but during a meteor shower is spending some romantic time with his wife. After a little roll in one of their twin beds, Dr. Lewis is watching the meteor shower when he sees one crash on the butte nearby. When Lewis gets up there, he encounters a crashed flying saucer and an alien in a silver space suit who looks sort of like GORT from "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

Nearby, Dick and Penny are making out at Lookout Point when they think they see a strange monster with one arm and tentacles. They run away and shrug it off until the next morning when their friend convinces them to go back for a closer look. Meanwhile, Lewis returns home, but his wife notices he's acting very strangely. For one thing he starts speaking about himself in third person saying things like, "Ted loves Lana." This freaks her out enough that she goes to find a doctor.

Though the cops refuse to believe the kids about the monster, they eventually suspect something's going on when people start disappearing, leaving behind only puddles of goo. Meanwhile, Lewis goes off in search of the monster with the help of a waitress named Tammy. But will he be able to find the monster before it begins splitting and devouring the town and then the world?

This movie was fun to watch and as I said at the beginning, it's in that B-movie mold you might still be able to catch on TV late at night. There's no point in criticizing the silly story or hammy acting because that's the whole point of the thing. Nor can you fault the rubber-suit monster or other lame effects, because that's how it's supposed to be.

Really though my main criticism is that some of the effects (notably the flying saucer when it's flying around) aren't lame enough. The ship should have looked like spray-painted paper plates on a string or something like that. Another thing is that with the gag at the beginning about this being a film recovered from the '50s, the film quality should have been grainier. As it stands, the picture looks much too clear to be over 50 years old, most of which has been spent in the ground. Maybe we're supposed to believe someone cleaned it up first, but why? The gag would have worked better if it looked more like a drive-in movie.

Anyway, it only clocks in at 80 minutes, so it doesn't take up much time. If you want to relive some campy B-movie fun, this movie is for you. Just remember not to take it seriously.

That is all.

My score: 63/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 48/100 (2 stars)

GI JOE: The Rise of COBRA

2009-11-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

Growing up, GI JOE was always my #2 favorite action figure (sometimes lower than that) behind Transformers. I'm not sure how to explain that, except that Transformers were cool giant robots and GI JOEs were just little dudes with tiny weapons that were always getting lost--and half the time the rubber bands holding the JOEs together would break. (Seriously, my brother and I had a whole bag full of dismembered JOES.) Anyway, this pattern repeats itself in that I didn't really like GI JOE: The Rise of COBRA as much as "Transformers" in 2007. Though I did like it better than "Transformers 2" because it's shorter and doesn't have all the dumb gross-out gags and as bad of racist stereotypes.

The movie begins with a prologue showing that the MacCullen clan in Scotland has a long tradition of selling weapons to both sides of a conflict and that one of the clan was the Man in the Iron Mask. James MacCullen keeps the tradition alive by running MARS, which makes 70% of the world's weapons systems. His latest triumph are missiles loaded with tiny robots that devour metal called nanomites.

Transporting a load of nanomites from the factory in a former Soviet republic to a NATO base is the job of Duke, Rip Cord, and a team of NATO troops. Unfortunately the NATO team is ambushed and everyone except Duke (Channing Tatum) and Rip Cord (Marlon Wayans) killed by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), an old flame of Duke's. They're saved by an elite ultra-secret unit known as GI JOE. Like a military Dream Team, GI JOE is made up of the best soldiers from every country. Charter members include British weapons specialist Heavy Duty, Moroccan communications expert Breaker, American intelligence officer Scarlet, and Japanese ninja Snake Eyes. They're lead by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) who invites Duke and Rip Cord to audition for the team.

After the bad guys infiltrate JOE headquarters in the Egyptian desert to steal the warheads, it becomes a chase to get the warheads back before they destroy the world. This leads Duke and the gang to Paris and other places. In the process, Duke finds out what happened to the Baroness and her brother Rex (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) during a mission in Africa four years earlier.

I really wanted to dislike this movie, but I couldn't. It delivers exactly what it promises in pretty much non-stop action. The story is paper-thin and doesn't always make a lot of sense, but only the most uptight critic would expect anything more. Really, when it's made by the guy who did the first two Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movies and "Van Helsing" what can you expect?

Still, there were a couple of things I couldn't ignore. First, Channing Tatum sucks. he mumbles his way through the movie and with as much emotion or charisma as a WWE star. Really, couldn't they have gotten John Cena or one of those guys for the role? Also, why does Snake Eyes have a mouth on his suit? He doesn't talk! Not ever! A mouth on his costume is as superfluous as nipples on the Batsuit.

Also, from a pure JOE fanboy point of view, the Baroness isn't supposed to have a heart of gold. We didn't need an origin story for COBRA Commander or Snake Eyes, though it is kind of fun watching 8 year olds whaling on each other. And JOEs don't have robotic Iron Man suits--that's for Transformers. Though you have to appreciate them working in the "Knowing is Half the Battle" line from the old PSAs after each episode.

But really, if you want a popcorn movie filled with a lot of action, then GI JOE gives you exactly that--and not much more.

And now you know; and knowing is half the battle.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 32/100 (1 star)

Eastern Promises

2009-11-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

Most movies, for instance "Transformers 2," are far too bloated and could use a good half-hour or more (in the case of "Transformers 2" much more) cut out. It's rare that I actually think a movie should go longer. Such is the case, though, with "Eastern Promises."

The movie starts off with the execution of a Russian man in a London barber shop. Meanwhile, a young girl stumbles into a pharmacy, pleading for help before she collapses and goes into labor. The girl dies in childbirth, but the baby survives.

How these two seemingly unconnected events connect is the focus of the rest of the film. Anna Ivanova (Naomi Watts) is a midwife at the hospital who helped deliver the girl's baby. No one at the hospital knows who the girl is and if they don't find out soon, the baby will be given over to the foster care system. Anna finds a diary among the girl's effects, but the problem is the diary is written in Russian.

Lucky for her that she has a Russian uncle, except that he gets grumpy and reluctant to translate it. Then Anna finds the card for a local Russian restaurant called TransSiberian. She goes there and talks with the kindly old owner, who promises to help her. Outside, she finds a driver named Nicolai (Viggo Mortensen) admiring her motorcycle. No, they don't fall madly in love. This isn't that kind of movie.

As it turns out, Nicolai is also a part-time enforcer for the local Russian Mafia syndicate, run by the seemingly kindly old restaurant owner. At the moment the don is having some trouble with his son because of that barber shop murder. What's inside the diary only makes things worse and puts Anna and her family in danger.

There's more to it, but I won't spoil that for you. Though I can say that if you watched "Lord of the Rings" and ever wanted to see Aragorn's butt and junk you'll be thrilled. Me, not so much. (And if we were going to get gratuitous shots of Viggo Mortensen naked, could we at least have gotten a Naomi Watts nude scene to balance it out? I hate to sound like a pig, but come on!)

Anyway, as I mentioned at the beginning, I felt this could have gone longer than its 100 minutes running time, especially because of a surprise twist near the end. As it stands, the movie ends with some things left up in the air and the romance (such as it is) between Anna and Nicolai doesn't really get anywhere.

It is a fascinating crime/gangster drama, though perhaps not exactly up there with "The Godfather." If you liked "The Departed" or "Road to Perdition" then you will probably like this one too. And maybe you'll think this movie promised a little more than it delivered.

That is all.

My score: 62/100 (2.5 stars)

Metacritic score: 82/100 (3.5 stars)

State of Play

2009-11-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

You know a thriller is a good thriller when you feel you should watch it twice to make sense of it all. Such was the case for me with "State of Play." The first time I watched it I wasn't sure I really understood what happened, so I watched it again to make sure. With an action movie that would be considered a weakness, but thrillers like this are supposed to have the kinds of twists and turns that leave you second-guessing yourself.

The story begins with a young assistant to Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) dying on a subway platform in DC. It's soon uncovered that Collins and the girl were having an intimate relationship.

At first the media describes it as a suicide but Collins goes to his old college roommate Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), an old-school investigative journalist for the Washington Globe--a thinly-veiled Washington Post--to say he thinks the girl was murdered. McAffrey is already investigating the murders of a purse-snatcher and a pizza delivery guy in an alley. On the surface these seem completely unrelated, but of course they aren't.

Cal gets some help in his investigation from Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) a blogger for the paper's online side. So as a subplot we have the changing world of journalism from print to pixels, not to mention from ethics to profit. Della delves into the girl's sordid personal life while Cal digs into PointCorp, a Blackwater-type private security outfit Collins has been holding hearings on.

Before long Cal and Della are getting in over their heads and unsure of who, if anyone to trust. And that's really all I'll say so as not to spoil too many of the twists and turns.

Overall this was to me a well put together movie and with Crowe, Affleck, and supporting players like Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn, Jeff Daniels, and Jason Bateman there's plenty of talent, none of which really disappointed me. Like any good thriller, there were times when I thought for sure I had it all figured out only to realize (like the reporters in the movie) that I didn't. That's part of the reason I wanted to go back and see it again to see what I might have missed.

On a side note, the congressman's aide could almost be considered the film's MacGuffin. That's a plot element that sets things into motion but in a broader sense doesn't really matter. Basically all the girl does is walk from her apartment to the train platform; her only lines come in the form of voice mail. So it's kind of funny that she causes everything to happen and yet has almost no screen time whatsoever.

Anyway, as far as political thrillers go, I liked this and would recommend watching it--twice.

That is all.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 64/100 (2.5 stars)

Pieces of April & Rachel Getting Married

2009-11-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

Through some quirk of fate or chance or whatever, two of the movies I received from Blockbuster this week had a lot of parallels. In particular both films feature a black sheep daughter trying to atone and make amends during a family get together. So I figure I might as well review them together. We'll do this in chronological order.

Remember when Katie Holmes was more than Mrs. Cruise and Suri's mommy and frequent cover girl of tabloids and US Weekly? If not, "Pieces of April" from 2003 might be a good reminder. At the very least, with Thanksgiving approaching it's a timely film to watch.

The movie centers around Holmes's character, the eponymous April. After years of drug abuse, terrible boyfriends, and just in general mayhem, April has settled into a New York apartment with a new boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke) who seems to be The One. She decides to demonstrate this change by inviting her family to the apartment for Thanksgiving.

Her family lives in suburban Pennsylvania or somewhere like that, necessitating a five hour drive to the Big Apple. April's mother (Patricia Clarkson) is apprehensive and cynical, expecting everything to be a disaster, as does April's brown-nosing sister. April's father (Oliver Platt) is more hopeful. Making things more interesting on the long trip is that the mother is suffering from breast cancer, which requires frequent stops for her to throw up and light up some medical pot. And there's also the senile grandmother along for the ride.

Things are shaping up to be a disaster, especially when she finds out her oven isn't working. This necessitates a mad scramble throughout the building to find someone who will let her use her oven. By the time all is said and done, I'm not sure I'd want to eat the bird for fear of what germs might have got on it along the way.

Clocking in at less than 90 minutes, this movie is brisk but enjoyable. There's not really a lot of weeping and teeth-gnashing and screaming, so that while it's not extremely light-hearted, it's not gloomy either. And there's a good message about love, family, and forgiveness. So I guess you could say this movie is no turkey.

My score: 75/100 (3 stars)

Metacritic score: 70/100 (3 stars)

It's a wedding instead of Thanksgiving dinner that's the centerpiece of "Rachel Getting Married," as should be obvious from the title. Kym Buchanan after years of drug abuse, drinking, and just in general mayhem is checking out of rehab for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

Almost immediately she visits a local AA meeting, where she meets Kiernan, who turns out to also be the best man and almost immediately she and Kiernan are having sex in the basement. While Kym doesn't sabotage the wedding in any huge way, she does hamper things with her overly dramatic, me-first behavior, such as demanding to be made the maid of honor despite having had no input on the wedding.

Kym's presence reopens some old wounds, especially with her and her mother (Debra Winger) over something that happened before Kym went into rehab. But there are good times as well with lots of dancing and singing and competitive dishwasher loading.

There's not much else I could really say about the plot without giving too much away. I thought this movie was interesting, but not overly great. Parts of it dragged, especially the rehearsal dinner toasts and during the reception. There's not too many "Bridezilla" moments except a tantrum at the hair salon and it avoids the cliches about cold feet and such.

There is to some extent the same message about love, family, and forgiveness only with a slightly darker ending.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 82/100 (3.5 stars)

Overall, I'd say if you want something lighter and funnier than go with the former and if you want more serious fare go with the latter.

That is all.

The Sasquatch Gang

2009-11-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

There are good independent films out there. There are even good independent films about nerds, such as "Free Enterprise." Then there's "The Sasquatch Gang," which I unfortunately stumbled across on Showtime one morning and decided to rent so I could watch the whole thing.

The movie is written and directed by Tim Skousen, the first assistant director on the surprise hit, "Napoleon Dynamite." It also has at least one of the same producers and also Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon) as a sheriff and a cameo by Napoleon Dynamite himself, Jon Heder.

The material is similar to that movie as well. Like the titular hero of the aforementioned "Napoleon Dynamite," this film revolves around an immature doofus. In this case it's a teenager named Gavin, whose idea of a good time is to stage battles on his front lawn with his chubby friend Hobie and androgynous friend Maynard. They make swords, maces, and phallic instruments that I think are supposed to be spears, out of duct tape and plastic tubing. Then there's Sophie, a clerk at the local video store who thinks she's fat and so has her dentist uncle wire her jaw shut. She also has a crush on Gavin and so they go on a "date" where he teaches her to sword fight.

Now you're probably wondering, what does Sasquatch have to do with anything? Well, one day Gavin, his friends, and Sophie are walking in the woods when they find a big pile of poop and some larger-than-normal footprints. They call the sheriff, who in turn alerts the media, which in turn prompts Dr. Artemis Snodgross (Apollo Creed himself, Carl Weathers) to show up to evaluate the find.

Except the poop and footprints are fake, which would be a spoiler if not for the jumbled timeline the film uses, which actually discloses this crucial fact early on. Mullet-wearing Zerk (Justin Long of Mac commercial fame) is about to have his prized Firebird repoed for racking up $1000 on his credit card (he bought $5 of fast food six years earlier and then never paid the bill, which is probably one of the movie's funnier points) and so with his shirtless friend Shirts, decide to stage the hoax to raise money by selling Bigfoot poop and prints on Ebay.

Then there's some fuzzy story point about if the find turns out to be a hoax that Gavin will have to give away his prized video collection to his nemesis Shane. Yes, though this is supposed to be 2005 he has a collection of videotapes and Sophie's store still rents VHS tapes. I guess DVD technology hadn't reached the Oregon woods yet.

This is all similar to "Napoleon Dynamite" as I said early on, but really it seems like a pale imitation. While Napoleon was the charming tale of an immature doofus (and the immature doofuses around him) finding love and acceptance, there's no such fairy tale story to embrace here. Mostly the story is a confusing mess that probably smells as bad as Bigfoot's poo. The acting by pretty much all involved is just as bad.

You'd probably have to go out of your way to find this movie unless it's showing on Showtime or you have Netflix. Don't go to the effort.

BTW, on a side note the ending credits call the movie "The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang." I'm not sure what's up with that, except maybe the studio decided to shorten the title and no one changed the credits.

That is all.

My score: 40/100 (1.5 stars) (Though it was probably more fun than "Adventureland.")

Metacritic score: 57/100 (2.5 stars)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Maybe someone can help me out here and tell me about a decent prequel that has ever been made. I'm sure someone, some time has made one--I just can't think of one. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (there's quite a mouthful) doesn't qualify.

If you know nothing about comics or movies, Wolverine is a character first introduced in the "X-Men" series of comics back in the '70s. He has cool metal claws that come out of his hands when he gets mad--which happens a lot. He can also regenerate, which comes in handy if the Incredible Hulk rips him in half, as happened in a recent comic book series. When the X-Men made the leap to the big screen in 2000, Wolverine was played by Hugh Jackman as gruff loner with cool metal claws and regenerative powers and also amnesia. In "X2" some of Wolverine's past was revealed when he uncovered the former lab of William Stryker, who performed experiments on mutants. So now you're up to speed.

Since making "X4" was too difficult, the studio decided to bring Jackman back to reprise Wolverine, only in this case to describe how he became everyone's favorite Canadian superhero. The movie starts with a prologue in 1845 in the Canadian Rockies, when young James Logan has a Luke Skywalker moment and also finds out cool bone claws spring from his hands when he gets mad. Together with his brother (or half-brother maybe, I'm not sure) Victor, aka Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), Logan goes on for whatever reason to fight in every American war of the next 120 years from the Civil War on to Vietnam in a montage similar to the one used more effectively in "Watchmen."

With all of that out of the way the real story begins in the early '70s or so. Logan and Victor get found out by the Army and sentenced to death until a man named Major William Stryker (Danny Huston taking the role played by Brian Cox in "X2") steps in to offer them a License to Kill by doing the government's dirty work. While Victor enjoys this, Logan decides that 130 years of killing is enough and after a mission to Africa to locate meteor fragments containing a strange alien metal, he goes off the grid in the Canadian Rockies. There he lives with a schoolteacher named Kayla (Lynn Collins) and all seems happy.

But of course we know it can't stay that way because we've seen the other three movies. So it's no surprise when Victor shows up and kills Kayla. This drives Logan over the edge so that he makes a deal with Stryker to get adamantium (made from that alien metal found in Africa) injected into his body so that he can kill Victor. When Stryker tries to double-cross him, Logan goes on the run. Eventually more of Stryker's dirty deeds are uncovered, which leads to a battle at a certain nuclear plant that became famous in the late '70s. Along the way some mutants not seen in the previous movies like Gambit are introduced and younger versions of some shown in the previous movies like Cyclops are shown.

Like most prequels I found it hard to care much about any of this. The problem with prequels like this or the "Star Wars" ones is that it was never essential to know the background of the character. How many people besides rabid fanboys really cared how Darth Vader became Darth Vader? After over 8 mostly dull hours we found out, but did it satisfy anyone? In the same vein, how many people were really hankering to find out how Wolverine became Wolverine? Probably not many.

Like other prequels it does sort of in a half-baked way answer the big questions about Wolverine's origins. At the same time like any prequel made almost a decade after the source material it leaves other nagging questions, such as why Sabretooth looks completely different from the first film and seems not to really know his brother.

I suppose if you just want to appreciate this on the popcorn level it's slightly less boring and annoying than "Transformers 2." That's not saying much. Though I thought the effects looked pretty cheap, the kind you can tell were all done on computers. Notably was a scene where Logan and Kayla are in their El Camino and it's so obvious they were surrounded by a blue/green screen that I nearly laughed. And apparently the writers/producers/director didn't bother doing any homework or they'd have realized that HumVees did not go into service until 1985 and didn't even begin development until 1981, both coming after when this movie is supposed to be taking place. Is it that hard to find some old Jeeps these days? As well, it seems unlikely the technology for creating Weapon X (Wolvie's codename) would exist in the '70s when most computers still took up whole rooms.

Most damning though is still the absence of any yellow spandex. Though you have to admire the craftsmanship of the leather jacket he wears, which apparently survives the next 20 years.

That is all.

My score: 50/100 (2 stars)

Metacritic score: 43/100 (1.5 stars)

The Dark Knight (v1)

2009-10-12T09:38:00.002-07:00

The Dark Knight
4/4 stars

Is WOW! sufficient? I can't remember the last time I went to a movie and was in utter disbelief at how far the filmmakers went. They pulled out all the stops and the sad thing is that I can't tell you about any of them without spoiling the movie, which you need to see, at least if you can stand a grim and gritty foray into crime and morality. And believe me, they don't call it "The DARK Knight" for nothing.

The complicated plot involves Batman about a year or so after the earlier "Batman Begins" taking down the mob with the help of police lieutenant Jim Gordon and new DA Harvey Dent who is known to Gothamites as the "White Knight" for his tough stance on crime and by the corrupt cops as "Two Face" for his time in Internal Affairs. By working together Batman, Gordon, and Dent put a stop to the mob--at least temporarily--but enbolden an even greater threat in the Joker. The Joker isn't your typical movie villain in pursuit of money or world domination; he wants chaos, pure and simple. And what follows is chaos that pushes everyone to (and past) the limit.

Though it is a bit overlong at 2 1/2 hours, this is still an absolutely tremendous film. It takes the groundwork laid by more serious superhero flicks like the 1989 Batman or "Spider-Man 2" and completely takes it up to the next level in terms of substance. If it weren't for the crazy costumes this wouldn't be much different than watching something like "The Godfather" or "Heat."

Heath Ledger plays the evil Joker and if you don't know, he killed himself in January. Anyway, his performance was awesome, blowing away the Jack Nicholson version, which is a feat. What I think helped this out is they didn't try to create an origin for the Joker. He simply shows up on the scene, creating havoc. What that means is there's nothing that allows us to gain a lot of sympathy or understanding of him, because we don't see that he was some kid picked on on the playground or some crazy Mafia thug. He's simply an evil force unleashed upon the world. Ledger of course gets most of the kudos, but the other actors all did their thing, or as much as they needed to do. Maggie Gyllenhaal was slightly less irritating than Katie Holmes, but how hard was that?

I'm sure this movie isn't for everyone. After the first time I watched it, I felt as if I had been psychologically bludgeoned with a sack of doorknobs. There is just so much happening and not a lot of it is very pleasant. I'd say you probably shouldn't take young kiddies because even though most of the violence isn't shown on screen and there's not a lot of blood, the Joker is pretty terrifying and another character ends up pretty gross-looking. More importantly, it's really not an easy movie to follow because there are so many interlocking moving parts. And if you want something "fun" you're better off watching "Hellboy II" or "The Incredible Hulk" because this isn't your old-fashioned dumb superhero movie as I've already said.

At the end of the day, the real question I have is: where do they go from here? How can you possibly top that? Well, you probably can't.

Transsiberian

2009-10-12T09:38:00.001-07:00

The one I saw last week was a far cry from all the superhero movies released this summer. "TransSiberian" is the story of a couple from Iowa taking the famous TransSiberian train from Beijing to Moscow. Roy and Jessie have just been ministering to kids in China and are on their way home. But since Roy has a thing for trains--he has a train set in his basement--they get on the train. Right away it's obvious I wouldn't want to get on this train and travel thousands of miles. It's cramped, the windows don't open, the toilets don't flush, and the east listening music doesn't ever stop. Still, Roy and Jessie are making a go of it, though we see they have some conflict in their marriage concerning birth control.

Then after making a stop at the Russian border where they have to change the wheels of the train cars because Russia uses a different gauge than China, two young bohemians come on board. Carlos is from Spain while Abby is from Seattle--or at least that's what they say. There's something shady about them right from the get-go when Jessie wakes up to them trying to have sex in the room they all share.

Things heat up at the next stop where Roy misses the train while exploring and Jessie has to wait for him to catch up with Abby and Carlos. From there the intrigue begins with a murder, some cleverly hidden drugs, and a drug enforcement inspector named Ilya. The end gets a little convoluted and silly, but overall "TransSiberian" managed to hold my interest, in large part because of great acting all around. Woody Harrelson basically updates his bartender character from "Cheers" though a little older and smarter. Ben Kingsley as one critic noted adds another great ethnic character to his resume after "Gahndi" and the Iranian officer in "House of Sand and Fog." Emily Mortimer does a good job as the ordinary woman in way over head. And Eduardo Noriega has just the right amount of sleazy charm as Carlos. So even though there aren't explosions or giant monsters, you're still interested in finding out what's going to happen to these people.

As I said earlier, though, the ending gets a little silly. I guess they felt the need to get one expensive action scene into the movie. What stays with you though as the characters--especially Jessie--make moral choices is to wonder what you would do in that situation, if it ever came to that. Pray that it doesn't.

I loved director/writer Brad Anderson's previous "The Machinist" and this film was also very good, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work in the future. I did manage to see this at the AMC theater near me, but other chains are not carrying it, so it might not be playing in your area. If not, make sure to check it out on DVD or On Demand when it comes out. If you like a good grownup suspense flick this is for you.

(My grade: 3/4 stars)
(Metacritic grade: 72)

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army

2009-10-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

I remembered liking the original although I hadn't seen it in a few years until FX showed it on basic cable the week it came out. Hellboy is a "hero" who is actually a demon from Hell discovered in 1944 by an American scientist investigating some Nazi occult shenanigans. The scientist raises the demon as his own son and calls him Hellboy. Over time Hellboy goes out and fights evil monsters under the protection of a Men in Black-type agency known as the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. He's aided by a fish-type creature called Abe Sapien and a young woman named Liz who can create blue flames when she's provoked.

Anyway, fast forward now to the sequel where Hellboy and Liz are living together, which brings to mind some gross questions better not contemplated, and Hellboy is chafing under Liz's rule and that of Manning, the head of the Bureau. At the same time, something sinister is afoot. Borrowing from "Lord of the Rings" years ago there was a truce between Men and other creatures, most notably Elves. The gist of the truce is that the Elves, trolls, and other creatures would live in the forests and Men would have the rest, but now Man has violated the truce by cutting all the trees down. Enter Prince Nuada, an Elf who's decided to find the pieces of a crown that would allow him to control The Golden Army, a group of 4900 indestructible metal killing machines.

The search for the crown pieces brings him to an auction in Manhattan, during which he unleashes a horde of evil "Tooth Fairies," which are nasty flying critters that eat you from the teeth out. Hellboy and company are called in to fight them in a battle whose conclusion, like the rest of the movie, seems so obvious you wonder why the heroes didn't think of it after about five seconds. The bad guy escapes with the crown, but before he can use it his sister Nuala steals the other part and seeks refuge at the Bureau's headquarters in New Jersey, where she falls in love with Abe Sapien.

Mayhem ensues with battling trolls and giant forest gods and of course The Golden Army. There is a reason why Liz has been so annoyed with Hellboy recently, but I won't spoil it for you, though it's probably obvious. So much of the movie is obvious, especially the end. I figured out what would happen after watching the bizarre LOTR puppet show at the beginning and the fight between Nuada and his father a little later, so basically I sat through probably a good 80-90 minutes already knowing the outcome.

Still, the movie is passable entertainment in terms of there's all sorts of creepy monsters and some decent fight scenes. And the Barry Manilow sing-along can't help but make you smile.

There were a couple of castmembers missing from the sequel. One was Rupert Evans who played FBI Agent Myers in the first film to set up a love triangle between him-Liz-and Hellboy. His character was summarily dispatched to Antarctica, presumably to make room for the surprise twist. But it was nice in the first film to have a regular human balancing out all the monsters and freaks. All we have in the sequel is Manning, who is not exactly the most charismatic guy. The second missing person was David Hyde Pierce who did the voice for Abe Sapien. So now you get one of those weird moments early on when you realize the character sounds different. In some ways this is an improvement, but it's still disorienting.

I waited to see this in the second-run theater for the obvious reason: "The Dark Knight" came out the next week. While Hellboy is a passable sequel it's not in the same league as "The Dark Knight"--at least to me. Where as TDK felt like an extension of the saga, "Hellboy II" feels like the typical Hollywood sequel where more stuff happens, but there's not really a lot of growth to the characters or the overarching story. I think one critic said this was a movie with not much on its mind. I'd have to agree. It's a fun movie, but too predictable and shallow. If you want to kill a couple hours you could do worse, but you could also do better.

(My grade: 2/4 stars)
(Metacritic grade: 78)

Burn After Reading

2009-10-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

Another Friday, another movie. This time I went to see "Burn After Reading" the latest film from the Coen brothers, the geniuses behind "Fargo," "O Brother Where Art Thou," and "No Country for Old Men" among many others. This particular film answers the question: what happens in a battle of wits between the witless?

"Come back when it makes sense," is what the CIA Chief (JK Simmons, who seems to be getting typecast in these sort of roles after "Spider-Man") says to a lower CIA officer midway through the meeting. But the only problem is the plot of this movie will NEVER make sense. "Burn After Reading" is simply preposterous and yet it's fun to watch these bumbling idiots doing battle.

The film starts with Osbourne Cox getting fired from his gig as a CIA analyst. He's married to Katie, the pediatrician from Hell who wants to get a divorce. She's sleeping with Harry, a former Treasury agent who likes to brag about the gun he still carries and has never fired. Harry is building something in his basement. When revealed, this device got the biggest laughs of the whole movie. Meanwhile, Linda is a gym instructor who desperately wants plastic surgery to remake her body. She goes on dates with men she meets online who are invariably married and using her for a quick roll in the hay.

Katie's lawyer convinces her to steal Osbourne's computer files to use against him in divorce proceedings. These include his memoirs about his years in the Agency. Somehow these end up being left at the gym, where Linda's dimwitted co-worker Chad convinces her to try blackmailing Osbourne for money. From there the inexplicable action begins. From the previews you probably already know that at one point Linda and Chad try to sell Osbourne's memoirs to the Russian government.

Saying much more about what happens would spoil too much, and it wouldn't make any sense anyway. These characters are all far less important or bright than they think, as epitomized by Harry and his gun and the Russian government's reaction to Osbourne's memoirs. As I said earlier, watching these idiots match wits--or lack thereof--is what makes the film fun to watch. This is territory the Coens mined more successfully in "Fargo" and less successfully in the dreadful remake of "The Ladykillers." (And they've probably done it in other movies I haven't seen.)

What disappointed me was the ending, where the fates of most of the characters is TOLD rather than SHOWN. Most of those scenes would have been pretty funny, but we don't get to see it. You're left wondering if they just ran out of film or money. Maybe there will be an alternate ending on DVD. Watching this on DVD I might be able to figure out how the CD with Osbourne's data got into the gym. From what I could gather, Katie's lawyer's secretary took it there and lost it, but I'm not entirely certain. Maybe I missed something or maybe it was another thing not shown.

The only other thing that bothered me about this movie is that the characters, especially Osbourne, seemed like they were trying to go for a record in using the "F" word. A lot of the time it just sounded pretty juvenile. Between that and a bloody sequence later in the movie you don't want to take your kids to this one.

Anyway, I found the movie engrossing if only to wonder what ridiculous things would happen next. I'd recommend seeing it, though you could easily wait until it comes out on DVD.

(My Rating: 2.5/4 stars)
(Metacritic score: 62)

That is all.

Eagle Eye

2009-10-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Last year director DJ Caruso and star Shia LaBeouf teamed up for an update of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” that was not as good as the original, but still pretty good in “Disturbia”. Now the director and star have reunited for “Eagle Eye” which could be considered an update of Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” or from the ending maybe “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” Only in this case they deliver a movie that isn’t fun or memorable. Basically “Eagle Eye” is a dreary two-hour slog.

The story begins in an Afghanistan-type place called something else where US troops, intelligence guys, satellites, and so forth are watching someone who might or might not be a Bin Laden-type terrorist. When he stops at a gathering of Muslims that could be a funeral the Defense Department computers suggest not attacking, but the president goes ahead and approves the attack anyway. What does this have to do with the main story? A lot as it turns out.

Not long later Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf)’s twin brother, an Air Force officer working in Washington, is killed in a traffic accident. Jerry visits an ATM after the funeral to find his account is stuffed with $750,000! When he gets back to his apartment he finds guns, surveillance gear, and bomb making stuff all over. A woman calls him on his phone to say he has twenty seconds to run before the FBI shows up. He doesn’t run and is taken in by the FBI and agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) and grilled as a suspected terrorist. The woman calls Jerry back later to say she’s going to spring him moments before a crane smashes into the building.

Meanwhile, Rachel Hollimon (Michelle Monaghan) is out for a night on the town while her son is on a train bound for DC to play the trumpet at a concert in the Kennedy Center. She’s interrupted by a woman on the phone telling her to steal a Porsche and drive to pick up Jerry. The only thing the seemingly omnipotent voice on the phone didn’t count on is that Rachel can’t drive a stick. That’s about the only somewhat humorous moment in the movie after the chase is underway.

From there Jerry and Rachel go on a perilous journey that requires them to steal money from an armored truck, break into the Pentagon, and buy clothes from Macy’s. Throughout it all, I found the movie lacking intelligence for one but more importantly humor. The problem I had with the last two “Bourne” movies is that they were dumb action movies pretending to be smart by being serious all the time—no one crack a smile, ever! The same thing happens in “Eagle Eye,” which makes the ridiculous movie seem twice as stupid because it’s trying to pretend it’s not, sort of like Sarah Palin. At least LaBeouf’s other recent action movies “Transformers,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and “Disturbia” all knew how to make their ridiculous stories fun by cracking wise every now and then. Without that the movie becomes dreary and boring as the idiotic plot twists keep coming.

The worst tactical decision was making the Jerry character angry and depressed all the time, wasting LaBeouf’s charisma and charm evident in “Transformers” and “Disturbia.” The Rachel character is really a one-note character—she’s worried about her son and that’s pretty much it for her, except briefly when she whines about her ex-husband. The FBI agent played by Billy Bob Thornton is crotchety like all BBT’s recent characters, but he isn’t given any good humorous lines like in “Bad Santa” or some of his other flicks. So basically all these characters are as dull and boring as the rest of the movie. It’s no wonder this big action movie was released in September, long after all the real competition was out of the way.

Overall, I found this disappointing even for a dumb action movie. I’d definitely say to skip this one in the theaters and on DVD—there are plenty of better ones out there.

(My rating: 2/4 stars)

(Metacritic Score: 43)

Flash of Genius

2009-10-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

If you ever watched those old Frank Capra movies like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" or "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (NOT the horrible Adam Sandler remake) then you'll like "Flash of Genius." It's the same sort of film about a small-time professor-turned-inventor who takes on Ford Motor Company. Is it a spoiler to say he wins? You can already find out I'm sure on Wikipedia or whatever about the real case. Anyway, in movies like this of course the little guy wins! But there is a cost. I suppose I won't spoil that for you.

The story begins with Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear, an affable everyman equal to Jimmy Stewart or Gary Gooper) and his family coming home from church sometime in the 1960s. It's raining outside but the rain is too light for the windshield wipers to clear away without scraping but too hard to leave the wipers off entirely. The ideal solution is to have wipers that could blink like a human eye or work intermittently. So that night Kearns foresakes sex with his dutiful wife (Lauren Graham, formerly of "The Gilmore Girls") to make their seventh child (being Catholic they don't believe in birth control) to take apart his car's windshield wipers. With the help of his two older boys he soon puts together a working prototype of the intermittent wiper. Allying himself with a local car dealer friend, he pitches the concept to Ford, who has been working unsuccessfully on the project for nearly two years.

Things get a little strained when Kearns says he wants to make the wipers himself and even goes to the trouble of financing factory space. Ford would rather do it themselves and so they decide to cut Kearns out of the deal. They say they're backing out and in the process steal his design. One night Kearns is coming home when he sees new Ford Mustangs with HIS wipers. Of course Ford won't admit this and so after a while Dr. Kearns goes a little off the deep end, imagining he's going to Washington to see the vice-president. (This is actually the opening scene of the movie.)

From there Kearns spends time in a mental institution before coming home and eventually hiring a lawyer (Alan Alda) to fight his case. The lawyer is able to get Ford to cough up a $250,000 settlement. But Kearns refuses it because Ford won't admit any wrongdoing. No credit, no deal. The lawyer bails out then--which is too bad because Alda's character was great--leaving Kearns to fight on alone with only his family to help him. And the rest should be obvious, right?

This is an enjoyable film. There's not much real drama in it, no explosions or ninjas jumping out of closets. Ford never sends any henchmen after Kearns, just a sleazy lawyer who tries to bribe him. That's probably why the scene where Kearns goes crazy is shown first because other than the courtroom scenes it's the most dramatic thing going on. Still, as I mentioned earlier, Greg Kinnear is an affable enough everyman that you want him to slay the giant and get his due.

The only problem I saw is that I didn't think the filmmakers did enough to sell the reason why it was so important for Ford to admit the wrongdoing. When you think about it, Kearns puts his family through Hell for twelve years and for what, so he can get the credit? There is some mention that what he's doing this for all inventors who have gotten screwed by big companies over the years, but perhaps not enough so that I couldn't help feeling a little unsettled at times.

This is a heartwarming story about someone you probably never thought about. You'll certainly never look at your intermittent windshield wipers the same way again. If this is in theaters near you, I'd recommend seeing it--and soon, before it's pushed out of theters by junk like "Saw V" and "Max Payne." Otherwise you can rent it on DVD. It's not exciting, but it is good old-fashioned David-and-Goliath storytelling.

That is all.

(My score: 3 stars)
(Metacritic score: 57)

Hancock

2009-10-12T09:32:00.002-07:00

"Hancock" is one of those movies that sounds great in the pitch meetings because it has that "high concept" value. You can picture some producer in an office or board room saying to the studio execs, "OK, here's the thing: we got a guy and he's a superhero, but get this--he's drunk, reckless, and angry!" To which the execs think about it a moment and then nod and say, "What a great idea!"

The problem with movies like "Hancock" then is the high concept often enough can't sustain an entire film. Not even 90 minutes in the case of this one. There's just not enough depth to the story or characters to make it work anywhere other than the board room or the previews.

As you'd expect, "Hancock" starts off promisingly when John Hancock (Will Smith) foils three gun-toting criminals in his usual reckless style, smashing buildings and pavement in the process--the bill is estimated at $9 million. Later that day, Ray (Jason Bateman) is coming home from an unsuccessful meeting trying to save the world by getting corporations to pony up more dough to charity. He gets caught on the railroad tracks right as a train is coming. (This being a movie of course he can't get the safety belt to work so he can run away.) In drops Hancock to save him and cause a few million more in damages. Ray decides to use his PR skills to remake Hancock's image. His wife Mary (Charlize Theron) is skeptical of this.

The first part of Ray's plan involves Hancock surrending to authorities and going to jail for various crimes superheroes in other movies are never arrested for--destruction of property, obstruction of justice, and so forth. Hancock can break out any time he wants, but he stays for the meantime to wait until the public needs him again. Once they've seen how much crime goes up without Hancock, the people of LA will decide that a few million in destruction is worth it.

From there the movie goes off the rails with a ridiculous plot twist to explain Hancock's origins. (He woke up in a Miami hospital 80 years earlier with no memory, taking the name John Hancock from a nurse who told him to put his "John Hancock" on the release forms.) The twist involves Mary and leads to an epic confrontation that puts Hancock, Mary, and Ray all at risk. This twist is also so vague and ridiculous that it really brings down the last half of the movie.

That's what I meant at the beginning when I said a lot of these high concept films sound better in meetings where they can be summarized in one line. Trying to flesh out these broad concepts into an actual movie is what leads to the ridiculous twists and other nonsense.

Still, as far as movies go, it's fun--especially in the beginning--to watch Hancock stumble around, break things, and toss bullies miles into the air. The language and Hancock's drinking problem might not make this suitable for younger viewers. I'd say to rent this when it does come out on DVD if you want a slight change from superhero fare like "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk." It might be hard though as you sit through the second half not to think of other, much better possibilities than is presented.

That is all.

(My score: 2/4 stars)
(Metacritic score: 49)

Body of Lies

2009-10-12T09:32:00.001-07:00

I went back to the regular theater this week (not by choice so much as the second-run theater didn't have anything at the time I wanted) and watched a movie probably soon to be playing at the second-run theater: Body of Lies. Despite a great award-winning director in Ridley Scott and his favorite award-winning actor Russell Crowe along with Leonardo DiCaprio, Body of Lies pretty much landed with a thud at the box office. In watching it I could see why: as interesting as the plot twists are, the movie never really fully engages me.

The complicated story revolves around two CIA agents: Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) is the man on the ground in Iraq while Ed Hoffman (Crowe) is his boss lounging around back in Virginia--or his backyard, kitchen, a soccer game, etc. Ferris and Hoffman are trying to catch a shadowy terrorist known as Al Saleem, who's behind a string of bombings in Europe. Their first lead takes Ferris to Amman, Jordan, where he enlists the aid of the Jordanian spy chief Hanni (Mark Strong, a dead ringer for an Arab-looking Andy Garcia) who is sophisticated on the outside and cold as ice underneath.

Things go sour in Jordan largely due to Hoffman's micromanaging from afar, nearly getting Ferris killed. But the good part is that he meets a pretty Iranian/Palestinian nurse named Aisha and falls in love. With the cultural differences and Ferris' job, their relationship seems doomed from the start.

While recuperating, Ferris hatches a risky scheme to flush Al Saleem out into the open that will put himself and Aisha at risk. That's as far as I'll go so I don't spoil the rest of the plot's twists and turns.

These twists and turns are what make the movie watchable even as all the characters except for Hanni are dull. The problem is little background is given on anyone. I suppose that's to be expected to a certain extent for spy movies as they're supposed to be mysterious. By the end, though, all you know is that Hoffman has a family he sort of pays attention to, Ferris is divorced, and Aisha has a meddling sister. There's not enough there to make the characters really come to life, so you don't care so much if they live or die. The relationship between Ferris and Aisha seems especially forced as there seems little reason for them to get together except that maybe Ferris is drawn to women playing hard to get.

As well while there are some decent action scenes, there's nothing quite as exciting as Bourne or Bond. I'm not sure how much the politics involved in the movie reflect reality, though I wonder if some CIA agent wouldn't watch Ferris' scheme and think, "Hey, why didn't we think of that?" Maybe part of the reason this movie didn't draw better is that it' still too soon for movies involving Iraq and Arab terrorists unless there's a superhero involved like Iron Man.

To me the end was the most disappointing part of the film. While the rest of the movie's plot was smart and clever enough, the end falls back on some old movie cliches. I can't explain much better without giving things away except to say a less happy ending would have probably been better--at least to me.

As I said though, the plot is interesting enough with its twists and turns and there are some decent action scenes. It's smarter than a thriller like Eagle Eye, neither of which will probably be in the first-run theaters much longer. See it while you can! Or wait for the DVD.

That is all.

(My score: 2.5 stars)
(Metacritic score: 58)

Traitor

2009-10-12T09:24:00.002-07:00

Last week I saw "Body of Lies" so it made sense to me to go see "Traitor" when I saw it was playing at the second-run theater at the time I wanted. Both movies feature undercover American agents battling Mideast terrorists who are loosely based on Al-Qaeda.

In the case of "Traitor" the movie has less of the explosions and gunplay of "Body of Lies" but the characters are better drawn. The movie focuses on Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) who grew up in Sudan with his devout Muslim father until 1978 when the father is blown up. When we next see Samir he's in Yemen, peddling bombs to terrorists. That's when Yemeni security, aided by FBI agent Clayton (Guy Pearce, who resurfaces after what seemed like a long exile from mainstream cinema) take Samir into custody along with the terrorist cell's second banana Omar. As both grew up with no home, are devout Muslims, know English, and play chess they become quick friends in prison. Omar stages a jailbreak to free himself and Samir.

From there the chase is on, with Clayton trying to hunt down Samir while Samir is infiltrating deeper into the terrorist organization. He plans a bombing of an American consulate, arms a suicide bomber, and ultimately helps the terrorists with their ultimate plan, which is to create havoc on American soil by employing agents who could be your neighbor, classmate, or bartender.

The question isn't whose side Samir is on--this is revealed about halfway in the movie, or maybe a little less--but how far Samir will go to take down the terrorists. Is he willing to kill innocents for the greater good?

Unlike "Body of Lies" where the love side plot was forced, the love side plot here was badly neglected. Samir had a girl named Chandra but he hasn't seen her in years since he went rogue. She spends more of her screen time talking with Agent Clayton than with Samir. A flashback of how they got together or them being in love might have helped there, but that would have slowed the pace more so.

The movie feels slow at times--I checked my watch a couple times--so I have to say "Body of Lies" has a better pace and more frenetic action. But despite this it's obvious "Traitor" is a better overall movie that cares enough about its characters to give them a little more depth. If you're going to watch just one movie about undercover American agents battling Al-Qaeda knockoffs, make it "Traitor."

(BTW, it's weird in the credits to see Steve Martin's name attached as a writer and producer. And yes it is THAT Steve Martin. But then we always knew he was a wild and crazy guy.)

(My score: 3 stars)
(Metacritic Score: 60)

The Dark Knight (v2)

2009-10-12T09:24:00.001-07:00

Does it violate some kind of reviewer's code to review a movie a second time within five months? Screw it. "The Dark Knight" finally came to the second-run theaters and since I hadn't seen it in three months and I had a day off, I thought I might as well go see it for a sixth time. (And if you think that's obsessive, my sister has seen it SEVEN times and is planning to go see it a couple more at her local second-run theater.)

Anyway, I like "The Dark Knight" for the same reason I like "The Empire Strikes Back" best of all the Star Wars movies: it's got everything a growing boy needs. Action, suspense, a little gore, a little humor, and yes even a little romance. Not to mention a kickass hero, an awesome villain, and plenty of things blowing up! (If they could have thrown in a lightsaber duel I would have been in movie Heaven.) If you're a guy--and I am, at least from the last time I used the bathroom--why the heck wouldn't you like this movie? If you're a woman and more inclined towards "Sex and the City" then not so much.

What I like best about the two Christopher Nolan films than the Burton/Schumacher ones is that Nolan put the Batman in the real world, more or less. (I mean as real as a world with a guy running around in a cape and cowl can be.) The Burton films were OK, but there was always that campy scenery so that the city always looked like a sound stage, not a real place. (This only became more pronounced in the so-so "Batman Forever" and dreadful "Batman & Robin.") Since the Nolan films were filmed largely in Chicago and you can see actual Chicago landmarks on the screen, you get more of a feeling that this is a real place with real people, some of whom just happen to dress funny.

Some people on Gather and other places have complained the movie isn't fun enough like, say, "Iron Man" but Batman isn't supposed to be fun. To borrow and paraphrase a quote from the movie, "This is a guy who goes out at night beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands." There's not a lot of fun in that. I applaud Nolan for taking the character seriously, unlike the old Adam West TV show. And if you want fun superhero movies there plenty of them out there.

Anyway, the movie isn't perfect of course, but it's still a great film in its own right. Watching it for the first time in three months I was more engrossed in it than probably the fourth or fifth times I saw it, even though I knew what was coming. I'm sure when this gets to DVD on December 9 I am going to wear out my DVD player watching it a seventh, eighth, etc. times.

If you don't know anything about the movie, here's the obligatory plot summary. A year after "Batman Begins" the Batman, Lt. Gordon, and new DA Harvey Dent are trying to take down the mob. In desperation the mob turns to the Joker, who unleashes a wave of terror on the poor people of Gotham City. Batman has to stop the Joker, but it sure as heck isn't going to be easy; there are a lot of casualties--including the Batman's soul!

So there you go. I also of course can't say enough about how awesome Heath Ledger's Joker is. He's smart and evil, just like I wish I was. Ha ha ha ha ha!

My score: still 4/4 stars

Changeling

2009-10-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

What with Thanksgiving and all it's been a couple weeks since I went out and watched a movie, not that anyone really noticed. Anyway, this week I went to see Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" before it exits the big theaters.

This movie is based on an amazing (or baffling) true story in Los Angeles. On March 10, 1928 Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) comes home from her job at the telephone company (where she gets to wear roller skates!) to find her son Walter missing. Five months later a boy turns up in DeKalb, Illinois claiming to be Walter and is brought back to Los Angeles by a triumphant LAPD in desperate need of some good press.

There's only one problem: it's not Walter!

Christine knows this right off, but reluctantly agrees to take the child home just in case she is mistaken. But soon she discovers the boy is three inches shorter than her last measurement of Walter and circumcized, where Walter was not. She goes to the LAPD but the corrupt Captain Jones stonewalls her at every turn by bringing in his own "expert" and finally questioning her sanity, which leads to Christine being committed. But over time the truth about Walter (most of it) comes out to reveal the frightening corruptness and incompetence of the LAPD.

It is frightening to think that a police captain could have you thrown into the loony bin without so much as a warrant just because you're asking too many questions. Once in the loony bin, how can you really prove your sanity when the doctors are just as corrupt as the police?

Ultimately, "Changeling" is a story about a mother who refuses to give in to corruption and terror out of love for her son--her real son. I wouldn't be surprisd if Jolie gets some Oscar buzz for her performance, though a lot of it seemed to be alternately crying and yelling. At the core, between all that crying and yelling, there is a cold resolve to make sure justice is done.

Eastwood's direction and music score are good, though there was never a point where I didn't know I was watching a movie. Some of the dramatic touches like Christine being rescued a moment before being electroshocked seemed too convenient to have happened in real life, but such is the case in all "based on a true story" movies. And really, who would have thought the guy who created "Babylon 5" could write a script about historical events in 1928 Los Angeles?

Overall, I'd say this is a good movie, though not great in my mind. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets a few Oscar nods because at this point I haven't seen anything more likely to win, although most of the small movies that might be nominated haven't made stops at the multiplex yet.

BTW, do you suppose it was a coincidence that the previews before this were Eastwood's "Gran Torino" and Brad Pitt's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"?

My score: 3/4 stars

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-10-12T09:21:00.002-07:00

I had wanted to see this movie since it came out on XMas day, but I never got around to it until last night. I have to say the movie was about what I expected, though as far as tear-jerker love stories go it didn't jerk any tears out of me.

(Perhaps in honor of the titular character I should write my review backwards.)

That is all.

(Metacritic score: 69)

(My score: 3/4 stars)

I was disappointed that the movie sort of cops out near the end, though if it didn't they probably would have needed an extra half-hour to the two-and-a-half-hour running time, though this could have been offset by eliminating the needless narrative framing device of the daughter Caroline and a mummified-looking Daisy in the hospital with Benjamin's diary. I hope I'm not giving too much away when I say a convenient case of senility takes some of the dramatic punch out of the last fifteen minutes or so, not to mention it was shot in a montage which certainly didn't help.

Otherwise, the problem was I didn't really get any emotional charge out of this film. Whenever there's supposed to be an epic/tragic love story like this or "Titanic" you hope to feel a little something, but I was left empty this time around. A lot of this I think is that I never really warmed to Cate Blanchett's Daisy. As a young, aspiring dancer she always seemed like such a selfish brat and then later she becomes more of a whiny brat. Benjamin probably deserved someone better to serve as his fair Penelope along his strange odyssey. (On a side note, I had a twinge of feminism at Daisy being a ballet dancer. I'm not sure why but the thought occurred to me that this was a safe, stereotypical occupation for a woman. Other than the Englishwoman who attempts to swim the English Channel really none of the female characters do anything outside what you might consider "normal" female roles: maid, dancer, wife, mother. That's probably not wrong, but it might have been nice if the filmmakers had done something a little more daring. I'm just saying.) Well anyway, I didn't find any part of the story that really engaged me emotionally, though the movie wasn't boring or dumb; I was just hoping for more. I'm selfish that way.

OK, now for the plot summary, which I should do in proper order since otherwise it would be kind of pointless. The "Curious Case" part of the title refers to that in New Orleans in 1918 (the day WWI ended) a woman gives birth to a very wrinkled baby suffering from arthritis and so forth like that of an 85-year-old man. The woman dies giving birth and her terrified husband dumps the baby on the doorstep of a retirement home. The black maid named Queenie finds the baby on the steps and because of her strong belief in God (which didn't seem strong enough to compel her marry the caretaker who later knocks her up) takes the boy in and names him Benjamin.

It's convenient he ends up in an old folks home because he looks so much like an old person. If you haven't figured it out yet, Benjamin is aging backwards, starting as an old man and heading backwards to infancy. A similar thing was done I think on "Mork and Mindy" back in the '70s.

After a few years of being generally content in the nursing home, Benjamin meets the future love of his life, Daisy, who at the time is five years old while Benjamin appears to be in his late '70s. Daisy is fascinated rather than horrified by Benjamin and so they become friends, playing together whenever Daisy comes to visit her grandmother.

Eventually Benjamin is well enough to go down to the docks, where he gets a job on a tug boat for the rascally captain Clark. The captain arranges Benjamin's first sexual experience in a brothel, which inadvertantly leads to Benjamin coming into contact with his father. Benjamin enjoys working on the tug boat and at 17/68 goes off with the boat to Florida and later Murmansk, USSR. There in the cold of Russia, Benjamin finds his second sexual experience and first real love in a diplomat's wife who once tried to swim the English Channel. They become lovers under strict rules that her husband never find out; Benjamin is just her elderly boy toy, which seems odd since this is long before Viagra.

After the affair, Benjamin and the tug boat are conscripted into the US Navy as part of the war effort. There's an encounter with a U-Boat before Benjamin is sent home, where he encounters a more grownup Daisy. She's going off to New York to become a ballet dancer and tries to sleep with Benjamin before she goes, though he rebuffs her.

When Benjamin does go to New York to see her a few years later, he finds that she's with another man, one who's aging normally and thus looks about her same age. So the lovers are torn apart once again, but you know in a story like this it won't be for long. They're destined to be together. That presents many challenges in itself, as you'd expect with people aging normally, let alone someone aging backwards.

In between all this is the narrative device used to frame the story. This involves an elderly Daisy dying in a hospital with her daughter by her side as Hurricane Katrina approaches. This didn't really do much for me as it seemed like more of a distraction than anything. At least when they did this in "Forrest Gump" it was entertaining.

As Forrest would say, that's all I gotta say about that.

On another side note, a movie I'm hoping eventually to see is the adaptation of "The Time Traveler's Wife" that follows similar themes about quirks in time and doomed lovers. That movie was originally slated to come out XMas 2008, but was pushed back. Oddly enough that movie is produced by Brad Pitt, star of "Benjamin Button." Hmmmmm, fancy that.

Milk

2009-10-12T09:21:00.001-07:00

I had wanted to see "Milk" ever since it first came out back in November, but of course first I had to wait until it actually came to a theater near me. Now that award season is kicking in, I finally got my chance to see it this week and I wasn't really disappointed.

"Milk" is the story of Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn in an Oscar-nominated performance), who spearheaded the gay right's movement in San Francisco back in the late '70s and became the first openly gay man elected to public office. Not long after, Milk was killed by rival councilman Dan White, who also killed the city's mayor. As the movie opens, Milk is reading a sort of mini-autobiography into a tape recorder in case he's assassinated.

The movie then flashes back 8 years to 1970, when Milk is a closeted insurance company worker, who picks up a younger man named Scotty (James Franco) in a stairwell. Scotty convinces Milk to come out of the closet and so for a couple years they become hippies, finally settling into the Castro neighborhood, which at that time was just becoming a haven for gay people. Milk opens a camera store that becomes a gay hangout and begins to organize. He gains an unlikely ally in the Teamsters, who seek his help to boycott Coors beer. After the success of this, Milk decides to run for the city council.

He is defeated that year and the next year, and the next year. Each year the margins of defeat get smaller as Milk continues making a name for himself. At the same time as he's becoming a hero to gay people everywhere, he and Scotty are becoming estranged. A change in the districting laws of San Francisco finally mean that Milk can be elected to the city council, at the same time as Dan White, who represents a traditional Irish-Catholic ward. Milk tries to befriend White but they become enemies when Milk refuses to back White's plan to move a psychiatric center.

From there Milk leads the fight against Prop 6 that wants to eliminate all gay teachers in California, or those with the audacity to support gay teachers. (Of cours enow in these enlightened times we'd never do that. We respect gay people as long as they don't want to get married like everyone else.) At the moment of his greatest success, Milk's life ends in tragedy.

I liked this movie and Sean Penn does a good job of bringing Milk to life. The only real problem is the other characters seem far less dimensional. What is especially disappointing is that the Dan White character isn't explored more in-depth, so we don't really know WHY he does what he does. I didn't really understand why he resigned from the city council in the first place, except he was from a traditional Irish-Catholic family and definitely feeling out of place. Maybe that's all you need to know. The Scotty character is never little more than the concerned spouse, a role traditionally given to wives in films like this. And the other characters were similarly one-dimensional as the film focused mostly on Milk and his crusade.

Still, I enjoyed this more than "Benjamin Button" last week, which means it could be the best movie of the year. If possible I'd see "Slumdog Millionaire" next week, though I don't think I'll have time for the other Best Picture nominees.

If you get the chance and aren't close-minded to gay rights, I'd say to go out and watch this film, which is still relevant today as stupid laws like Prop 8 in California get passed. And really it's too bad the studio didn't release this earlier so people could have seen it before the elections.

That is all.

(My score 3 1/2 stars)

(Metacritic score: 84)

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-10-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve seen three of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscars: “Benjamin Button”, “Milk”, and “Slumdog Millionaire”. I probably won’t have time to see the others in time. At any rate, so far I like “Slumdog” the best of all. “Benjamin Button” is hollow emotionally and “Milk” is really good, but what I think “Slumdog” has going for it is your average moviegoer—ie, me—hasn’t seen anything like it this year.

Well, we’ve seen the basic principles of the movie though. A guy grows up in poverty, struggles, falls in love, and maybe finds happiness. What’s different here is that “Slumdog” is set in India. Jamal is a Muslim (a minority in India) who comes from the slums in Mumbai and works as a go-fer at one of those call centers you've probably called before. He rarely went to school, and when he did it was in a classroom the size of a broom closet stuffed with thirty other kids who have to share one book. Yet somehow Jamal is one question away from winning 20 million rupees on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.”

The host of the show is so baffled by this development, that when the show breaks for the night, he turns Jamal over to the police, who proceed to torture him in an effort to make him confess how he’s cheating. Instead, Jamal tells the cops how he manages to answer each question—all except one about the flag of India where he used the audience lifeline to answer.

Through this story, we learn about Jamal’s background. His mother was killed in an anti-Muslim riot when he was very young. Afterwards, he and his older brother Salim lived as best they could through begging and petty crimes. (Note if you’re vacationing in India: don’t leave your shoes unattended or trust underage tour guides.) Early on there’s a third member of their crew, a girl named Latika. After she’s separated from the boys, Jamal wants nothing more than to be reunited with her.

There are some in India who complain the movie isn’t fair to their country, but to be fair, this story could have been set in any slum in the world and needed only a change of actors. The story itself is a universal tale of love and rags to riches, which is why a movie about Indian slums can translate to an American moviegoer. The game show element adds a unique way to frame the story, not to mention there’s the suspense like with any good game show of will he win the jackpot or not? I was figuratively on the edge of my seat with anticipation when Jamal answers the final question.

Maybe you think you wouldn’t enjoy this movie, but I think you will because it has all everything you need: romance, drama, suspense, and even a little gunplay. Not to mention a cheesy dance number at the end that’s guaranteed to get the song stuck in your head after you leave the theater. I have to say I left the theater feeling really good, at least for a few minutes. So if you want a fun and uplifting movie, I’d say to watch this one.

Is it the Best Picture of 2008? Well I don’t want to see it six times like another film, but of the ones nominated that I’ve seen, so far it’s the best.

That is all.

(My score: 4/4 stars)

(Metacritic score: 86/100)

The Wrestler

2009-10-12T09:19:00.003-07:00

I’ve never watched wrestling in any of its forms, whether it’s the Greco-Roman style in the Olympics or the WWE style “professional” wrestling where they whale on each other with folding chairs. But I have watched every “Rocky” movie several times—even the dreadful fifth one—so I can use that as a point of reference.

In every “Rocky” movie—except the fifth one, which is why it was so terrible Stallone did essentially a do-over with “Rocky Balboa”—perennial underdog Rocky gets into a fight no one thinks he can win. Even if he doesn’t win, at least he proves he’s no pushover and that in itself is a victory. Whereas the “Rocky” series is full of uplifting underdog victories, “The Wrestler” takes a different tack by showing there are some fights you can’t win, especially when that fight is against yourself.

Back in the 1980s Randy was known as “The Ram”, one of the hottest properties in professional wrestling. Around the same time the hair metal he loves died out, so too did Randy’s career. Twenty years after his hey-day in a match with “The Ayatollah” Randy is a broken down sack of meat pumped full of steroids and carrying the scars of numerous stunts gone wrong. He lives in a trailer park, except when his landlord locks him out for nonpayment, otherwise he sleeps in a van. His closest friend is an aging stripper at a local club; he has a daughter he hasn’t seen or talked to in well over a decade. For money he performs at small places like American Legion clubs with other over-the-hill or never-were wrestlers and works part-time unloading trucks at a local supermarket.

That Randy still maintains his long, stringy blond hair and tan—spending much of the money he earns on peroxide and fake tans—and still keeps Cinderella, Motley Crue, and AC/DC cranked up in his van (a Dodge Ram of course) says something about his character; Randy is stuck in the past. He’s forced to confront reality after a particularly gory fight triggers a heart attack. The doctor tells him that any more wrestling and he could die.

With this wakeup call, Randy tries to turn around his life. He takes a job at the deli counter of the grocery store, makes inroads with Pam the stripper, and attempts to reconnect with his daughter—who is a lesbian, maybe because she never had a strong male role model. If this were a “Rocky” film we know he would get the girl—both of them—and turn things around. But this isn’t a “Rocky” film.

Though the movie is about a wrestler living in the past and addicted to the glory and celebrity of it, the film could be about most anyone with an addiction. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, food, or other things, a lot of people have gotten to the same point as Randy where they know they have to make that change, but face the temptation of one more joint, one more drink, or one more burger. That I think is where “The Wrestler” succeeds, in that it’s a human story even if it’s not a very happy one. Let’s face it, a lot of life isn’t happy.

A lot has been said about Mickey Rourke’s performance, but I didn’t see it as too different from Stallone’s in “Rocky” though Rourke doesn’t have that same punchiness to make him as lovable. Whether he was better than Sean Penn in “Milk” I really can’t say; I’ll leave that for the Academy to decide. The other actors do well enough in their limited, albeit largely cliché roles.

One disappointment is that at the beginning and throughout the film you never see The Ram in his glory days, just some newspaper and poster shots during the opening credits. You only see him when he’s broken down. It might have been nice—especially for those of us who eschewed wrestling in the ‘80s—to have seen that to get a better sense of just what it is Randy loved so much. Maybe that was too expensive to shoot, or something. Just a minor flaw in an otherwise great film. Even if you aren’t into sports movies, this is a film to watch.

My score: 3 of 4 stars

Metacritic score: 81

Choke

2009-10-12T09:19:00.001-07:00

I sort of wanted to see this one when it came out, but it was only at the multiplex a week or two before fading away. Now that it's on video, I finally got the chance to watch it On Demand.

"Choke" when I think about it puts me to mind of one of those Judd Apatow comedies like "Knocked Up" or "40-Year-Old Virgin" if there were more nudity and a little less hokum. Like those aforementioned movies, "Choke" focuses on a guy who hasn't grown up and accepted responsibility quite yet.

In fact, Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell, who excels at playing ne'er do well types) has a lot of issues. He never knew his father and his mother used drugs and participated in some kind of illegal activities such as breaking out animals from a zoo--during which Victor lost part of an ear to a lynx--that he frequently is a ward of the state until his mother kidnaps him again. To compensate for this vacuum of love, Victor pretends to choke at restaurants to make well-off people think they've saved his life and take pity on him by forking over some money. His "love" life consists of a series of meaningless, often perverse trysts that has him enrolled in a sex addict support group, which he largely skips to have sex with one of the other addicts. Oh, and he works at a Colonial Williamsburg-type place as a tour guide.

Adding to all this mess is that Victor's mother (Anjelica Huston, who at this point is starting to look like Rosemary Harris from the "Spider-Man" movies) is in an expensive nursing home. Whenever Victor pays her a visit, she thinks he's one of the many lawyers she used over the years.

While at the nursing home, Victor meets Dr. Page Marshall (Kelly MacDonald, who maybe you'd remember seeing in "No Country for Old Men") who offers Victor a clever way to possibly save his mother's life. She offers to have sex with him to create an embryo from which stem cell tissue can be taken and used to treat his mother. As a sex addict, this seems simple enough for Victor, but he finds himself suddenly impotent. If you want to overthink the situation you might think subconsciously Victor doesn't really want to save his mother--he certainly has every reason to hold a grudge against her for essentially ruining his life--but the more plausible explanation is that he's in love.

The rest of the movie follows Victor as he tries to clean up his act and come to terms with who he is, not to mention his relationship with his mother. There are some bizarre twists here along the lines of "Fight Club"--another Chuck Palahniuk book. As well, there's the parallel story of Victor's best friend (also a sex addict, whose series of meaningless trysts are all with his hand) finding a love of his own and cleaning up his act. Everything doesn't come together the best and some of the bizarre twists are kind of dumb. Still, it was an entertaining and interesting movie so long as you can put up with the nudity and sex stuff--this is definitely not for the squeamish. One thing I would have liked would have been to know a little more about what was up with his mother in the early days; even after watching the movie twice I wasn't entirely clear on this. If you like a raunchy comedy with a little more depth than an Apatow film, then this one might be up your alley.

BTW, here's a couple of fun facts I learned on IMDB: Writer-director Clark Gregg appears in the movie as Lord High Charlie, the head of the colonial town where Victor works. He might be more familiar to viewers as the SHIELD agent in last summer's "Iron Man."

As well, Kelly MacDonald had a cameo as a reporter in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," which co-starred Sam Rockwell as the ne'er do well president of the galaxy.

Now you know--and knowing's half the battle.

My score: 2.5/4 stars

Metacritic score: 47

Revolutionary Road

2009-10-12T09:18:00.001-07:00

The last time Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet starred together they were the star-crossed lovers Jack and Rose trying to survive the Titanic disaster. In a way you can think of "Revolutionary Road" as what might have happened if Jack had not drowned in the icy Atlantic and they had gotten married.

In the late 1940s Frank Wheeler (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) meet at a party in New York City. At the time Frank was just bouncing around from crummy job to crummy job after serving in Europe during WWII and April was aspiring to be an actress. The movie picks up in 1955 when Frank and April have married, moved to the suburbs, and produced 2 kids. They are living the post-war American Dream of so many who moved from the crowded cities to the suburbs in the late '40s and early '50s.

Like many of those people, the Wheelers find the American Dream doesn't make them very happy. Frank is riding the train into the city to write advertising manuals (or something) for the office machine company his father worked for as a salesman many years ago. In the city Frank takes a new secretary out for a martini lunch, followed by dessert at her apartment. Meanwhile, April's dreams of acting have faded away, leaving her at home with little to do.

Utilizing all this time to think, April hatches a brilliant scheme to set things right again. She wants the whole family to move to Paris, where Frank visited during the end of the war and said it was the greatest place he'd ever been. April figures she can get a job as a secretary, leaving Frank free to find himself. Frank agrees with this idea and they plan to leave for Paris in the fall, after they sell their house and so forth.

But then multiple complications arise that make April's plan seem less and less likely to become true. Before long, not just their marriage is in jeopardy but their lives as well.

When the book came out in 1961 I'm sure it was far more revolutionary (bad pun) for its look beneath the gilded veneer of suburban life. Since that time there have been numerous other books (the works of the late John Updike spring to mind), movies like "Far From Heaven" or Sam Mendes's own "American Beauty", or even TV shows like AMC's "Mad Men" that have covered similar ground about stagnant marriages and adults struggling to embrace preconceived notions of being a "grownup" in society. Because of this, the movie didn't have that much impact on me. Much of it seems to take place in shouting matches between Frank and April--which is why it's good their two children are so frequently absent--that are as unpleasant as listening to a couple fighting overhead or next to you in an apartment or hotel room.

I much preferred Sam Mendes's similarly-themed "American Beauty" for the wit it brought to this story, so that while there were shouting matches there were also humorous moments to make the film more enjoyable to watch. (I actually sat down to watch it again before writing this and still think it's brilliant.) By comparison, "Revolutionary Road" is pretty much just straight drama while not bringing much new to the table, except for the ending. (I won't spoil that, but you could always look it up on Wikipedia.)

The other thing that bugged me was that while we're given a pretty good grasp of where Frank came from, I don't have nearly the same sense about April. All I know is she wanted to be an actress. I really don't know anything else about her background. I would have felt on surer footing had I known a little more about her.

Anyway, awards season is over and this film didn't win much of anything, nor do I see any reason why it should have--though there's some debate whether Kate Winslet was better in this or "The Reader." It's an OK movie, but not a great one. The stars and director have all done better work than this.

My score: 2.5/4 stars

Metacritic score: 62

Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist

2009-10-12T09:16:00.002-07:00

This movie really made me nostalgic for those '80s John Hughes pictures like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or similar knockoffs like "Adventures in Babysitting" where a group of teens are in the big city (Chicago via Toronto) and have all sorts of zany adventures where they run up against funny characters like snooty maitre d's, joyriding parking attendants, and hook-handed tow truck drivers. The main objective was for the kids to have the time of their lives and get back to the burbs before their parents to avoid being grounded. In the process they learned some life lessons and such too.

"Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" lacks the key ingredient of those movies: the fun. There's nothing fun about this movie. There's plenty of vulgarity with drinking, puking, sex on a couch, and gay jokes, but it was all pretty dull. Other than the Christmas pageant at a gay night club there's nothing wacky or zany to be had in this movie, just a couple of gross-out moments involving throwing up and retrieving gum from a bus terminal toilet.

The rest of the movie is the dull, cliche mating dance of Nick and Nora. Nick got dumped by Triss and is pining over her when he meets Nora at a nightclub. (Apparently it's incredibly easy for 17/18-year olds to get into clubs and be served alcohol in New York City; never once do they even get carded!) Nora asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend so she doesn't look like a total loser. Then later, she enlists his help in his rusty yellow Yugo that people inexplicably mistake for a cab, to find her drunken friend. And at the same time they'd like to find the afterhours club where a hot band called Where's Fluffy is playing.

Like those '80s movies we already know how this is going to end more or less. But at least those movies had some fun with the comic misadventures, instead of going from one nightclub to another to whine and argue about their relationships. I could pretty much say the same about "Superbad" (which also starred Michael Cera) in that other than the McLovin parts the rest of the movie was bored the crap out of me. The situations in both are stale and predictable, only instead of house parties as in "Superbad", "Nick and Nora" subs NYC night clubs. In the end it made me glad the movie was only 90 minutes because I'd hate to have spent any more time on it.

(I miss you, John Hughes, wherever you are!)

My score: 2 stars

Metacritic score: 64/100

Feast of Love

2009-10-12T09:16:00.001-07:00

(Warning: contains spoilers!)

Early in my Gather career I won a copy of the book "The Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter as part of a promotion for the movie. Yet I didn't ever watch the movie until now, when I saw that book on my shelf and wondered why I hadn't seen the film. I could have gone on waiting because this movie didn't make much of an impression on me. The best way of describing my disappointment is that this movie is too sappy to the point where I find it hard to suspend disbelief.

If you ever watched the TV show "Friends" (or did for a couple of seasons and then stopped caring like I did) you might remember the character Ross who wound up being married and divorced 3 times on the show. Bradley Smith (Greg Kinnear) gets into a similar fix, first when his wife for the last six years falls for another woman at a softball game. Later an attractive blond named Diana walks into Bradley's coffee shop in Portland, Oregon (the book incidentally was set in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is one of the reasons I read it, to support a "local" author) and Bradley gets her help on finding a new house that isn't haunted by his wife's ghost. They end up getting married, but there's just one hitch: Diane is having an affair with a married man, David--she was doing this even before she met Bradley. So you can guess how that's going to turn out.

Meanwhile, at the coffee shop a new employee named Chloe falls in love with her co-worker Oscar. Oscar is a former drug addict who lives with his abusive drunken father known as The Bat--and not because he dresses up in tights and fights crime at night. When Chloe consults a psychic, she gets some bad news about Oscar, but presses ahead anyway. You can guess how that's going to turn out too.

In the midst of it all is wise professor Harry (Morgan Freeman) who is on a leave of absence after his son's death from drug-related complications. Harry advises Bradley and Chloe with sage advice like make sure you have two kids--you know, in case the first one dies then you have a backup.

In other, better movies we might have dealt with this realistically with arguments, anger, recriminations, etc., but "Feast of Love" is hell-bent to prove to us that love conquers all to the point where we're supposed to believe that all these people who have broken up, cheated on each other, and so forth are going to get together for a merry little picnic with maybe a musical number at the end. Being somewhat cynical I have to conclude Bradley is either an idiot or the biggest doormat since Charlie Brown. Not even similarly-themed movies like "Love Actually" ask us to make that kind of leap.

I haven't read the book in a while, but I don't quite remember it being that hokey. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, if you're less of a cynic you might actually enjoy this movie as a good break from your Nicholas Sparks books. Though what's funny as one reviewer pointed out for a movie that takes such a saccharine view of dating there's an awful lot of nudity involved.

That is all.

My score: 2/4 stars

Metacritic score: 51

Watchmen

2009-10-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last time I wanted to stand up and applaud when the ending credits of a movie rolled. For some really bad movies I was ready to sigh with relief, but with "Watchmen" as the My Chemical Romance's hard rockin' cover of Dylan's "Desolation Row" came up for the credits I wanted to cheer. Maybe it's because the somewhat mixed reviews led me to wonder how well this adaptation of the comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons would turn out. By the end I was glad to see that this rendition of "Watchmen" is about the best fans--even those who came late to the party like me--could hope for. Sure there are those hard-core purists who are going to scream "Where is the squid?!" and "What about the 'Black Freighter' comic?!" but the realists among us should be happy enough.

Now if you're Joe/Jane Q. Public who has no idea what this movie is about, then I can't recommend it. Definitely if you thought "The Dark Knight" was too dreary or boring or that comics are for kids, then you don't want to see this. Because the genius of Moore's story was to show that beneath the masks and tights are REAL people with REAL problems, and the movie largely sticks to that, so even though there are fights and explosions, this isn't a cheery little tale by any means. And with a 162 minute run time it's hard for many people to pay attention that long.

Like the graphic novel, the movie is about an alternate 1985 where Nixon is on his fifth term--not his third like some news outlets keep saying; apparently they failed math and civics class--and the world is on the brink of Armageddon thanks to the US and USSR's large stockpile of nukes pointed at each other. In this universe, costumed heroes are very real, starting in about the '40s until they're outlawed in 1977. One of those heroes, The Comedian, is murdered when a shadowy attacker throws him out the window. Soon other heroes are neutralized, including the godlike Dr. Manhattan, who has largely been seen as the USA's ace in the hole against Soviet aggression. As the mystery unravels, we learn something far more diabolical is afoot.

There's not much for me to complain about with this movie. One thing is that they needed better impersonators for Nixon, Kissinger, and other real figures. If you compare this Nixon to "Frost/Nixon" the one in this movie seems a little silly, more like something from an SNL sketch. Also, the gore in the film is a little too much for me. We didn't really need to see bodies explode, bones protrude through skin, and Rorshach taking a bite out of a bad guy. What we really didn't need to see either was Dr. Manhattan's wang--especially not four of them!

I generally liked the casting for the movie. Jackie Earle Haley is tremendous as Rorshach, the sociopathic "hero" many would compare to Batman, though really he's more like Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movies, except he wears a mask and doesn't use a gun. Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II was also really good as the far more naive hero who gets a sort of perverse thrill out of heroing. Some critcs panned Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II, but she's at least as good as Jessica Alba or Maggie Gylenhaal, which isn't saying a lot. Other than his wang--did they use the motion capture on that part too? Hurm...--Billy Crudup is good as Dr. Manhattan, the god being finding himself increasingly distant from humanity. My only complaint is Matthew Goode as "the world's smartest man" Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias. Especially in civilian clothes he looks so frail I wouldn't believe he could beat up my 92-year-old grandma let alone hardened criminals or other heroes. In his hero getup he looks better thanks I'm sure to lots of padding.

The movie is long, but I didn't check my watch more than once, which is always a good sign. But as I said, casual viewers I think would find it more of a drag than me. I hinted at the beginning that there is some change to the ending, which in large part was to simplify things to avoid tacking on another half hour or so. I don't like this ending quite as much in some ways, but it still works to get the same point across, which is that if you want world peace you just need a really good scapegoat.

Generally, as I said at the start, this was about the best fans could hope to get. It's unfortunate Alan Moore decided to throw a tantrum and keep his name off the film, because unlike "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or "V for Vendetta" this one sticks to his work to a fault.

That is all.

My score: 4/4 stars

Metacritic score: 56