True Grit (2010)

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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)