A Rough Cut

Star Trek, 4.5/5

2009-05-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Review Coming Soon!

Paul Blart: Mall Cop, 3.5/5

2009-04-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

Review Coming Soon!

Observe and Report, 2.5/5

2009-04-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

This is one nutjob of a movie and it desperately needs to get back on its meds.

Seth Rogen stars as Ronnie Barnhardt, a bi-polar, washed out rent-a-cop at the local mall who takes his job waaaaaaay too seriously. And not in a fun way. We're talking obey-me-or-I'll-take-you-to-Sbarro-and-shove-your-face-in-the-pizza-oven kind of seriously. He desperately wants to become a real cop there no real need, since his current gig provides him plenty of opportunities to drawn his sidearm and pick on minorities. At one point, the cops are called in to remove an off-his-meds Ronnie from the mall and he takes them all on as if he were Samson with a mag light.

The plot centers on Ronnie's efforts to capture a "serial flasher," but the movie is more about his descent into rage-filled madness. I'm told his character is very similar to Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, but - embarrassed as I am to admit it - I've never seen it. He kind of reminded me of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness/Apocolypse Now.

There are two polar opposite love stories (sort of) in the movie, one with cute coffee shop girl Nell (Collette Wolf) and another with the heavily made up and foul mouthed Brandy (Anna Faris). Nell has an utterly inexplicable crush on Ronnie, but he's so blinded by lust for Brandy that he can't see it.

Director Jody Hill relishes in making the audience uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure he meant the movie to be this way, but this is not the movie I meant to see. Observe and Report has been marketed as a comedy and but there are no real laughs in the film. The jokes that are there made me feel decidely uncomfortable. Because the cast includes Seth Rogen, I was expecting a little more of an Apatow flavor, which made the lack of any joy whatsoever all the more jarring. The best way I can describe it is cognitive dissonance. Even the poster is misleading. It should show Seth Rogen beating a 12-year-old into a coma with a skate-board then licking the blood off the splinters and shooting up more heroin.

Even though I didn't like the characters (accept for poor, sweet Nell), the actors did what they were asked to do and did it well. Rogen will never be an Oscar-winner, but he did an admirable job playing the playing a dark, disturbing part. Michael Pena was enjoyable as fellow mall cop Dennis, and Aziz Ansari (Tom from Parks and Recreation) was the humor apex of the movie. Most reviews I've read raved about Anna Faris, but here she just creeped me out. I suppose since that's what her character is supposed to do, you could call it a success. But why would you want to?

Observe and Report is a kind of brilliant, but not any kind of brilliant I want to "get" or be around. It's mean, depressing, nihilistic and doesn't mind slapping you in the face just when you think it's heart might be softening a little. Boo.

Maybe I'm losing any apprecation for "art" in my old age. If so, fine. I can be happier without it.

Slumdog Millionaire, 4/5

2009-04-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

(Yeah, I just now saw Slumdog Millionaire. I’m behind the times.)

It's is a good movie, but I’m not quite convinced it’s really that good a movie. A Best Picture winner should be awesome, and Slumdog Millionaire just isn’t there.

The movie begins with Jamal (Dev Patel) in an interrogation cell. He’s a suspected cheat on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He’s answered all but the final, 20,000 rupee question but how is he doing it? He’s an ignorant Untouchable. A minority Muslim who has grown up on the streets and in the gutters, stealing what he can to survive. A slumdog (Hey! That's the title of the movie!).

So the show’s producers torture him (seriously?) to find out how he immediately knows trivia like who’s face is on the American $100 bill, the inventor of the revolver and the name of third Musketeer. As luck would have it, the troubles and trials of his hard-knock life play out like Trivial Pursuit cheat sheet and we flash back to episodes from his childhood, adolescence and teenage years as he explains his answers for each one. It’s a clever plot structure, even if it is a little inelegant.

Along with the trivia lessons, we watch Jamal (played as a boy by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) and his brother, Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) struggle to survive as orphaned Oliver Twists. They meet up with Latika (Rubiana Ali) and Jamal instantly falls in love with her. The three are “rescued” by a corrupt leader of an orphanage, where unbelievably horrible things happen. Events happen, things transpire, and boys have to leave Latika behind. When we catch up with them a few year later, Latika works as a “dancer” while Jamal and Salim are hustling tourist and stealing shoes at the Taj Mahal. Ever the romantic, Jamal hasn’t forgotten about Latika. Later, Salim turns to the Dark Side and it's Jamal’s undying love for his long-lost Latika that inspires him to try out for the game show in the hopes that she is watching.

The contrast between the muddy slums and, well, anything resembling civilization is striking. It’s almost unbelievable that people still live this way, and India isn’t even as bad as some of its neighbors. The acting is also surprisingly strong, especially among the children. Patel is very good as well. Pinto doesn’t really do much in the movie except look pretty, but that’s OK because she is pretty. The Indian version of Regis Philbin, Anil Kapoor, stole the show for me. His beard creeped me out, but in a good way. Director Danny Boyle (Train Spotting) keeps things interesting visually, but there was so much going on that I was exhausted by the time the credits rolled.

It’s colorful, gritty, tells an engrossing story and we all know I love a good destiny-driven love story. But I feel the movie banks too much on its novelty and makes use of an extremely artificial and patronizing narrative structure. Imagine if the story took place in Omaha with the US version of the game show. I have a feeling that’s what probably what Indians think of Slumdog Millionaire. I doubt it would have won eight Oscars if Americans weren’t so eager to prove to each other that we care about the plight of orphans of India. I may be projecting a little bit here, but each time I hear someone sing its praises I also hear them saying “Oh how cute! They have Who Wants to be a Millionaire too! They think they’re just like us!” or “Look at me! I enjoy a Bollywood film! I’m so multicultual!” Force an American movie go-er to watch a real Bollywood production, and I have a feeling they’d start throwing popcorn at the screen within 20 minutes.

(For an accessible Indian movie actually made by an Indian, check out Monsoon Wedding. Though it's not true Bollywood either.)

Monsters vs. Aliens, 4/5

2009-04-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer. (I did not see the 3D version. Poor me. I'm told it was not annoying and added to the experience.)

For the first ten minutes, I wasn’t a fan of Monsters vs. Aliens. It was a little slow, the 3D character models were off-putting and I was plagued by PG-13 questions like how can a woman standing at the altar in a wedding dress grow from 5’8 to 49’11” and not bust out of her dress? From about minute 11 however, things picked up and they picked up fast.

This latest computer animated movie from DreamWorks, brings together the goodhearted snark of Shrek and the pulpy goodness of classic sci-fi standbys to bring us a surprisingly entertaining movie.

We open with our heroine, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), a giddy bride-to-be who is suddenly struck by a meteor from deepest space, darn the luck. The meteor is imbued with some wunder-element (I’m don’t remember the name… it may have been flubber), which not only causes her to survive the impact, but bleaches her hair and rudely interrupts her nuptials by causing one heck of a growth spurt. Derek, her fiancé (Paul “I can do better than I Love You, Man” Rudd), suffers a bout with Little Man Complex and breaks it off. Susan isn’t thrilled with that and gives new meaning to “bridezilla.”

Enter General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland), an R. Lee Emery wannabe in charge of a secret government facility home to other captured freaks. His charges also include the amphibious Missing Link (Will Arnett), the blob-like BOB (Seth Rogen), and a mad-scientist cockroach hybrid (Hugh Laurie). They’re all more or less resigned to their fate (Susan aka Ginormica less so) until suddenly Earth is in need of a savior against an invading alien force led by Galaxhar (Rainn Wilson). It’s only natural that the vaguely Reagan-looking president (Stephen Colbert) would enlist the monsters, led by the resourceful and confident Susan as she begins to warm to her Ginormica identity. Who else is he going to call? The Ghostbusters are clearly unqualified.

That’s pretty much it. It’s a pretty simple story with minimal plot, but unilateral conflict is a theme as old as time: Man vs. Nature, Labor vs. Management, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Cowboys vs. Indians. Why not Monsters vs. Aliens? The fun comes in with the playful manic humor of each of the “monsters,” particularly Seth Rogen’s gelatinous BOB. A little bit of Rogen goes a long way in my book, but here his casting was spot-on. Colbert’s president also steals his scenes, successfully and hilariously bridging that cognitive gap between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Beverly Hills Cop (minor spoiler alert but very funny clip here).

Whatever qualms I had about the character models (Derek the Fiancé, the President and Galaxhar were particularly off-putting), the voice talent more than made up for. In addition to the principals I listed above, the bit part voice actors includes Amy Poehler, Jeffrey Tambor, Ed Helms, Renee Zellweger and John Krasinki.

It’s not a grand slam home run like Wall-E or Finding Nemo, but Monsters vs. Aliens is a rock solid double with two runs batted in.

I Love You Man, 3/5

2009-04-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

I did not love I love You, Man,
I did not love it, Sam I Am.

I would not love it in a box,
It’s not a failure but at that door it knocks.

Paul Rudd’s Peter tries to sell The Hulk's vast estate,
His need for a best man leads to many a man-date.

He finds one in Sidney, and gets a man-crush,
They fart and eat corndogs and rock out to Rush.

I understand Peter’s need for a friend,
To stand by his side ‘til his wedding’s end.

My BFF choie would never be Sidney Fife,
He’s 100 percent Id and insults the wife.

Jason Segel a very likable guy,
But as the slob Mr. Fife, his charm went bye-bye.

Paul Rudd is "The Man" in my book of cliches
But he sleeping walking here; no cheese and all whey.

Rashinda Jones’s Zooey is cute but a bit of a bore,
She’s not much of a character, but she didn’t make me snore.

I really liked bit player Jon Favreau,
He and Jamie Pressly stole the whole show.

The movie’s script is predictable and long,
Projectile vomiting isn’t funny and tone is slightly wrong.

I like the idea of a true bro-mance,
But Paul Rudd’s stature this film failed to enhance.

I appreciate the genre (Knocked Up and its ilk),
But I Love You, Man tasted like passed its prime milk.

Maybe I’m getting too grouchy and old,
This time they forced the Apatow mold.

Its funniest parts are in its trailer,
You won't too laugh and won't need an inhaler.

I did not love I love You, Man,
I did not love it, Sam I Am.

Gran Torino, 4/5

2009-01-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Have you ever seen that old Clint Eastwood flick, The Outlaw Josie Wales? Gran Torino is pretty much the same movie sort of in reverse, complete with Olympic-caliber spitting, gang violence, copious racial epithets and pantomime gunplay. Gran Torino is set 140 years later and Mr. Eastwood has only gotten older*, wiser and more grizzled. Do I have to tell you he’s still mad-dog mean?

Eastwood is Walt Kowalski, a retired Ford assemblyman who recently lost his wife and he’s pissed off at the world. Well, I guess his wife’s death didn’t have anything to do with it - he’s been pissed off since at least the 50s. Walt – excuse me, Mr. Kowalksi – doesn’t take much crap from anybody, so you can imagine that his lazy children don’t have much use for him, and he has even less use for them. He also doesn’t have much use for minorities of any kind, including but not limited to “Wops, Krauts, Eyeties, Gippos, Bubbles, Froggies, Chinks, Yidds, Jocks, Paddies, Dagoes, those dirty, dirty Belgians”** and especially the Hmong that have “taken over” his neighborhood. It doesn’t help matters when Tao – “Toad” as Walt calls him – tries to steal his cherry 1972 Gran Torino Sport. At the insistence of his sister, Soo, Tao will gradually work off the offense doing chores under Walt’s critical eye. Wouldnjaknowit, Soo and Tao also gradually work their way into Walt’s crusty old heart.

The problem is that the old neighborhood has also been taken over by gangs. “Spook” gangs, “Wetback” gangs, Hmong gangs, etc. etc. and trouble is a-brewin'. Luckily, Korean War vet Walt knows how to deal with a bully. He keeps a cool head and a lot his strategy revolves around pointing his finger at them and saying BANG (much like Chuck Norris, who shot down a German plane in a similar fashion). Don't worry, he uses his fists and plenty of real fire arms too. To watch Eastwood walk around being pissed off is always fun, regardless of which variation of tough guy he’s playing, and it’s very fun in Gran Torino. You will root for this loveable racist old codger.

Gran Torino is pretty good. It’s also pretty funny. Marketing for the film hasn’t touched on that aspect of the script, but there are more than handful of genuinely funny moments, not the least of which is a series of scenes in which Walt teaches Tao to “man up.” I also enjoyed Walt’s banter with rookie priest Father Janovich (Christopher Carley): "I heards there was some trouble in the neighborhood. Why didn't you call the police?" "Well, Father, I prayed for them to come, but nobody answered."

So yeah, it’s pretty good, but there’s a reason it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. It’s no The Good, The Bad or the Ugly or The Outlaw Josie Wales. It’s also not Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby. The script is very well-written (its author clearly had Eastwood in mind) and it never gets boring. Despite many many many racial slurs, the movie is not offensive nor is it overly preachy in its message seeing past racial boundaries. It stumbles a little in Soo’s dialog. The ending is telegraphed from frame one, but hey, it’s a good ending so why gripe?

Bee Vang who plays Tao and Ahney Her’s Soo are fine. Just “fine.” It’s not Vang’s fault, but I very much wanted to give his character a haircut. He kinda reminds me of my cousin, Kyle. But of course, this is Eastwood’s movie. His character is so crotchety it flirts with caricature, but he’s just so darn fun to watch! I’d like to see Eastwood and Samuel L. Jackson in a contest to see who can get pissed off the most in a 2-hour feature.

Did I mention Eastwood sings over the closing credits? Oh yeah. Worth the price of admission right there.

*His old-man pants are creeping higher on his waist as well. Check out the poster.

**I don’t even know what people group half of these slurs are referring to. Where have I been?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 4.5/5

2009-01-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

The spiritual sequel to Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the best movie I’ve seen in a while. Yeah, it’s very, very long and has an absurd central premise, but to watch Benjamin Button is to enjoy virtually element of film-making at its best. David Fincher’s direction? Masterful. Eric Roth’s script? Epic. Makeup and special effects? Breathtaking. Brad Pitt’s performance? Stellar. Supporting cast? A delight to watch.

Cate Blanchett? The thesaurus and quite possibly the English language do not contain enough words to do her and her screen presence justice. The best I could come up with is: alluring, angelic, beguiling, bewitching, charming, chic, classy, comely, dazzling, delicate, delightful, enticing, exquisite, fair, fascinating, glowing, graceful, hypnotic, intriguing, magnetic, mesmerizing, pulchritudinous (memo to self: integrate “pulchritudinous” into everyday vocabulary), radiant, resplendent, statuesque, seductive, spellbinding and stunning. Oh, and the woman can act.

Based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald (and apparently “based” only means “we took the title and basic conceit then threw the rest out”), the movie opens in 2005 in a New Orleans hospital. A wrinkled, near-death Daisy (Blanchett) and her daughter (Julia Ormond) are bracing both for her death and for the wrath of Hurricane Katrina which is slowing zeroing in on them. (Why the plot needs the added drama/tension of Katrina, I don’t know and it doesn’t go anywhere) Aware that she is on her deathbed, Daisy asks her daughter, to read allow the diary of a curious stranger, Mr. Benjamin Button.

It tells the story of Benjamin (who else?), a boy born as a tiny, shriveled old raisin of a baby. His cheeks were not rosy, and his bottom was anything but smooth. Horrified at his son’s physical deformities and grief-stricken that his wife died giving birth, the elder Mr. Button abandons him at the steps of a nursing home. Queenie (a very good Taraji P. Henson), takes pity on the wrinkled, arthritic Benjamin and introduces the him to the addled old folks as her sisters’ illegitimate child. Says one old woman,"He looks just like my ex-husband." Queenie replies, “Yes, he is going to face some special problems: the poor boy done come out white.”

From there, Benjamin grows up. Sort of. We begin to see a tiny, ancient hint of Pitt as his physical body grows, and his hairline begins to procede as he ages backwards. He meets Daisy, a precocious, red-headed seven-year-old granddaughter of one the home’s residents. They’re both seven years old, even though Button is hunchbacked and still looks looks and sounds the part of an octogenarian with a young boy's urge to play in the dirt. It’s a little disconcerting at first, but any queasiness is soon forgotten.

At 17 – and with the physical body of a 65 year-old man - Button decides sow his wild oats. He gets a job on a tug boat, travels to Russia, shares an old subplot with Tilda Swinton and eventually even sinks a Japanese submarine. Daisy also leaves the nest, dancing her way through New York and Europe. Eventually our star-crossed lovers’ ages will meet (Daisy on the way up, Benjamin on the way down). The intersection of their lives and flawed love is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

“Heartwarming and heartbreaking” pretty much sums up the whole movie, but there are a few minor glitches. The clock (you have to see the movie) is a beautiful metaphor, but I'm not sure it meshes very well with the rest of the film. Tilda Swinton’s tangent is unnecessary, but she’s such an intriguing actress, it’s not really a problem. Age makeup can often be distracting and unconvincing, but the makeup artists struck a balance between showing the ravages of time and letting the undeniable physical beauty of both actors shine through. Who would have thought it was possible for a 42-year-old mother of two (Blanchett) could convincingly play a character at 17 years, 84 years, and every age in between?

My main qualm is the no one seems all that surprised that Benjamin gets younger and stronger after beginning life looking a miniature Joe Paterno. Other than his father, no one seems the least bit non-plussed. Where’s the team of scientists? The movie takes place just after the birth of yellow journalism, so where is the paparazzi? Where was P.T. Barnum or Robert Ripley?

Whatever small flaws that might exist, Blanchett and Pitt each do yeoman's work. For years I dismissed Mr. Jolie as a pretty boy coasting on his good looks. He may not be the white Sidney Poitier, but he's a top notch actor. As for Blanchett, she has a way to adding just the right touch to her dialog and there is genuine emotion in her eyes.

I mentioned that Benjamin Button is the spiritual sequel to Forrest Gump. It feels much the same and the plot has the same sweeping, episodic feel (Eric Roth penned both scripts). Like Gump, You’ll be exhausted by the time it’s over, but you’ll be satisfied at watching the drama that is a man’s life.

The Spirit, 1.5/5

2009-01-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

I find it impossible to review The Spirit. I can’t tell if it’s a send up of itself or if it is a just a complete and utter failure of a film noir-ish comic book and wannabe-cousin to Sin City. There about an 85 percent chance that I didn't "get" it. In a departure from the normal formula, I’m simply going to describe the plot in detail, and you can decide for yourself if it is a movie you’d like to watch. You might also be interested to know it has a 14 percent freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

Gabriel Macht (Gabriel who?) is The Spirit. He likes cats, wears red ties and runs around in Chuck Taylors. He was once a plucky, idealistic rookie cop who was killed in the line of duty. He is brought back to life and made nearly invincible by the coroner. Whenever he comes close to death, we see Lorelei (Jamie King), a sparkly and blue Angel of Death. That coroner is the Octopus, as played by Samuel L. Jackson. Just so you know, the Octopus only has two arms and two legs. Also, you know that weird brown/black/red “stain” that dogs have around their eyes? The Octopus has those, too.

The Octopus (I keep using his name and not a pronoun because the movie keeps repeating this unexplained moniker) is pretty well invincible too. The Octopus and The Spirit fight in a mud bog. The Spirit punches the Octopus 38 times in a row. POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! The Octopus breaks a toilet over The Spirit’s head. The Spirit pulls a sword out of that was buried hilt-deep in his gut. Later in the movie, the Octopus suffers six gunshots to the head. The Octopus leans over, shakes the Octopus's head, and the bullets fall out. “Smells like scrambled eggs.”

Yeah... I forgot to mention that the Octopus has a thing about eggs. At times the Octopus seems to like eggs, and at other times, the Octopus doesn’t. The Octopus definitely does not like brown eggs. Dirty, dirty brown eggs.

When the Octopus isn’t pontificating on eggs, the Octopus and the Octopus’s assistant, Silken Floss (Scarlet Johansson) are on a quest to obtain the blood of Heracles (Hercules), and apparent immortality. Despite what you’re hoping, Kevin Sorbo does not make an appearance.

Then there’s Sand Serif, played by the exceptionally curvy Eva Mendes. She was a childhood sweetheart of the man-who-would-become The Spirit. She extorts millions of dollars from other criminals, gives the money to charity, then kills them and Her wardrobe was likely designed by Frederick’s of Hollywood. Instead of being obsessed with the blood of Kevin Sorbo, she is more interest in another ancient artifact of ancient Greece, the golden fleece of Jason and the Argonauts. Wouldnjaknowit, Serif has what the Octopus wants, and the Octopus has what she wants.

At some point, The Octopus – decked out in full Nazi garb, jack boots and monocle included – captures The Spirit and sends in a French belly dancer/cutlery enthusiast named Ms. Paris. Her first name? Plaster. Plaster of Paris. Seriously? I'll reluctantly give Sand Serif a pass simply because I love typography so darn much but Plaster of Paris?

Oh, I forgot to mention the Stooge-esque role of The Octopus’s cloned henchmen (Louis Lombardi): Pathos and Ethos and Logos and Huevos (remember, the Octopus has a thing for eggs) and Rancheros and Adios and Amigos and Pogos and Bozos and Matzos and Fatsos… I’ll stop here. I'd hate to ruin one of the true great climaxes of modern cinema. You'd better run out and snatch up a ticket before the lines get to choked with fans desperate to drink of the sweet, sweet cinematic nectar that is The Spirit.

It's An Honor Just to be Nominated

2008-12-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

Please forgive the extremely crude Photoshopping

Forget the Oscars. Who cares about the Golden Globes? For Hollywood's elite, there's only one true measure of greatness: Brian's Crimson Ticket Stub of Prestige, also known to industry insiders as the Stubbie.

And the Stubbie Goes to...

Best Comedy
The nominees:

Juno
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Tropic Thunder
Ghost Town
Role Models

And the Stubbie goes to... Juno. It was a very close race between Juno and Sarah Marshall, but Juno's pathos, wit and lack of Jonah Hill made it very appealing.

Best Action-Adventure
The nominees:

Indiana Jones IV
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Eagle Eye
Wanted
Quantum of Solace.

And the Stubbie goes to... The Dark Knight. Honestly, there was no way I could not give the Stubbie to this masterpiece. Quantum of Solace and Wanted tie for runners up.

Best Drama
The nominees:

Smart People
Atonement
Fireproof
Australia

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! Even though the ending made me furious, I can't deny this is a great movie.

Best Musical
The nominees:

Walk Hard
Mamma Mia
An American Carol

And the Stubbie goes to... bleh. They aren't worthy. We here at the Stubbies have standards.

Best Sequel
The nominees:

Rambo
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Indiana Jones IV
The Dark Knight
Madagascar 2
Quantum of Solace
RocknRolla

And the Stubbie goes to... Indiana Jones IV! I know, I know. How can I possibly rank Indy and the Incredible Flying Fridge over The Dark Knight? Sure, TDK was a much better movie (and didn't have any prairie dogs) but Indy IV had a certain charm and despite popular opinion, I think it contiued the spirit of Dr. Jones as well as possibly could be expected.

Longest Movie
The nominees:

Australia
The Dark Knight
Appaloosa
Speed Racer

And the Stubbie goes to... Australia! It clocked in at a whopping 165 minutes.

Best Animated Feature
The nominees:

Bee Movie
Horton Hears a Who!
Kung Fu Panda
Bolt
Speed Racer
Madagascar 2

And the Stubbie goes to... Kung Fu Panda! Despite disliking it the first go 'round, its stock rose significantly when I was forced to see a second time in a group.

Best Movie That Is Pretty Good But I Don't Need To See It Again
The nominees:

Australia
Attonement
Burn After Reading

And the Stubbie goes to... Australia! I'm sorry, Baz, but life is too short.

Best Movie that Should Have Sucked But Didn't
The nominees:

Fireproof
Marley and Me
Get Smart
Ghost Town
Role Models

And the Stubbie goes to... Fireproof! Way to go, Kirk Cameron! It was a virtual dead heat for FP, Ghost Town and Role Models, but my expectations for FP were just so darn low, it's hard not to declare it the winner.

Movie I Should Have Walked Out of But Didn't
The nominees:

Bee Movie
Step Brothers
Speed Racer
Mamma Mia!
Max Payne

And the Stubbie goes to... Mamma Mia! My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.

Best Movie That is Stupid But I Still Kinda Like It
The nominees:

Marley & Me
Eagle Eye
The House Bunny

And the Stubbie goes to... The House Bunny! There's no denying that Anna Faris has talent.

Most Disappointing
The nominees:

Walk Hard
Speed Racer
Step Brothers

And the Stubbie goes to... Step Brothers! I was embarrassed to be seen in the theater.

Best Surprise Ending
The nominees:

Role Models
Atonement
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

And the Stubbie goes to... Role Models! Yeah, Sarah Marshall's puppet rock opera was all sorts of awesome, but the epic and surprisingly warm ending to Role Models gives it the advantage.

Worst Surprise Ending
The nominees:

Atonement
Role Models
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! I almost let an expletive slip when the big twist hit.

What Were They Thinking?
The nominees:

Hancock
Max Payne

And the Stubbie goes to... Max Payne! I like Mark Wahlberg, but I have limits. He crossed them.

Most Overrated
The nominees:

Atonement
Bee Movie
Walk Hard
Appaloosa

And the Stubbie goes to... Bee Movie! Why Jerry? Why? What did I ever do to you?

Best Special Effects
The nominees:

Speed Racer
Indy IV
Wanted
Dark Knight
The Day the Earth Stood Still

And the Stubbie goes to... Wanted! Me likey curvy bullets

Best Costume Design (suggested by Kelly)
The nominees:

Atonement
Semi-Pro
Australia
Appaloosa

And the Stubbie goes to... Semi-Pro! You gotta love Will Ferrell in those short shorts.

Most Misguided Will Ferrel Vehicle
The nominees:

Semi-Pro
Step Brothers

And the Stubbie goes to... Step Brothers! Will and John C. Reilly should both be ashamed.

Best Movie to Knit To (ie: you don't have to pay that much attention to it) (suggested by Kelly)
The nominees are:

Horton Hears a Who!
Kung Fu Panda
Tropic Thunder
Madagascar 2

And the Stubbie goes to... Tropic Thunder! It's a movie full of great one-liners. You can tune in and out at will and I promise you'll land on a laugh.

Best Actor/Actress
The nominees are:

Ellen Page, Juno
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Ed Harris, Appaloosa
Nicole Kidman, Australia

And the Stubbie goes to... the late Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight! Ms. Page did a phenomenal job as Juno, but Mr. Ledger too it to a whole 'nother level.

Best Soundtrack
The nominees are:

Mamma Mia
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

And the Stubbie goes to... How to Lose Friends! I know I'm supposed to pick Nick and Norah, but that's just how I roll.

Best Remake
The nominees are:

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Journey to the Center of Earth

And the Stubbie goes to... Journey to the Center of the Earth. Say what you will, I like Brenden Frasier.

Outstanding Achievement in a Cameo Appearence
The nominees are:

Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Jason Schwartzman, Walk Hard
Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
Thandie Newton, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Neil Patrick Harris, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

And the Stubbie goes to.... Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jack Black and Jason Schartzman! This was probaly the toughest decision yet, but their turn as the fab four was by far the best part of Walk Hard.

Best Use of Seth Rogan
The nominees are:

Pineapple Express
Kung Fu Panda
Horton Hears a Who!
Step Brothers

And the Stubbie goes to... Pineapple Express! I didn't especially love the movie, but he was perfectly cast.

Worst Use of Seth Rogan
The nominees are:

Pineapple Express
Kung Fu Panda
Horton Hears a Who!
Step Brothers

And the Stubbie goes to... Horton Hears a Who! I don't get it. Why.

Best Use of Jonah Hill
The nominees:

Walk Hard
Horton Hears a Who
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

And the Stubbie goes to... Forgetting Sarah Marshall! Who knew he could be funny?

Worst Use of Jonah Hill
The nominees:

Walk Hard
Horton Hears a Who
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

And the Stubbie goes to... Walk Hard! Ugh.

Outstanding Achievement in the Casting of Paul Rudd
The nominees:

Walk Hard
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Role Models

And the Stubbie goes to... Role Models! Way to go, buddy!

Best Performance by a Rapper turned Actor
The nominees:

Ludacris, Max Payne
Ludacris, RocknRolla

And the Stubbie goes to... Ludacris, RocknRolla! Seriously, he's a decent actor.

Best Movie Based on a Book
The nominees are:

Atonement
Marley & Me
Horton Hears a Who!
An American Carol
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Journey to the Center of the Earth

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! Even though it's not my cup of tea, I must say it's a great translation of a great book.

Best Movie Based on True Story
The nominees are:

The Express
Marley & Me
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Expelled

And the Stubbie goes to... Marley & Me. Yeah. That's how much The Express annoyed me. I picked the dog movie.

2008 By the Numbers

Movies Seen: 53 (45 + 8 repeats)
Average Score: 3.2/5
Different Venues: Nine, spread over three states
Buckets of popcorn: Two (I just don't buy popcorn at the movies)
Movies seen at the Drive-in: Two (Get Smart, Kung Fu Panda)
Money spent (approximate): $375
Time spent in theaters (not including trailers and credits): 95 hours and 11 minutes (or 49 minutes shy of four days, 1.1 percent of 2008).
Number of words used to review movies: 26,474
Celebrities met/interviewed/photographed: One (Ben Stein in Expelled)
Most movies seen in one day: Four (An American Carol, Momma Mia, Eagle Eye, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People)
12:01 a.m. premiers seen: Three (Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Quantum of Solace).

Marley & Me, 3/5

2008-12-31T14:28:00.001-08:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Over the long Christmas holiday, I stumbled across this ridiculously cute puppy. Besides reminding my family of me sitting in the pew on Sunday morning, it rekindled some small desire in my heart to to get a dog.

Marley pooped all over that desire. I am now terrified at the idea of owning a dog.

Marley - as I'm sure you're aware - is the titular hound from the depths of hell in the latest man-and-his-dog movie, Marley & Me. Yeah, he's cute, but only for about two minutes. Then he instantly becomes an inexplicably destructive whirling dervish of a dog that utterly obliterates anything and everything. His resume includes digesting answering machines, diapers linoleum flooring and drywall. He makes Beethoven look like the obedience school apple-polishing valedictorian. Seriously, Job has nothing on John and Jen Grogan. It's not funny, it's terrifying.

And there's positively no reason for the Grogans (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) to love or even tolerate Marley's behavior. If he had pulled a Lassie and pulled her out of a burning building or maybe brought Wilson's character the morning paper even once, I could maybe see keeping him and putting up with his epic shenanigans, but Marley has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. He's supposed to die fighting a cougar, not go quietly into that good night because of a twisted stomach. All I can say in his defense is that he does not eat the Grogan children (although he does knock them down).

Surprisingly, I can offer more in defense of the movie as a whole. It look to be a trite, subpar holiday pablum, but it's a real movie, even if the the family's love for the Attila the Dog is inexplicable. I can honestly say I didn't hate it.

Owen Wilson wouldn't be my pick for a lead in a family comedy, but he's not horrible. However, he does have that stupid surfer haircut that doesn't change even through he supposedly ages 20 years on screen. His nose is overwhelming when you have to sit on the second row. He and Aniston (who also doesn't appear to age a day) are actually kinda funny as they try to navigate life, marriage and their careers as Miami journalists. Lucy Merriam, the actress who plays their four-year-old daughter is cute. She delivers an adorable eulogy.

Here's the weird thing: It's not really about the dog. It's mostly about how Grogan can't be satisfied with his amazingly high-paying job. He learns tolerance and life lessons (apparently) from Marley for the first two acts but the dog is missing from a large part of the final 40 minutes. I'm sure John Grogan is a nice guy, but I really don't care to see a movie about him whine about a cushy, high paying job at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and living in a nice home in Boca.

The movie is based on the best-selling non-fiction book of the same name, some of my gripes about the movie's faults can be explained by falling back on the it's-based-on-real-life defense. However, good books don't always make good movies without changes and embellishments, sometimes large ones (case in point, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). The story was too long, and Marley needs a hero moment. He had his chance when the Grogans' neighbor gets stabbed out of nowhere, but Marley just sits there chewing the curtains. The non-dog moments should have been tighter.

Still, the movie works because it's not a zany, slap stick, Jim Carey-type of movie. Like any good dog, it is earnest and that earns you lots of capital in my book. Maybe that's what the Grogans saw in Marley.

RocknRolla, 3.5/5

2008-12-12T07:09:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

RocknRolla is the anti-Ocean’s 11. Yeah, they’re both tales of lawbreakers and ne’er do wells, but this merry band of thieves don’t dress well, aren’t charming, could use a good orthodontist and have absolutely zero sense of loyalty, humor or decency. There’s a better-than-even chance they will tie you to a chair and lower you into the Thames River to be eaten alive by giant crawfish, and they haven’t even decided to kill you yet.

That’s not to say RocknRolla isn’t a fun, good movie; it mostly is. At least I think it is. I can’t be 100 percent sure since I only understood about 2/3 of writer/director Guy Ritchie’s (the former Mr. Madonna) cockney, fast-pace dialog. I’m not even sure I know what a rocknrolla is, and we’re given that answer at least twice, once over the opening credits.

I won’t even try to describe the marvelously labyrinthine plot, because to do so would require four more screenings and a team of court stenographers. Characters like Tank, Nurse, Fred the Head, One-Two, Mumbles, Handsome Bob, Johnny Quid, Waster and Councilor run around London generally scamming and scaring the pants off each other. There’s a basic frame set around a real estate deal gone bad, but with Guy Ritchie, the plots really aren’t what it’s all about. RocknRolla is pretty much the same plot as Snatch which is pretty much the same as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. They’re all more or less exercises in talking fast and finding creative ways to beat the crap out of people. It’s not a wholly bad formula really, and if you’re a Ritchie fan, go for it. I will say, however, that RocknRolla is the weakest of the three (Snatch being my personal favorite).

Even though I found it impossible to keep the characters straight, the acting corps is pretty strong. For the first time, I finally figured out why people like Thandie Newton and Jeremy Piven is, as always, awesome. Chris “Ludacris” Bridges makes an appearance as well, and does a fine job. I’m not sure when he decided to become an actor, but he’s doing an OK job at it.

The Day The Earth Stood Still, 3/5

2008-12-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

For your information, aliens prefer to zip around town in reliable, fuel-efficient Honda Accords, discuss the end of the human race over a nice, hot Mickey D’s McCafe Latte, the US Government uses computers made by LG (they make computers now?) running Windows Vista and we had better start recycling and saving the whales, pronto.

Those are just some of the lessons we learn from The Day the Earth Stood Still, which, despite what you may have read on the blogs, is not a documentary on freeze tag. It also teaches us that Keanu Reeves might very well be an actual alien.

Dr. Pretty Brunette (I forget her real name, but she is played - rather blandly - by Jennifer Connelly) is an expert in astro-biology (huh?). When a huge alien sphere shows up in Central Park, who better to poke and prod mankind’s first-ever contact with extra-terrestrial life than someone who has supposedly been studying it for years? A trigger-happy army sniper accidentally wounds Klaatu (which sounds just slightly more alien than Keanu’s real name) which provokes his metal, cyclops-of-a bodyguard to have a laser-shooting conniption. Dr. PB calls for a medic to save Klaatu (is there an alien doctor in the house?) and he’s taken into custody. In a stunning reverse of clichés and alien stereotype, the Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) wants to drug and probe him.

Dr. PB helps, sees something she likes in Klaatu’s eyes and helps him escape the evil military's clutches. She and her jerk of a step-son (Will Smith’s son, Jaden) ferry Klaatu around New England until he finds his under-over, alien contact, who of course has assumed the form of an old tiny Japanese man. He tells Klaatu, who of course knows Japanese (why wouldn’t he?), the terrible truth: Mankind is so destructive, they all must perish in order to save the rest of the Planet. Dang it, I KNEW we should have listened to Al Gore and bought hybrids!

The laser-riffic Cyclops dissolves into 7 bajillion titanium termites while Dr. PB takes Klaatu to the one person she hopes can convince him humans are worth saving: Monty Python’s own John Cleese, a brilliant, Bach-loving scientist who recently won the Nobel Prize for his work in – wait for it – altruistic biology. I think that means he buys toys for underprivileged DNA strands at Christmastime and serves homeless genomes turkey dinners at the local shelter at Thanksgiving.

Do they succeed in convincing him we can change? Does the Earth actually stand still? Will Congress pass an auto-maker bail-out package? You’ll have to pay your $8.50 to find out.

Jennifer Connelly, as I already mentioned, is pretty vanilla but does what she can with her remarkably flat character. Mr. Reeves seems to have been preparing his entire post-Excellent Adventure career to play an emotionless being from another world and here it works pretty well. John Cleese’s character is wholly unnecessary and Kathy Bates isn’t bad despite her ridiculous character. As for young Mr. Smith? I’m not much for slapping people, especially children, but he got on my last nerve.

I presume the story is a fairly faithful re-imagining of the original 1951 sci-fi classic (I haven’t seen it), but I came away wanting a little more. Whereas the original served as a precautionary tale against nuclear proliferation, this reiteration is concerned with global warming, I guess. It’s not a bad story, but it’s a vague story that suffers from pacing errors. The Day the Earth Stood Still could have been much tighter, more exhilarating and much more direct in its criticisms (if it actually has any).

Final thought: Someone should take scenes of people "standing still" and make a killer music video to The J. Geils Band's Freeze Frame!

Australia, 4/5

2008-12-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

WARNING: Insensitive and inappropriate racial humor ahead.

Unless I decide to go back to the Sleep Study Center and hook myself up to 30 or 40 electrodes, there's no real scientific way to measure how well my CPAP machine is working. At least, there wasn't until tonight. I'm no board-certified sleep pathologist, but tonight I unequivocally proved that I am indeed sleeping better and have more energy. Ladies and gentlemen, I stayed awake and alert through all three hours of Australia.

Australia is Baz Luhrmann's sweeping, over-the-top, 180-minute celluloid love letter to his homeland and it certainly is epic. A little too epic, perhaps.

Set in the days leading up to WWII, Nullah, a 9-year-old "Creamy" (the wince-inducing slang for half whites, half Aborigine children) narrates the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman). She is a proper English housewife who comes to Far Away Downs, a HUGE cattle ranch owned by her philandering husband but just as she arrives, he is killed by the Magic Negro, King George. Lady Ashley hires a cattle drover named - wait for it - Drover (Hugh Jackman) to help herd her cattle and outrace competing ranchers to Darwin in time to meet snag a lucrative Army contract. Those brave Australian soldiers have to have good, Aussie beef if they're going to fight against those murderous Japs, don't they? Boy, I'm just getting all the racial slurs in today, aren't I?. Are there any Jews in the house? Do we have any Guidos in the audience tonight?

Lady Ashley and Drover fall in love and she more or less ends up adopting the orphaned Nullah. Things happen and events occur. A lovable drunk gets tramped by a CGI stampede. Nullah develops an affinity for the movie The Wizard of Oz and learns to play the harmonica and hypnotize cattle. Ninety minutes in, the story ends. Then it picks back up again and barrels on for another 90 minutes as callous missionaries kidnap Nullah and take him to an island to "breed the Black out of him." Drover and Lady Ashley have a tiff, and those murderous Japs attack the Australia's Northern Territory. Throughout both "acts," King George is stealthily shadowing the main characters. It's very White of me to say so, but I wanted to tell him to take a bath. Oh, the hegemony!

If you're exhausted reading all that, trying staying awake through it.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie - it's actually pretty good - but there can be no doubt it suffers from its length. There's a good movie in here. Actually there's two, and that's the problem. I supposed true epics like The Odyssey, The Illiad, The Aeneid or even Gone With the Wind don't exactly fallow the exposition-escalation-climax-denouement pattern, but it's exceptionally hard to make a good movie doing anything but that.

From Lurhmann, the man behind such stylish movies like Moulin Rouge!, Romeo+Juliet and this timeless masterpiece, I wanted something with a little more style and flash. We get some good opening credits and the "animation" tracing Lady Ashley's journey down under is cool, but mostly we get a straight drama. Like I said, it's not bad, but it could have been great.

I did enjoy the bits of Aborigine mysticism and especially the Australia/native jargon used by Nullah. He can make himself "invisible" at times and can do other "magic."I'm generally not a fan of animism, it was at least interesting. Some have criticized the movie as being condescending to Aborigines, but come on, it's a movie.

Brandon Walters, who plays Nullah, is very, every good and Hugh Jackman is pretty darn watchable, even if he does make me feel woefully inadequate. As for Nicole Kidman, well she did OK, but she left me with this one lingering question as I left the theater: Where did she find a botox clinic in the Outback?

Ooh! I almost forgot: There's a Chinese cook named Sing Song. I bet he knows karate and has a severe overbite. They all look alike, you know [sound of a gong].

Max Payne, 1/5

2008-11-23T20:17:00.001-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

A word of advice to the people who perpetrated Max Payne on the unsuspecting public: when you’re making a bad movie, it’s best not to choose a title with a homophone of “pain” in the title. And don't lie to me, you knew you were making a bad movie. We're talking Elektra-bad here, folks.

There’s absolutely nothing right with this movie. It’s so bad, it’s beyond the realm so-bad-it’s-good. When Ludacris turns in the best acting performance in a movie that includes Mark "Say Hi to Your Mother For Me" Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko, three actors I actually really like, something somewhere has gone horribly wrong. In this case, it’s pretty much everything, not the least of which is that the movie is based on a just-slightly above average video game from the late 90s, yet doesn’t resemble it in the slightest.

Max Payne (Wahlberg, acting as if he’s high on horse tranquilizers) is dark and brooding NYC detective. He’s pissed off at the world and lets you know it. His wife and baby son were murdered several years ago and he spends his nights tracking the killers down. Sasha (Kurylenko) might be able to lead him to someone that knows what happened, but before she can help, she is brutally murdered and Max is framed for the crime by Luda. With the help of Sasha’s sister (Kunis), he breaks free and goes on a murderous rampage. It sounds halfway interesting, but it’s not. Trust me.

Did I mention there are demonic valkyries patrolling the airspace of New York, ready to snatch people up and shred them to mincemeat with their large talons? 'Cause yeah, there are totally demonic valkyries patrolling the airspace of New York, ready to snatch people up and shred them to mincemeat with their large talons. Napoleon Dynamite would be terrified.

You should be too.

Bolt, 4/5

2008-11-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF slightly above average lost-dog-finds-his-way-home story saved by quirky pigeons and a feisty hamster ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF John Travolta makes a good dog ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF Miley Cyrus's unusually deep voice bothers me ARF ARF ARF ARF Hey, they just got in a Finding Nemo dig ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF who is Susie Essman and who decided she'd make a good cat? ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF. Pretty good little CGI cartoon, though certainly not a Pixar-instant classic ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF nice shout out to Missouri! ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF it's worth watching for the pigeons ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF.

Role Models, 4/5

2008-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Role Models is a hopeful, funny little movie with a great personality. It's just that it hides behind an such abrasive front, that I didn't notice it until the brilliant and inspired final act. It's a lot like the children asigned to "big brothers" Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd: They all might take a little coaxing to come out of their shell, but there's something worth loving in there. On three, everybody: Awwwwwwwwwwwww.

Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) are two energy drink salesmen who go around with a distinct lack of energy as they peddle their noxious "Minotaur" at area schools. Wheeler is an optimistic slacker who enjoys the fact that he can do his job well while hungover and/or high, which is one of the few perks of dressing like a minotaur all day. Danny is a depressed underachiever who is having trouble with his lawyer girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks), his job, the local coffee shop, a surly tow truck driver and pretty much the rest of the world.

After a particularly bad day, they run afoul the law and are faced with two options: 30 days jail, or 150 hours of community service with Sturdy Wings, a Big Brothers, Big Sisters knock-off run by former coke-fiend Jane Lynch. Danny is assigned to Augie (the perpetually congested McLovin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a nerd of epic proportions who lives for medieval reenactment/role playing events . Wheeler's young charge is Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), an incredibly "challenging" 10-year-old who is every adult's nightmare. The "Bigs" and "Littles" venture out into the world together and hilarity ensues. But here's the thing: Hilarity actually ensues. I know. I was just as surprised as you.

It's those genuine laughs and again, the surprise third act, that pull it all together. The cast is superb and they milk the script (co-written by Rudd) for all it's worth. Rudd has a goofy smile and wry delivery that would make you laugh as he read a Waffle House menu, and Scott is just enough of a wise-cracking jerk to be a really great, really funny friend. Mintz-Plasse and Thompson bring depth to what could have easily been throw away roles and Jane Lynch, well, God bless her, she's just awesome.

Sure, we see where things are going (Bigs and Littles dislike/distrust each other initially, they go on various adventures, slowly bond, there's a crisis where they "break up," then they eventually form a friendship stronger than any court order as the closing credits roll). That's mostly the case here, but there are actual, genuine laughs along the away and there's a surprise final act that I don't think anyone in their right mind saw coming. There are hints along the way, but it's just so out there that it's still a surprise. Who knew that was still possible in today's movie world? Kudos to Rudd and his writing partners for playing things close to the chest then springing things on us at the exact right time.

Yes, it deserves its R rating, but beyond its crass facade, Role Models is pretty warm and cuddly inside.

Appaloosa, 2/5

2008-11-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Westerns, as a genre, have never really done it for me. As of this morning, there were exactly three westerns I've liked (Quigley Down Under, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and of course, Blazing Saddles). Now that I've sat though two long hours of Appaloosa, there are still three.

Lawmen Virgil (Ed Harris) and Everett (Viggo Mortesen) stroll into the sleepy town of Appaloosa (were there ever any wide awake towns in the Old West?) to rid the town of local badman, Bragg (Jeremy Irons). Bragg, among other personality flaws, gunned down the previous sheriff and this has understandably caused the town aldermen no small amount of stress. Somewhere in there, Miss Allie (the oh so unfortunate looking Renee Zelleweger) enters the picture and inexplicably catches the eye of the good guys and all the bad ones too. I know attractive women-folk were often a rare commodity in 1886 New Mexico, but surely the men weren't this desperate. Everett follows Virgil around like a love-sick puppy dog and it's just weird. No, we're not venturing into Brokeback Mountain territory here, but there is a definite Cowboy Bromance going on.

The real conflict isn't between the two marshals and Bragg. It's supposed to be between our two heroes and the Little Miss Scrunchy Face. Between the Law and feelings. Too bad I wasn't convinced any of those.

Harris is so bland it's impossible to enjoy his character. I've never been a fan of Mortensen and his take on this walking SAT-Vocabulary-Flash-Card-Set of a deputy didn't win me over. Zellweger doesn't have a "good personality" nor is she funny. She officially has nothing going for her. I'm sorry. That's a horrible, horrible thing to say. But seriously, she looks like she just had an allergic reaction to some shellfish.

The lone bright spot is Jeremy Irons. His scenes are the only ones worth watching. I also liked Everett's umm... occasional lady-friend, played by Ariadna Gil.

Harris directed the movie and he fared about as well behind the camera as he did in front of it. The editing is clumsy and music was at times distracting. The script is way too long and skipped right over the natural, satisfying ending and took a logical u-turn and went along for two more subplots and 45 minutes. The actual ending is lame, as if one of the stray bullets got it in the leg.

Did I mention Peter Pettigrew plays one of the town aldermen? Yeah. He does.

Oh, and note to Mr. Harris: Westerns aren't supposed to have narrators.

Quantum of Solace, 4/5

2008-11-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

I had a good time at the 12:01 screening of Quantum of Solace, but this reborn series could very easily become derailed.

The great problem with the first 20 Bond films is that they pretty much all blend together. Of course, Bond’s personality, the arsenal of cool gadgetry, colorful super-villains, volcano hideouts and the bevy of femme fatales with hilarious names overpowered the series’ monotony and created an endearing character for the ages. Solace, the 22nd in the series and the second of the Daniel Craig era, suffers the same problem as the original 20, but doesn’t have the charm. Instead of an evil mastermind hell bent on building a space station to hold the world hostage, we have a smarmy French real-estate speculator who desires to buy 60 percent of Bolivian utilities companies. NOOOOOOO! TAKE 55 PERCENT, BUT NOT 60! He doesn't even cry blood. There is no Q, no Money Penny, no gadgets and no humor. Heck, Bond seems to have taken a True Love Waits pledge and doesn’t even attempt to bed Camille (Olga Kurylenko). At least there’s a decent opening titles song/montage, courtesy of Jack White.

Bond #22 begins moments after Casino Royale ended, leaving Bond aching to avenge the death of his love, Vesper Lynd (thus making it the first true Bond sequel). The plot details got a little hazy (but hey, it’s a Bond film, so who cares?), but he traces her killers to Bolivia and finds himself mixed up in a suspicious land deal between Dominic Greene (the aforementioned smarmy Frenchman) and an ambitious Bolivian general with eyes on the Presidential Mansion in La Paz. Camille also has a beef with Greene/Mr. President–elect and so does the CIA. Along the way Bond kills lots of people. Lots. TONS. One of his unintended victims is Agent (Strawberry?) Fields (Gemma Arterton), who I mention only because I have thing for redheads.

Solace moves along at a decent clip, but the action scenes were so frantic and edited to death that I was confused during the obligatory car chase. And boat chase, and plane chase, and horse chase and motorcycle chase. Director Marc Foster tries to emulate the urgent, immersive style of the Bourne films, but the main difference is that those sequence were coherent and a viewer could follow the action. I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to action sequences and these are subpar.

Thematically, it's full-throttle revenge. Duty, and sex take a back seat as it turns out that avenging a loved one's death can do a lot for your determination and pain threshold. In other words, he is Batman. Does Bond really need such a strong theme to make a movie work? Is achieving some small quantum of solace (Hey! That's the title of the movie!) a good enough excuse to make me sit in a theater for 106* minutes? I'm not sure. It's interesting, I'll give you that, but I'm not sure how far it can take us.

One area where you can’t fault Solace in its acting corps. Although I’ve just criticized Craig’s Bond, the problem is the script, not in Craig’s acting. He was awesome in Royale and he’s just as awesome here. I don’t throw “sexy” around very often when talking about men, but heck, it fits. Holy crap, he look great in a tux. Dench is awesome as M, even if her character is little bit wishy washy, trusting Bond, losing faith, trusting, losing faith, blah blah blah. The villain, played by Mathieu Almaric, is creepy and frightening, even if his scheme is pedestrian and ridiculousloy white collar. Kurylenko is quietly alluring but Jeffrey Wright, an actor I’m normally quite fond of, sleep walks through his role as CIA spook Felix Leiter.

Royale blew audiences away because it was so new and different. The same goes for Craig. His was a darker, more damaged Bond and we all ate it up. This new offering tastes the same and my jaw could soon get tired of chewing, even if it hasn't just yet. A great action film to be sure, Solace doesn’t have the fresh feeling Royale did, and doesn't quite make it into the echelons of the greatest Bond flicks. Craig and Co. had better figure out how to balance realistic action and stoicism with some of the original Bond elements that made the series so darn loveable. I’m giving them a pass them time, but next time around I won’t be so generous.

*This is the shortest Bond film ever, and a full 44 minutes shorter than Casino Royale.

The House Bunny, 3/5

2008-11-13T11:38:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

My sister's seven-word review pretty much says it all. "It's OK, but the beginning is unbearable."

If you can just get past that unbearable opening the rest of the movie is... well, actually Kelly was right. It's pretty forgettable.

Anna Farris is Shelly, a former Playboy Bunny kicked out of the mansion because she is too old for Hef's taste. I guess 27 is the new 40. Homeless and witless she stumbles upon Greek Row at a local college and becomes a House Mother to an ugly duckling sorority. "It's just like a mini Playboy Mansion!" Surprise, surprise, she teaches them how to be sexy and they teach her that life isn't all about looking good. It's Revenge of the Nerds, but with halter tops. Offering a reason to grow up is Shelly's crush, played by Colin Hanks.

There are a few laughs but the movie is too broad and heavy handed to pull off the sweet feeling I think they were going for. The sorority girls are all no-names with subpar acting skills, except for Kat Dennings who must have owed someone money. Hanks, who was really good in Orange County, is an utter waste as the manager of a nursing home, or as Shelley puts it, "an orphanage for old people."

If there is a saving grace, it's Faris. She is pretty, funny and is willing to go all out for the laugh. I hope Hollywood does her a favor and gives her better material.

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa, 2.5/5

2008-11-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

Don't get me wrong, I like to move it move it as much as the next guy, but Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa just didn't do it do it for me.

First of all, the movie picks up in Madagascar where the original left off, which means if there's to be any escaping, it will be FROM Africa, not TO (2) Africa. Geography lesson aside, here's the skinny:

Our quartet of marooned NYC urban-jungle dwellers are attempting to escape from their island "paradise" and able to do so with the aid of some very skilled (and verbose) penguins and a few thousand helpful lemurs under the command of King Julien (voice of Sacha Baron Cohen). Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock) are desperate to make it back to their lives of comfort, but wouldn'tyaknowit, there's a problem and their plane crashes in a wildlife preserve in sub-Saharan Africa. Apparently this is Real Africa, and Madagascar is just Poser Africa.

There are a few funny moments here (penguins with switchblades are inherently funny... surprisingly, so are dying giraffes), but it's missing the charm and simplicity of the original. There are too many new characters introduced and too many new subplots. Perhaps the biggest crime is that one new character is voiced by Alec Baldwin and it isn't a homerun. Tragic. The rest of the high-profile voice talent (including Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter and will.i.am) are all OK, but aside from Cohen's King Julien and the crew of Penguins (Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights and Conrad Vernon), it's all a wash.

I know I like to talk about movies in terms of elements of other movies, but in this case, the movie makers just got lazy. Madagascar 2 blatantly mashes together the EXACT plots of The Lion King, Lord of the Flies, and - wait for it - Joe Versus the Volcano to come up with an "original" story.

It's not a bad movie by any means, and it's worth spending $6 bucks to take the kid. It's just not near as fun or original as it should be.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, 2.5/5

2008-10-31T17:24:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a very, very mediocre throw-away excuse for a movie that is pulled back from the brink by Brendon Frasier and his inexplicable yet undeniable charm.

Hopefully you know the basic plot of Jules Verne's 1864 classic sci-fi novel of the same title. In this film, Frasier plays a modern-day geology professor who takes spelunking to new heights (depths) as he, his nephew treat Verne's book not as science fiction, but as factual diary and field manual and try to retrace his steps.

Frasier the only reason why this movie doesn't suck. I don't know what it is about him, but he's a likeable guy who can sell the ridiculous line. When he tries to lecture his students on the finer points of geological theory, you're more likely to grin than you are to grimace. Every time he sets his jaw and tries to look intense, all I can think of is Encino Man. I think Frasier knows this and doesn't care. That's why it works.

The other actors are wholly forgettable. Josh Hutcherson plays the nephew whose iPhone is eaten by a giant sea monster (likely voiding the warranty) and Anita Briem is pretty bland as Hot Icelandic Mountain Guide (seriously, they call her that). An interesting bit of trivia via IMDB: Briem's special interests include travelling, encountering different cultures, reading and spending time with family. What a dynamic woman!

Those who have read the book can be safe in assuming the movie will end pretty much the same way, but the movie telegraphs this even more by having Frasier's explain the entire plot of the book half way in. There's tipping your hand and then there's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Since there can be no suspense as a result of the plot, the movie tries (if you can call it trying) to create tension by throwing in dinosaurs, glow-in-the-dark birds and a hanful of perilous falls. In one scene, our heroes fall for a good minute ("We're still falling!") , yet survive the fall without a scratch.

But hey, it's a PG-rated action movie that's being shown in 3D (though I only saw it in 2D) - what do you expect? I doubt Verne would be impressed, but a nine-year-old me probably would be.

The Express 3/5

2008-10-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

(For exclusive coverage of the premier by our Syracuse correspondent, click here and here.)

It’s hard to dump all over a movie that exposes the ugliness of prejudice and unfounded hate while showcasing the triumph of the human spirit, but I’m going to have to do it.

Rob Brown is Ernie Davis, the Syracuse halfback nicknamed The Elmira Express. He overcomes expectations, an inexplicable speech impediment (the movie promptly loses this subplot) and hate to become to become the first African American to win the coveted Heisman Trophy (1961). The movie follows his college career at ‘Cuse and focuses largely on his relationship with coach Ben Schwartwalder, played by Dennis Quaid. Coach Schwartzwalder is racist in a 1960s old-white-guy-who-thinks-he-is-tolerant-of-“negroes”-but-really-isn’t kind of way, although we wouldn’t have much of a movie if Davis’ heart and determination didn’t show him the beauty and value of every human being blah blah blah.

The Express is an OK effort but this same movie has just been done so many times and there's nothing special here, save that it's based on a true story. If you wanted to get picky about it, you might could argue that most movies owe something to previous films in their genre, but the underdog-football-triumph-over-adversity-drama-kum-by-yah thing has been done to death (see Remember the Titans, Any Given Sunday, Brian’s Song, Rudy, Invincible, heck, even The Little Giants).

There is a fairly significant Pride of the Yankees-style “life event” that happens to Davis near the end of the film (it’s common knowledge to any one who knows the story, but I didn’t know it so I won’t spoil it here), but it just tacks on an extra 30 minutes and deflates story that should already be over. Movies aren’t supposed to climax (here, it’s “the big game” vs. vile and racist Texas Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl for the national title, a feat I doubt Syracuse will be repeating this season) near the END of the movie but The Express barrels right on past it and keeps going. Think of it as scoring a touchdown then insisting on wading 20 yards into the stands to give the ball to a poor kid with leukemia. The “life event” would have been fine as a few words scrolling across the screen just before the end credits roll kills all the movie's momentum. Give credit to The Express for not exactly following the formula, but take it right back for failing to tell a good story. The story may be mostly true (more on that in a minute), but this is a feature film, not an HBO documentary narrated by Bob Costas.

Brown is decent at Davis, but he is just so stinking polite and earnest that it’s annoying and begins veer toward unbelievable. Maybe the real Davis was like that, I don't know. Quaid does a great job yelling and providing the only real drama in the movie. Sure, he comes to accept Davis but you know he'd have a conniption if Davis started dating his daughter.

The best acting job is turned in by Omar Benson Miller, who plays Davis’ black teammate, JB. His is actually a much more interesting story. He suffered just as much as Davis, but got none of the glory or recognition. As one of Davis' lineman, you could say he cleared the way for The Elmira Express., but figuratively and literally. I’d like to see a movie about him. I'd also wouldn't mind a movie about Davis' hero, Jim Brown, who preceded him at Syracuse. He undoubtedly faced more adversity and it is universal consensus he was denied the Heisman because of the color of his skin. I'm just not sure Davis merits a movie, rest his soul.

There’s no denying that Davis’ Heisman win was a big step toward racial equality, but does it really necessitate a full-length feature? I don’t mean to diminish his accomplishments. I’m sure a black man winning that award meant more than I can imagine. If I were thrust into his cleats, I would have given up and run home. But, being named the best football player in America doesn’t exactly rank high on my list of Civil Rights Landmarks. Should Halle Berry get a biopic because she was the first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress?

I'm picking on the movie for not embellishing the story and making it more movie friendly. "But then it's not true!" That might be, but the movie does take many liberties with reality, so why not take a few more and make a better story? A key moment in the film shows a matchup at West Virginia, where the redneck Mountaineer fans hurl beer bottles and slurs on Davis, thus giving oomph to the whole We Shall Overcome theme. The game on that date was against West Virginia, but it took place at Syracuse and there were no bottles thrown at him (although I do not doubt opposing players took cheap shots). Davis' quarterback, Dick Easterly, saw the movie and had this to say: "I apologize to the people West Virginia because that did not happen. The scene is completely fictitious. We're sitting watching this thing, saying, 'Jeez, where did they get that from?'"

The movie later shows the Orangemen being informed their black teammates cannot attend the Cotton Bowl MVP trophy (which Davis of course won) because the banquet is at an all-white country club. They of course boycott, showing those hillbilly Texans just how much more empathetic Yankees are. In reality, they attended and Davis accepted the trophy.

The movie also shows them riding a bus to that game, seeing racial injustice and Sorrow, riots over school intergration while they ride a bus 1,300 miles through Arkansas. Too bad they actually flew straight from Syracus to Dallas. Once they get to their Dallas hotel, the team's three black players are forced into a dirty broom closet. In reality, they had a suite.

Again, this is a movie and the writers are allowed to play with the truth to tell the story. Quaid reportedly said that "Sometimes if you get all the facts right, you miss the truth." In this case, I agree. Creative mainpulation can enahnce a story. But why make those changes to history and not massage Davis' character to make him more believable? I make this point not to come to the defense of WVU or racists that lived in Oklahoma's dingy basement, but for the sake of Story. For all his obstacles, Davis' rise to glory is just too easy and free of speedbumps. Where's the struggle? At least let his get angry once in a while or show him getting tackled for a loss. Let him get pissed off and punch an opposing player who has been wailing on him all game. Americans wants our heroes to have flaws!

Note: In other Ernie Davis continuity news, a statue of Davis on Syracuse' campus has him wearing shoes that weren't invented yet.

Another note: Easterly apparently agress with me that Jim Brown's story might make a better movie: "I [saw] a lot of things [in The Express] that never were done to Ernie but maybe happened to Jim Brown. Hell, the movie's more about him than Ernie."

A final note: To read more about the movie's inaccuracies (remember, I'm not saying playing with the truth in a movie is neccesarily wrong), and Davis' former teammates' thoughts on the movie, check out this excellent article.

Fireproof, 4/5

2008-10-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to report that Christians have finally put together a decent movie. Fireproof is far far far from being a great movie, but for once we’ve done it right.

Growing Pains' pain-in-the-derriere Kirk Cameron is Caleb, a firefighter whose marriage to Catherine (Erin Bethea) is falling apart. He struggles with certain addictions and she has eyes for a doctor at the hospital where she is a PR hack. Excuse me, “PR practitioner.” She doesn’t respect him, but a guy who rescues complete strangers for a living, he doesn’t really deserve it. The both are lousy communicators who can only agree that a divorce is their best bet. This is a Christian movie with wedding rings in the poster, so we know they’re compelled to work things out, courtesy of a fellow firefighter and Caleb’s recently converted father.

I seriously doubt that any souls were saved by the Left Behind movie (another Kirk Cameron vehicle), but there’s an honest chance that this movie could actually make a difference in people’s lives and marriages. Cameron was so intent on maintain the integrity of the film’s message, that in the climactic scene when he and Catherine are supposed to kiss, he persuaded the director to make it a wide angle silhouette shot so he could fly the real Mrs. Cameron out and kiss her instead. I’ve heard some make fun of him for this acting “limitation,” but think it makes an enormously important statement A) about marriage in general and B) that he and the rest of the cast/crew truly believe what they’re saying. For once, this set of Chrsitians can’t be accused of hypocrisy.

Sure, non-Christians will likely find the movie preachy, but I can conceive of someone being legitimately convicted here if they’ll just give it a chance. I’m not the target audience for this movie (it is definitely aimed at couples), but I didn’t get bored, which was a major fear. There were actual twists in the plot that I did not see coming. Had I not lowered my expectations, I might have caught on earlier.

Cameron or Bethea aren’t going to win an Oscar any time soon. There aren’t any stellar thespians in Fireproof’s credits, but for a cast of nobodies with zero acting experience and an 80s child actor, they do a great job. Cameron got on my nerves at first, but he doesn’t do a half bad job. I’m proud of him and happy for him. Bethea is no Dame Judy Dench, but for the daughter of Sherwood Baptist Church’s (the church’s production company produced the film) pastor, she does a pretty respectable job.

It’s a pretty thin plot and the movie feels a little too long, but quite frankly my expectations were so low I’m willing to forgive it all. Sure, things are a little cheesy, but the acting is competent, the directing is competent, the soundtrack is competent, the editing is competent, the special effects and the script is competent. Sometimes I think God is less than thrilled with some of the “art” we produce in His name, but I have to think He probably gives this one a “see it” endorsement. Not that it really matters compared to His, but I give a “see it,” too. This movie doesn’t suck! Hooray!

One final thought: One of the movies flaws (there are a few) is the fire fighters that make up Cameron’s crew. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t meet some of the requirements for entering a firefighting academy, and these guys probably couldn’t either. Let's just say that human fat burns very well.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, 2/5

2008-10-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People could win an award for truth in advertising. It certainly delivers on everything it promises in the title.

Sidney Young is a rabble rousing journalist who leaves his London-based tabloid for a job at the ultra-hip, ultra-exclusive Sharps Magazine (based on Vanity Fair). Sharps editor, Clayton Harding (played with relish by Jeff Bridges), is a maverick in the publishing world and puts up with Sidney’s antics, which include alienating the publicists of the very celebrities he’s paid to cover, inviting a C-list celebrity pig to a party and bringing a transvestite stripper to the office. On Bring Your Daughter to Work Day (“I didn’t know! We don’t have BYDTW Day in England!”).

The only person who even begins to appreciate Young and his eccentricities is his immediate editor, Alison (Kirsten Dunst). This is surprising since Young is such a wholly unlikeable bloke. Alison and Sidney develop a shaky friendship (based on La Dolce Vita), but that is derailed when Sidney runs off to pursue the Hollywood sex kitten dujour, Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).

Simon is normally a very funny man, but he’s such an inexplicable jerk in this movie that he ruins whatever comedic capital he had. Kristen Dunst is forgettable as are the numerous cameos by various movie stars who must have had nothing better to do that day. Megan Fox’s character is a Paris Hilton-like, Chihuahua-toting attention junkie, but I can’t tell if it’s because she’s a great actress or if she isn’t acting at all.

The Dolce Vita scenes are sweet and fun. They're one of the few redeeming qualities of this movie. Another is Young's attitude toward journalism. He’s isn’t afraid to piss off his interview subjects and works hard to come up with new and interesting angles and questions. Watching him call an art gallery to get caption information is pretty entertaining. The third is Jeff Bridges. His voice talent alone is worth the price of admission. A final redeeming factor is that this movie introduced me to MGMT’s Time to Pretend.

Based on the book by British alienation specialist Toby Young. The real Mr. Young, as well as Pegg’s version, is the arrogant prick to end all arrogant pricks, with just an ounce charm. He might be fun at an office Christmas party, but only for a few minutes before the trannies and farm animals show up. Mostly it loses viewers alienates movie-goers.

Eagle Eye, 3.5/5

2008-10-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Pickers of nit and sayers of nay will have plenty to keep them busy during a screening of Eagle Eye. But, if you can allow yourself to settle in and overlook the HUGE lapses in logic and scientific fact, the nit and nay are easily pushed aside and we actually have a decent action movie here.

Shia "One Hand" LaBeouf is Jerry Shaw, a drifting slacker making ends meet by working at the local Kinkos. He comes home after attending his twin brother's funeral to find an apartment full of terrorists' wares and BOOM in bursts Billy Bob Thorton and the FBI.

He escapes soon enough with the help of his cell phone and the disembodied GPS Lady's voice, who takes the idea of Big Brother to a whole 'nother level. Not only can She give precise driving directions looking in on traffic cams ("Accelerate to 52 mph. You will make it though the traffic.") but She can control traffic lights, robot cranes at a junk yard, the power grid, Japanese tour buses and even the home theater department at Circuit City, not to mention eavesdrop on every single cell phone in the country simultaneously.

Big Sister decides Jerry needs a partner, so he is joined by the exceptionally pretty Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), a single mom whose extremely freckled son is going to play his trumpet for the President in Washington, DC. No points for guessing that that detail will become important later on.

There are also discussions of sibling rivalry, government intrusion on personal privacy, the rights and wrongs of fighting terrorism and technology's role in our lives. Frankly the movie doesn't care and so you really should try too hard searching for a coherent theme. We get treated to some very cool footage of Predator UAVs doing their thing. Cars blow up and there is TONS of collateral damage. It steals significantly from 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially as it attempts to tie up all the loose plot strings.

Given the reasoning Big Sister eventually gives for the Rube Goldbergian chase around the country (involving not only planes, trains, automobiles, but also a garbage barge and the aforementioned tour bus), it curious that She would go to such lengths and allow so many civilians to be killed in her wake. SLIGHT PLOT SPOILER: The Voice's eventual targets number 15, but the act of killing them will also kill at least 400 others, not including the sky-high death toll up to that moment.

You should be getting the idea by now. This is not a movie to be shown in Logic 101. Still, I found it pretty darn entertaining. Mr. LaBeouf may be a little bit of a pretty boy, but after Transformers, Indy IV and now this, he's turning a reasonably credible action star. He cracks lame jokes at time when my sense of humor would have been turned off, but hey, it's a movie. Monaghan isn't really required to do much, but what she does is perfectly satisfactory. Thornton is convincing as an FBI agent who, for once, is able to keep an open mind and look at the big picture as he pieces together the puzzle. Special Agent Perez (Rosario Dawson) is there to help, but she gets pretty much lost in the plot.

Eagle Eye is absolutely absurd and has very, very little going for it beyond Michael Bay-style special effects and extremely fast editing. In other words, Kristi Mahaffey would absolutely love it. For once, I agree with her.

Mamma Mia, 1/5

2008-10-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Good Lord, this is an annoying movie. Amanda Seyfried is kinda cute. The End.

An American Carol, 2/5

2008-10-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

An American Carol has an excellent, excellent premise. It' s a shame the rest of movie can't even begin to live up to it. Why? Let's just say it has country music star Trace Atkins playing the Angel of Death.

Produced and directed by Jerry Zucker (the man behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun), Carol stars Kevin Farley (brother of deceased funny man, Chris) as a Michael Moore-style documentary maker, who, much like the real man, lives for pissing off Republicans. In the movie, he leads a group called "MooveAlong.Org" to ban the Fourth of July. A modern conservative take on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the Cratchit to his Scrooge is his nephew, Josh, who is fixing to ship out to Iraq. Just as the chubby filmmaker is beginning to shoot a feature film with some financial backing from some mysterious Afghanis, he falls asleep as is visited by ghosts who escort him through "real" America and he learns what a liberal wimp he has really been.

To say the movie's treatment of modern politics is heavy handed is a severe understatement. Then again, no one ever accused Michael Moore of being subtle either.

There are many conservatives that are great thinkers and artists, but none of them signed up for this movie. There are some relatively big names (Kelsey Grammer as General Patton, Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight as George Washington, Bill O'Reilly as himself and finally Leslie Nielsen) and some relatively small names (Kevin Sorbo, Kevin Farley, a Rosy O'Donnell lookalike) and I will say that the production values aren't horrible. Farley is OK because, let's face it, Michael Moore is a parody waiting to happen.

Things in this movie just don't work. Nielsen's narration was absolutely unnecessary. Even more unnecessary was the absolutely retarded Tiny Tim cadre of characters. I almost want to tell you to see it so you can see just how stupid that part is.

Call me a liberal commie sympathizing pinko if you want (not many have), but I am smart enough to realize that opposing the war doesn't necessarily mean you hate the troops. The movie doesn't. Still, is does paint of positive picture of NASCAR America and I'm tempted give them the benefit of the doubt. To an extent I agree with many of the sentiments this film espouses, even if they sometimes get out of hand.

So, you're also a conservative. Would you like this movie? Is a positive picture of America worth the hiccups? Judge for yourself based on these two scenes:

ACLU lawyers dressed up as Zombies invade a court room. Grammer, the entire 3rd Mechanized Calvary Division, and Hopper fend them off with shotguns. As a stray shot nicks a copy of the Ten Commandments, Grammer dispatches another lawyer and asks "It is the one about not killing still up there?"
Terrorist A calls out to one of his colleagues in a crowd: "Hey, Muhammad!" Every other terrorist answers. Terrorist A: "Dang it. I must remember to use last names. Muhammad Hussein!" Every terrorist answers. Haha.

It's not a great or even a good movie. It will do nothing to correct the popular image of Republicans and conservative Christians as ignorant boobs, even if there are some nuggets of truth in there. I must also point out that equating liberalism with wanting banish the Fourth of July is fairly large leap.

Conservative satire is a very hard thing to do, and the brother of a former SNL star and the guy behind "We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?" are not the people to do it. Hollywood and America could use a good conservative Dickensian fairy tale, I just wish they'd been smarter about it. All that said, my boss loved it.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, 3.5/5

2008-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

The opening lines of Ecclesiastes have Solomon lamenting "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" Vanity here means "in vain" and not narcissism. The original Hebrew is more properly translated at wisp of smoke or a puff of breath. All the temporal things man clings to on this planet are futile, pure vanity.

This movie is pure vanity. Call it Garden State Lite. It's nothing too special, but Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, the two titular characters, as well as one very funny drunk elevate it to far more than the sum of its parts or the swiss cheese of its plot holes

Nick is a bass player for a band that can't settle on a name, but most of his time is spent composing mix CDs (the sixth Love Language) for his cheating ex, Tris (Alexis Dziena). Tris immediately tosses each mix, which is then pick up and devoured by Norah. Norah's best friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor), gets drunk. (That's pretty much her only contribution, but she does it very well.)

N&N meet cute in a club (since when are high school seniors allowed to frequent NYC night clubs?) and spend the night alternately chasing a mythical indie rock band named Where's Fluffy? and the drunkenly lost, gum-smacking Caroline. (I love Queen but I'm not sure I'd chase even them around the Five Boroughs until the sun rises.)

As I mentioned, Cera and Dennings are the highlights. Cera continues in his trademark nerdy, uncomfortable, sensitive guy with an incredibly cute girlfriend that began on Arrested Development and continued through Superbad, Juno and now N&N. One wonders if he fears being typecast, but these are the roles he was born to play. Plus he gets to drive a Yugo. I was initially unimpessed by Dennings, but her smile big eyes and awkward jokes won me over.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is nothing but cotton candy. It's a cinematic vanity of vanities with a great sound track. But hey, if it's going to be fluff, at least it tastes good.

(Forgive the forced biblical allusion. I just took my first Old Testament history exam and have Ecclesiastes on the brain. That sounds like a disease.)

Burn After Reading, 3.5/5

2008-09-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

FYI, this review includes an inordinate number of hyphens (18).
I really don't know what to say about Burn After Reading. It's a pretty decent movie, for what it is. But what is it? It isn't a thriller, it isn't a dark comedy and it isn't an action movie, although it does contain bits and pieces of those three genres. All I can really say for sure is that it isn't bad.

The Coen brothers' latest offering is a convoluted D.C. tale of... convolution I guess. Osborne Cox (the ever-so-interesting-looking John Malkovich) is a down and out CIA agent who decides he can do better for himself if he pens his memoir. His wife, Katie (the ever-so-striking Tilda Swinton), is cheating on him wife with the ever-so-smug George Clooney's Harry.

Meanwhile, back a the ranch, excuse me, local gym, Linda (the ever-so-quirky Frances McDormand) is pining for plastic surgery. She and Chad (the ever-so-adoptive Brad Pitt) hit upon a get-rich-quick scheme that involves their misinterpretation of Osborne's lost-and-found memoir. Everyone's story is tangled together at least two or three different ways, but it isn't too difficult to keep it straight.

The actors are all stellar and they're each marvelous in their individual roles, but as a whole the movie just feels off. It isn't suspenseful enough to be a thriller, although twists and turns abound. It isn't funny enough to be a comedy, although it certainly bears that Coen dark comedy edge. It isn't bombastic enough to be an action movie, although several people do get shot and at least one person gets attacked with a hatchet. I would have loved to have seen the Coens to commit to genre (preferably dark comedy) and add a few more laughs. They could have great expanded the ever-so-fun J.K Simmon's role as the clueless head of the CIA.

Burn after Reading is a sharp movie and you certainly won't fall asleep during it, but wow it could have been ever-so-much better.

Hancock, 2/5

2008-09-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

I don't think director Peter Berg bears any ill will towards me, but you wouldn't know it to watch Hancock. It's not a horrible movie (nowhere near anything ever conceived by Friedberg and Seltzer), but wow there is an awful lot wrong with it. The best thing about it is that cool Boston College stocking cap in the poster.

Hancock (Will Smith) with a boozing misanthropic Super Man who more or less fights crime, leaving a massive death toll and destruction in his collateral damage wake. After his latest antics, along comes a do-gooder PR hack (Jason Bateman) to makeover Hancock. Charlize Theron and Smith exchange curious glances, setting the new standard for heavy handed and obvious foreshadowing. There are subplots involving spaghetti and French bullies. One person's head is literally shoved up another man's... well you know. There are atleast three Back 2 the Future references.

Does Hancock turn over a new leaf? Why are those two exchanging those knowing glances? Was the spaghetti good? I don't really care and this hamfisted movie doesn't either. There's no real story, save for a plot twist midway through that would make M. Night Shamalamadingdong go "Huh?"It takes itself way too seriously, there's absolutely no emotion from anyone, there is no villain, the camera work and editing are horrible and the special effects (especially when Hancock flies) are smothered in cheese. Don't get me started on the plot holes or the graffiti on the moon.

Smith just can't pull off being a slob and as much as I love Jason Bateman, he was pretty forgettable. Charlize is a talented woman but she must have owed the director money.

It was worth the $3 I paid, but not a penny more.

Ghost Town, 4/5

2008-09-20T12:25:00.001-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Ricky Gervais is a funny man, and it’s his talent and squinty charm and elevate Ghost Town from a ho-hum romcom to a very enjoyable 102 minutes.

Gervais is a Scrooge McDuck-like dentist named Bertram Pincus (note to self: add “Bertram” to list of favorite boy’s names) who doesn’t necessarily enjoy inflicting pain on his patients, but certainly doesn’t mind that stuffing things into their mouths keeps them from yakking about their day. After a minor complication during a routine operation (he, uh, dies for seven minutes), he is stuck between life and death and can see/communicate with those who have passed on.

Greg Kinnear plays Frank, one of the dead with unfinished business. Frank has been cheating on his wife (Tea Leoni) and wants nothing more than to apologize and make up for his faults.

The conflict that arises when Frank tries to convince Pincus to help him and his widow is predictable but enjoyable enough. The same can be said for the inevitable romance between Pincus and the former Mrs. Frank and yes, character do learn lessons and blah blah blah. Yet, in all cases, the actors’ performances carry the story way beyond what it could have been.

Tea Leoni does a fine job in her role, and Kinnear plays his part with relish. Still, it’s Gervais that clearly rises to the top. His bulky, sarcastic, cynical “British-ness” (for lack of a better word) is infinitely entertaining. I dare you not to giggle when he grits his teeth and compares the effects of a laxative to a terrorist attack (no, this isn’t a gross out story). Kristen Wiig is a winner as Bertram's fake-tanned surgeon.

Ghost Town looks like a run-of-the-mill, post-summer piece of studio fluff, but don’t let that keep you away. Sure, it owes a lot to Ghost, and it reminds one of Over Her Dead Body and Just Like Heaven, but stands upright on its own. It’s way more than the lousy poster suggests. Don’t skip it.

Eyes on the Prize

2008-08-29T09:09:00.001-07:00

One of my resolutions Jan. 1 was to average a movie per week in 2008 (only movies in theaters count, sorry DVDs). I'm doing OK, but I need to pick up the pace just a bit and that will get harder and harder once "movie season" is over.

If you count multiple screenings of several movies (Juno, Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart and Tropic Thunder), I'm up to 30 of the needed 52. Mathematically, I should be at 33. There's still hope. Keep me in your prayers :-).

Pineapple Express, 2/5

2008-08-16T19:31:00.001-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

I think my problem with Pineapple Express was that I wasn’t high when I saw it.

There were some laughs in opening scenes as Seth Rogen’s dope smoking, process server, Dale, rocks out to Electric Avenue and there are some laughs in the closing scenes as a trio of stoners (only two of them wearing pants) eat enjoy their Grand Slams at Denny’s. Other than that, you’d have to be more than half-baked to enjoy this odd little buddy comedy/“stoner-action” flick.

Dale scores some primo bud (can you tell I’m not used to the hip weed lingo?) called Pineapple Express (Hey! That's the name of the movie!) from his dealer Saul (a spaced out James Franco) and tokes up on his way to serve Ted (a strangely unfunny Gary Cole). Unfortunately for Dale, the man he is supposed to serve is also the marijuana King Pin responsible for Pineapple Express. Even more unfortunately for Dale, Ted, along with the bizarrely miscast Rosie Perez as “Lady Cop,” kill a rival drug dealer in plain view of our “hero.”

He of course freaks out, and drives away, but not before he tosses his joint out the window, a joint Ted immediately finds and smokes it (because that’s what you do with joints you find in the street: you smoke them) and realizes that the witness must be connected to Saul.

There are also two subplots: a creepy one involving Dale's high school girlfriend; and a stupid one involving an Asian drug cartel made up entirely (of course) of ninjas.

Hilarity ensues.

Wait, no, it doesn’t.

There is some pretty major violence going on though. People’s ears get shot off, innocent bystanders die, kids do drugs and one hit man gets crushed by a Daewoo Lanos.

Another dealer, Red (a semi-funny Danny McBride), gets shot at least seven times but is in no hurry to get to the hospital.

Let’s be honest folks. Can we all agree that we’re getting tired of Seth Rogen? He was funny and fresh in The 40-year-old Virgin, was oddly charming in Knocked Up and was good for a few laughs in Superbad but now he’s just wearing out his welcome. Rogen wrote Pineapple Express and Superbad in high school while he was high. In this movie, you can tell. Here he tries to create a modern day Cheech and Chong movie and he succeeds. Of course, I didn’t laugh very much at their movies, either. Heck, at least Harold and Kumar 2 had Neil Patrick Harris going for it!

The same criticism is true for producer Judd Apatow. Either evolve as a filmmaker, or at least give us more than a month between your offerings (Step Brothers).

James Franco has been getting a lot of buzz for his take on the blitzed-out-of-his mind pot dealer, but I really didn’t think he was that over the top or funny. Although, I will say he was infinitely more watchable here than in the Spider-Man movies. Mostly I just thought, “Wow, he must smell awful.”

As previously mentioned, Cole and Perez are both miscast and Danny McBride, while funny, was just kinda odd and out of place.

My solution? Either be half baked when you watch it, or rent Half Baked instead.

Remember kids, in the wise words of the cast of Saved By the Bell: There’s nope hope with dope.

Oh, and crack is whack.

Tropic Thunder, 4/5

2008-08-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Tropic Thunder is a stupid, goofy movie, but dad gummit it's funny. Yeah, it's a little edgy and has brought up few ill-informed questions about jokes about blackface and mental health, but it's mostly a genuinely fun movie within a movie and an absolutely perfect cast.

That cast includes Ben Stiller as washed up action star Tugg Speedman; Jack Black as an Eddie Murphy-like crappy comedy machine Jeff Portnoy; Brandon T. Jackson as an entrepreneurial rapper, Alpa Chino and Robert Downey, Jr. as serious Oscar winner who dyed his skin black, Kirk Lazarus. Steve Coogan plays the hilaroiusly inept movie director while Nick Nolte looks grizzled and authentic as Vietnam vet Four-leaf Tayback, the author of the book, Tropic Thunder. Danny McBride pretty much blows stuff up and loves every second of it. There's also a hilarious cameo by Tom Cruise and although his part is particularly foul-mouthed, it is truly comedy gold as is his extended hip hop dancing. Matthew McConaughey is also hilarious as Tuggman's Tivo-obsessed agent.

You get the plot from the trailer: Coogan is attempting to film the greatest war movie ever based on the experiences of Tayback. In order to whip his cast into shape, he, Tayback and his special effects man drop the cast into the jungles of Vietnam and send them off into bush telling them that hidden cameras will capture the cinematic action "guerrilla style."

Black, Stiller, Downey, Jackson and "straight man" Jay Baruchel (the faux-hawk guy from Knocked Up) traipse through the jungle covered in fake ammo and massive (blank-shooting) firepower. Since they're actors in a movie, they have no fear when they come across a Vietnamese drug ring with very real firepower. Sooner or later, Stiller is captured (because, duh, his character is supposed to be captured) and it's up to the rest of the unit to rescue him.

More than anything, the movie is a hilarious skewer of Hollywood. From the trailers that open the movie (Speedman starring in Scorcher VI, Portnoy in, The Fatties, Fart 2; and Downey in Satan's Alley, a medieval take on Brokeback Mountain; Alpa Chino in a commercial/music video for his energy drink, Booty Sweat), and Coogan's inept director to Cruise's take on execs and the "retard issue" (more on that in a minute), Stiller directs the movie to tear Hollywood a new one.

I already mentioned the cast is perfect, but Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr. particularly stand out. Black actually looks like a convincing action star with bleached blond spikes and one heck of a (heroin-induced) war-cry. But clearly the most praise in the movie has to go Downey and his Kirk Lazarus. I was worried that the funniest parts had been spent in the trailer or that the joke might get too long in the tooth, but it started off funny and get kept getting better as Lazarus got more and more lost in the role refusing to break character even when the camera stopped rolling.

As for the blackface and/or retard controversy? Gimme a break. The movie makes it clear that Lazarus is a jerk who doesn't even know who he is as he pretends to be black. Likewise, it actually defends the "retarded community" by pointing out that Hollywood (and society in general) enjoys a feel-good movie about the mentally disabled, (Forrest Gump, I am Sam, Rain Main) but only as long the characters aren't "full retards." Stiller is actually pointing the finger at us and just how patronizing we can be.

Step Brothers, 1/5

2008-08-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Walking into the theater to see Step Brothers, I couldn't help but ruminate on Voltaire's Candide. I had just seen both Iron Man and The Dark Knight for a second time, and I was on a movie high. "Surely," waxed my inner Westphalian student, "surely, this is the best of all possible worlds!"

Wrong-o, pal! This is a the worst of all possible worlds if we allow unimaginative puss like this pass for a movie.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good Will Ferrell comedy with a little John C. Reilly thrown in. I LOVE Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Rickey Bobby and the "little baby Jesus" prayer scene throws me into fits of laughter, but there's a line between funny and being mean spirited and Step Brothers crosses it with relish.

The plot: Mary Steenburger and Richard Jenkin's characters marry, causing their 40-year-old sons, Brennan (Will Ferrell) and Dale (John C. Reilly) to live in the same room and learn to live with their new situation. They both live at home, have no jobs and still insist that Dad leave a $20 on the table for pizza. Why? Because producer Judd Apatow thinks it's funny, I guess.

They hate each other (of course) but slowly (or instantaneously) grow to be fast friends as seen in the trailer. (Note: They trailer makes these moments seem much funnier than they are in the movie.) They get beat up by (12-year-old) bullies, they hit each other with golf clubs, they fight with Brennan's sleazy younger brother and they have unbelievably filthy mouths.

The problem is that not one ounce of it is funny. Violence can be hilarious (see this scene) but here it's just disturbing. Adam Scott's character zooms right up to funny but then rockets by and just makes the audience feel icky.

Steenburgen and Jenkins' could have brought something to the table if they were blissfully unaware of their sons' failures to launch but they are aware and simply don't care. Step Brothers could have been funny if, say, Ferrell and Reilly were playing actual 14-year-olds but no, that's just too creative for this script. The poster is infinitely more funny than this movie.

Oh, I failed to mention that the script blames Brennan's and Dale's arrested development on President Bush. I'm serious.

There is one -AND ONLY ONE - glimmer of hope and that comes at the very end as a Billy Joel cover band headed by Horatio Sans is booed off stage and Brennan takes over the show, belting out a very passable version of Con te partirò. I actually laughed during this scene, which is more than I can say for the rest of the movie.

I squirmed throughout the movie and was embarrassed for the entire cast (especially for Oscar-winner Steenburgen, who is the subject of a slight "older woman" crush). I was embarrassed to be seen in that theater. I was embarrassed that my theater had chosen to show this film. I was embarrassed that so many people in my city thought it was funny. Why didn't the father and mother sitting in front of me remove their 12-year-old son from the theater? Why didn't I?

It’s not considered the best of form in movie criticism to quote another critic, but thinking about Voltaire got me stuck in English paper mode so here goes Roger Ebert's take: “Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves. I am not a moralistic nut. I'm proud of the X-rated movie I once wrote. I like vulgarity if it's funny or serves a purpose. But what is going on here?”

I don't know, Roger. I don't know. But I do know that Mr. Apatow, Ferrell and Reilly aren't trying hard enough to tend their gardens.

The Dark Knight, 5/5

2008-07-29T12:20:00.001-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

Holy crap. The Dark Knight, my friends, is one heckuva movie and although it’s not quite perfect (it’s a fuzz too long), it’s pretty freakin’ close. It’s not just a great comic book adaptation, this is a truly excellent movie.

The story is very complex and tight and from the opening bank robbery scene to the very last shot, director Christopher Nolan dares you to look away. A new super-villain has appeared in Gotham, and everyone including the cops and the mob, is running scared. Everyone except Bruce Wayne/Batman, which the Joker uses to his advantage. He continues his sadistic terror campaign throughout the city and pins most if not all the blame on "The Batman." Harvey Dent, the new district attorney believes in Batman, and Bruce Wayne believes in Harvey, but they may or may not be able to pay the price that justice demands. Make no mistake, people are going to die in this movie, and no, the Joker isn't one of them.

Nolan knows how to direct a movie and it feels very real. Everything, from the casting, to the music, to the special effects, to the script, to the title, to the theme of anarchy and self doubt, everything is spot on. Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman hit the exact perfect notes with their roles, especially Eckhart as "Gotham’s White Knight," District Attorney Harvey Dent. Gyllenhaal is adorable and feisty as his girlfriend while Caine makes me want to take out a loan and hire an English butler oh so much. Freeman’s Lucius Fox and especially Oldman’s Lt. Gordon and are simply joys to behold.

Of course, I’ve left out the two main stars: Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger. I went into The Dark Knight knowing I’d enjoy the movie, but I was ready to point out its flaws and eagerly downplay the Heath Ledger hype as I once again preached the Gospel that is Tim Burton’s 1989 vastly underrated “original” movie. What can I say? I was wrong. Not only is The Dark Knight a (way) better movie than Batman, but Bale’s Caped Crusader could literally rip Michael Keaton’s version (also vastly underrated) limb from limb simply by glaring at him (I’d LOVE to see Adam West’s reaction) and Ledger’s Joker would make Jack Nicolson’s wet his pants. Bale is absolutely perfect (there’s that word again) as the darker, more philosophical Batman. Can he continue to cash the checks of justice, even if the people of Gotham must pay with their lives? At the very least, his determination is beginning to crack. As for Ledger’s Joker, well, I sincerely hope there is no one on this planet half as sadistic and hell-bent on anarchy as he. Every detail about him – his hair, his makeup, his scars, his voice, his mannerisms, his stride – screams criminally insane. He’s in charge of the movie and the movie’s plot from the word Go. As Caine's Alfred tells Bruce Wayne, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Subconsciously, we're drawn to the Joker because of Ledger's death a few months ago, but to lay the character's appeal on that alone is to deride Ledger's genius portrayal. Truly, this is a new criminal for the ages. There really isn’t anything more that can be said about it.

The Dark Knight is very, well, dark. And intense. This not a PG-13 movie your 8-year-old should be seeing, unless he (or she) particularly enjoys sociopaths shoving pencils through mobsters skulls. There are some very adult (not bow-chicka-bow-wow adult, just, “grown up adult”) themes as we watch Batman transform into a dark knight, not to mention some very graphic and painful-looking injuries.

In my review of Iron Man I mentioned that I’d love to see Favreau and Downey take on every super-hero franchise. While that high praise was and is certainly true, the same could be said for Nolan and whoever wrote The Dark Knight (I'm too lazy to look it up). They are two sides of the comic book coin: one smart alek, fun and clever, the other dark, scary and philosophical. I hesitate to say which I prefer, because they are so obviously the yin and yang of modern action/comic book movies. But, like a flip of Harvey Dent’s two-headed coin, you really can’t lose with either.

A Second Take

2008-07-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I had the good fortune to go to a drive-in theater on Double-Feature for $7 a Car-Load Night. We saw Kung Fu Panda and Get Smart and although it meant that I didn't get home till around 2:30 Saturday morning, the weather was perfect for an outdoor movie and I came away with these two convictions that I need to share.

1) In retrospect, I was much too hard on KFP the first time around. It had a lot more laughs and heart than I remember. I stand by my original sentiment that's it's not overly original and the audience can pretty much see the jokes coming on down the pike, but it's still goofy good fun, especially if you can tap that inner reservoir of kid.

My first take on the Furious Five was accurate. They are pretty bland and useless. The same (sadly) goes for Dustin Hoffman.

Oogway, the ancient Kung Fu turtle was awesome the first time around and is even more so the second.

I also got it right the first time when I said the best scene involves Po's unique form of Kung Fu training.

It's not up to WALL-E's standards, but KFP is still a fun movie and I am now happy to recommend it. I don't know why I was in such a bad mood the first time around (I gave it a 2.5/5). It easily deserves a 3.5/5, maybe even approaching a 4/5.

2) I'm still in love with Anne Hathaway. I hear she's newly single...

WALL-E, 4.5/5

2008-07-08T09:34:00.001-07:00

Rated G. Click here to view the trailer.

Single Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class (WALL-E) robot seeks single egg-shaped robot to join journey through universe. Interests should include trash compacting, collecting Zippo lighters, horticulture, sharp shooting, hand holding and reenacting scenes from Hello Dolly.

How on earth can the movie described in this personal ad work? I don’t know, but since WALL-E is a Pixar-Disney effort, you can bet your sweet bippy with works and that it works well. If you come out of a viewing of WALL-E and your face isn’t sore from grinning, you officially have a heart of cold, hardened stone. You're probably a jerk, too.

WALL-E is the inexplicably cute and amazingly expressive star of our robot tale of literal star-crossed lovers. He looks like cross between E.T. (only not scary) and Johnny #5 from Short Circuit. He can’t communicate beyond R2D2-like beeps and boops, and yet the audience instantly falls in love with him. The character design team at Pixar was on their A-game. WALL-E lives 700 years in the future sorting out the garbage mankind left behind after we loaded up into a massive inter-galactic Carnival Cruiseliner. He’s a plucky and curious little guy and he collects relics of mankind (alas, no snarfblats or dinglehoppers). He has two treasures in particular: a tiny sprout of a plant growing out of a boot and an old VHS tape of Hello Dolly. Whether WALL-E knows it or not, he’s lonely (his only friend is a cock roach who eats - what else? - Twinkies).

Enter EVE (which stands for... something), an iPod-looking egg of a probe sent to Earth to see if it is safe for humans to return. Unlike WALL-E who is a rather mechanical, treaded robot, EVE is a sleek, digital, super-sonic wonder who is also a crack shot with a laser. Our two heroes briefly “date” until a spaceship returns for EVE and shimmies her back to the Mother Ship. Once there, the ship's autopilot tries to keep the surviving humans (who are now extremely obese and ride around in hover La-Z-Boys) from finding out EVE’s secret and destroy her and WALL-E’s relationship.

Whoever gave this movie the green light probably had reservations, because, well, a story featuring two robots that can’t talk and don’t lend themselves to plush toy tie-ins doesn’t sound too promising. Even though humans do eventually show up, there isn’t any actual dialog until a good 45 minutes in. To be sure, this isn’t the next Finding Nemo, but it is a very sweet, quiet tale of unlikely love between two lovable characters. It’s very hard to explain but despite no speech and (thankfully) no anatomy, WALL-E is inexplicably a dude and EVE is obviously a woman. I am admittedly a hopeless romantic, so it’s no surprise that the shots of WALL-E trying to hold EVE’s hand made my smile even broader.

Despite some rumors I’ve heard, it’s not going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. But man oh man does it beat the crap out of Kung Fu Panda.

Note: As my parents and I stood in line waiting to purchase our tickets, a preacher friend of my father’s walked by and told us he’d seen the movie and it was crammed full of socialist global warming propaganda. Sure, the movie shows what might happen if humans continue to litter and eat nothing but French fries, but there’s nothing inherently wrong about the movie or its message. As certified listener of Rush Limbaugh and card-carrying member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy who is ready to denounce (or at least question) anything touting global warming or socialist propaganda, I can confidently say that the aforementioned preacher not only has a cold heart of stone, but is also a Grade-A jerk.

Wanted, 3.5/5

2008-06-27T23:07:00.001-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

All through my screening of Wanted, I kept a running tally of “ingredient films” that the director and screenwriter used to piece together their final product. It’s starts off with a fairly hefty dose of The Matrix trilogy and the Star Wars saga, a hint of The Fast and the Furious, throws in some Kill Bill, Mission Impossible and Chain Reaction, sprinkles some Bourne trilogy on top for some added zest, garnishes it with a few hints of We Three Kings and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and ends it all with some Office Space to cleanse the palate. There’s also a little bit of Rocky and Saw. That’s just what I could identify and remember in between WHOA! reactions.

But that’s not to say Wanted is derivative or feels recycled. The resulting dish isn’t an instant classic, but it’s fresh, exciting and beats the hell out of the mediocre steak I had for dinner last night.

Fight Club. I forgot to mention Fight Club.

Wanted is meant to be an entertaining, mindless action packed popcorn flick and holy crap does it deliver. Think of as filling a teacup with a firehose; it’s excessive and everyone gets wet, but dad gummit it get’s the job done. The only action scene it is missing – and I do mean the only scene – is a scene where our hero is forced to jump out of an airplane sans parachute. Scratch that. I just remembered he jumps out a train while crossing a canyon.

At one (no several) points we not only see bullets flying in slow-motion ala The Matrix, but we see those bullets penetrate their victim’s heads and see the skin bulging and stretching before eventually giving way to form the exit wound. Yeah.

James McAvoy (Wesley) plays our hero and while he isn’t the heir to Arnold’s throne, he’s a decent action actor. Wesley is a fatherless nobody with a crappy job, crappy girlfriend, crappy best friend and the kind of boss you want to throttle with her own stapler (then again, is there any other kind?) Google his name and you come up empty.

Wesley’s life isn’t going to be boring for long, because Angelina Jolie’s Fox has recruited him as the newest member of the Fraternity. (This where I'm supposed to yammer on about how hot Ms. Jolie is, but she's not even near my Top 100.)Pledging this Frat may not involve romancing a goat or binge drinking, but it certainly won’t be fun. Even though I praised him for his pluck and stick-to-it-iveness, I'm pretty sure Maxwell Smart wouldn't have made the cut.

Morgan Freeman plays the wise head of The Fraternity and he along with the rest of the clan take Wesley under their wing so he can one day face the rogue assassin who threatens the very existence of The Fraternity. “Kill one to save a thousand,” Fox says. Something like that.

What is the Fraternity? Glad you asked.

The simplest answer is that they’re a gang of super assassins. The more complex answer is that they’re a pissed off textile union that can curve bullets by inducing panic attacks. They heal their own wounds in bathtubs of Neosporin, live in a castle in downtown Chicago that doubles (triples) as a hide-out, pork warehouse and linen factory. They divine their next targets by examining the thread count in their Egyptian cotton bed sheets and converting that into – OF COURSE! – binary.

Both answers above are correct, and I didn’t even mention the army of explosive mice. You might think the movie is skewing a wee bit silly but it’s a testament to… something… that Wanted still manages to be a serious, legit action movie.

On the down side, the narration feels out of place and it has a few moments of humor that seem out of place. There’s a challenge to the viewer just before the closing credits that’s mildly unsettling. The editing style takes some getting used to, but the special effects are top notch and every member of the cast does a good if not great job, even if we don’t give a rip about them.

Go see it. It’ll will more than tide you over until July 18 and The Dark Knight.

NOTE: If there is any justice in the movie world, the minds that gave of Alien vs. Predator and Freddie vs. Jason would give us The Matrix vs. The Fraternity. Best. Fight. Ever.

Get Smart, 3.5/5

2008-06-27T23:03:00.001-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

As a general rule, I’m opposed to the trend of making classic TV shows into full-length features. Happily, Get Smart, the new Steve Carrell vehicle, is a funny, action packed and entertaining exception to that rule. (Also, it's significantly better than the trailer.)

Carrell is Maxwell Smart, a clumsy geek of an analyst for Control, a top secret, CIA-type government agency. Due mostly to his determination and the Subway Diet, he’s also a surprisingly competent and capable agent.

The plot thickens (first time I’ve ever used that phrase, I swear) as Control’s secret headquarters is attacked and Max is promoted to full field agent (Agent 86), on par with Dwayne ”The Rock” Johnson’s Agent 23. His partner is the reluctant, ultra-capable and oh-so-leggy Anne Hathaway (Agent 99). Together they track down Kaos (Chaos) mastermind played by Terrance Stamp and work to keep him from detonating a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. Along the way they’re held up by Russian goons and of course, Max’s signature bumbling. Alan Arkin, pitch perfect as always, heads up Control. As the Chief, he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and show the young folks how it’s done. We're also treated to a very funny
Bill Murray cameo.

Hathaway’s sexy yet elegant Agent 99 looks out for Max while slowly moving from despising him to falling in love. Stupid lucky Steve Carrell... getting to kiss Anne Hathaway. Grr. There’s an unnecessary love-triangle and plastic surgery back story, but it’s a small price to pay for a mostly fun movie.

It’s a simple plot for a simple movie. There’s nothing magic here, but it has a good natured feeling about it and that gives it a lot of capital to spend. Get Smart was a highlight of my nightly Nick-at-Nite regimen back in the day and if anyone was going to tackle this Don Adams bumbling spy classic, Steve Carrell is the man. I expected him to be in full goofball mode and play the role as a slapstick moron. He doesn’t. Carrell and the screenwriters have done a very commendable job of capturing the tone of the original series, even if they have significantly upped the action value. They've stuck with a winning formula, and I appreciated that.

I wouldn’t call it a great comedy or a great action flick but Get Smart only "missed by that much."

By the way: Ms. Hathaway, if you’re reading, I love you.

Kung Fu Panda, 2.5/5

2008-06-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

(Although I originally rated it a 2.5, I've upped it to a 3.5)

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

In keeping with the time honored practice of twisting a movie’s title into a sarcastic statement on the film’s merit (Semi-Pro is semi-funny, Go ahead and Mess with Zohan, Walk Hard stumbles), I humbly offer the following: Kung Fu Panda is Kung Fu Bland-a.

I’m sorry. It was the best I could do.

Despite some top-notch computer animation and some A-list voice actors, Kung Fu Panda just didn’t bring anything new or fun to the table. Think of it as a cartoon version of Beverly Hills Ninja starring Jack Black instead of Chris Farley. And yet, Kung Fu Panda surprisingly plays out like a conventional Kung Fu movie. Yeah, it's kid-friendly. Yeah, it got a decent message. I just wanted more humor out of a Jack Black Kung Fu cartoon. I'm mystified by it's 87 percent Freshness Rating at RottenTomatoes.com. (OK, it did have a clever first two minutes.)

Po (the titular Kung Fu Panda) is a noodle cook (with duck for a father (?) destined to be the Dragon Warrior and save the Valley of Peace from the menace that is Tai Lung the Snow Leopard. Of course, this seems rather far fetched given his rotundity and inability to perform any basic ninja move, but, of course, he grows into quite the formidable opponent once he hits his groove.

Jack Black succeeds in bringing charm and life to Po because, well, he’s pretty much a panda in real life (check out his eyebrow thingy that’s been translated on the panda in the poster above). It wasn’t much a stretch for him. As for The Five, they didn’t fare so well and really are unnecessary to the story. Angelina Jolie is a total waste as Tigress as is Lucy Liu as Viper. Seth Rogen is way out of place as the tiny, fragile Mantis. Had I realized that was Jackie Chan as Monkey, I might have found it amusing but I didn’t and I didn’t. David Cross as Crane was the only major success besides Jack Black, followed closely by Randall Duk Kim as the very elderly turtle Kung Fu master, Oogway.

The best scene of the movie involves Po’s training, a method Shi-fu (a bored-sounding Dustin Hoffman) devised to capitalize on Po’s love of dumplings. As for the climatic battle royale between the Dragon Warrior (zero points for guessing who that is) and Tai Lung, it’s pretty much Po being fat and shouting out catch phrases. “Skiddoosh!”

One of my problems is with the character of Po. Sure, he's fat but he doesn't mind it and neither does anyone else, so what's the point? His kung fu trainer doesn't even try to slim him down, but instead motivates him with more food. He's not dumb, and he's funny. He's not a quitter, doesn't get his feeligs hurt and is loyal to a fault. He's just too darn likeable to ever be an interesting hero.

The bottom line is this is a kid’s movie and kids will probably like it. I left wanting more from a DreamWorks animated effort. Several reviews I’ve read praised Kung Fu Panda for “keeping all it’s jokes within itself” and not relying on pop culture reference and jokes like, say, the Shrek series. The problem with this is that sometimes pop culture references and jokes are funny! I saw zero in-jokes or even satire and Kung Fu Panda is just too bland without them, relying solely on Jack Black’s dialog to liven things up (Skid-doosh!). Sure, Shrek and the like may be too clever by half, but that’s a heck of a lot better than being not clever enough by half. Skid-doosh!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 4/5

2008-05-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

When I was in second grade, my doting grandmother, in her infinite wisdom, gave me a bullwhip. While I was pretty good at cracking it (I did cut my eye brow with it when I cracked it a little too close to my face... just like the opening of Last Crusade, seriously), I could never master the art of wrapping the end around a tree limb and swinging to safety ala Raiders of the Lost Ark. Happily, I’m here to report that Henry Jones, Jr. and his whip still have the magic touch in their fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

It’s the 1950s and although good ole grizzled Indy (Harrison Ford) is 20 years older, he’s still teaching archaeology (Boredom 101) and is still of interest to nefarious characters. This time it’s the Communists, not to mention a few thickheaded McCarthy-era FBI agentsq. The Ruskies are led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and they believe Indy can guide them to an ancient temple in Peru, one that houses a weapon they’re desperate to get their little Commie hands on.

In between captures, escapes and extraordinarily choreographed car and motorcycle chases, he hooks up with wanna-be greaser, Mutt (Shia LeBeouf) and an old MI-6 agent and they head off to the Amazon to rescue Indy’s love interest from Raiders (Karen Allen). Once there, they find the titular crystal skull and Indy's now insane mentor, Oxley (John Hurt).

By the way, there may or may not be aliens involved.

It’s a lot to pack into a movie and it has some risky story elements, especially for a new entry in a beloved series. Thankfully, Steven Speilberg and George Lucas didn’t succumb to whatever horrible disease plagued the new Star Wars films and hit the nail on its head.

The script’s tone is spot-on and the dialog, especially between Indy and Mutt, is hilarious. Things do get a little bit National Treasure-ish and goofy at times (what’s the deal with the prairie dogs?) and the George and Steven worked a little to hard to connect this movie to the original three (“Look, Mister! There’s a crucial prop from Raiders! Didya see it? Didya? Look! Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?”) Of course our heroes dodge a gazillion bullets, but it’s all in the name of good, old fashioned fun, and that’s enough for me. Indiana is, after all, a comic book hero.

Although Crystal Skull is a funny movie and does have a goofy moment or two, it also ups the creepiness factor. There were several times where I literally was on the edge of my seat waiting for some native with a terrifying face to jump out at me, screaming and baring those poorly kept teeth. I also had to look away during a sequence involving some really pissed off fire ants. Maybe I’m just used to the creepy moments in the original trilogy, but I found Crystal Skull to be a step up on the creepy scale.

The cast did a great job recapturing the Indy vibe. Ford tosses knowing one-liners around and is clearly having a great time back in the brown Fedora. LeBeouf just gets more and more likeable (even if he does remind me of Pony from The Outsiders) while Allen remains just as spunky and lovely as ever. Blanchett isn’t exactly the uber-villain you might expect from a rapier-wielding KGB agent, but she (and her accent) are acceptable.

So where does Crystal Skull rank among the original trilogy? Popular opinion has Raiders the clear No.1 and Temple of Doom the clear No. 3, with Last Crusade being neither loved nor hated at No. 2. Personally, I've always enjoyed the father-son dynamic between Indy and Henry Sr. (Sean Connery), so I actually rank them Last Crusade, Raiders, then Temple of Doom. I’ll have to see Crystal Skull again before I can make a judgment but right know, I’d say it ranks a very close second, just behind Last Crusade (largely because the two movies share the same father-son dynamic… HINT HINT).

The ending also hints at a possible fifth Jones movie, although something tells me it will be starring Shia LeBeouf and not Harrison Ford. If that movie is half as fun at Crystal Skull, I think I could be OK with that.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what to get me for my birthday…

Note: I know you’re supposed suspend some logic in movies like this, but one question keeps bothering me and that is Indy’s religious beliefs. He has the air of a scholarly agnostic and yet throughout his life he has seen first hand near absolute proof that the Judaism is the one true religion (Raiders). Then again, he also saw that some Hindu cult is the truth path (Temple of Doom), but that only before he saw that Christianity has it right (Last Crusade). Now, in Crystal Skull, it appears that _________ is the mighty power of the universe. Which does Indy believe? Is he politically correct enough to think they can all be true?

Speed Racer, 1/5

2008-05-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

I knew I was in trouble when the woman and her gaggle of 8-year-old birthday party-goers sat down noisily in front of me. Things only got worse when she started passing out the tacos (seriously) and didn’t offer me one. Once the credits for Speed Racer were over and the movie began, things spiraled into a Technicolor hallucinogenic nosedive into the neon abyss. You know that residual image “burned” into your retina when you use a sparkler? For a whole hour after I left the theater, I had the entire movie ghosted before my eyes. Methinks that the directors, the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix Trilogy) need to up their Ritalin dosage.

And yet despite ADD-feel and the seizure-inducing visuals, this movie drags on and on (and on). If I had to write a punny headline for this review, it would include the phrase, “Slow, Speed Racer, Slow!” (Other candidates: "No, Speed Racer, No!" "Blow, Speed Racer, Blow!" or my personal favorite, "D'oh, Speed, D'oh!"

So slow, in fact, that I've tried and tried but can’t remember how the movie began. Somehow, we’re introduced to the uber-vague plot. Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) likes to drive futuristic, full-sized Hot Wheels, mostly because his brother, Rex (Scott Porter), does it. Well, that, and his legal name is Speed Racer. He really had no choice: Pop and Mom Racer (John Goodman, looking like Mario, and Susan Sarandon) pretty much decided his destiny for him with that name. Come to think of it, it's pretty lucky that a guy named Pop married a woman name Mom.

Rex dies in a racing tragedy and the evil, purple clad racing promoter Mr. Royalton (Roger Allam, trying his darndest to be Tim Curry) is trying to recruit Speed, while Matthew Fox’s Racer X (no relation to the Racer clan… or is he?) drives as Speed’s wingman. Fenderman. Whatever.

Christina Ricci plays Trixie, Speed’s gal pal who flies a helicopter while looking disturbingly like a young Sarandon. There’s also a annoying younger brother (Sprinkle? Sprocket? Spider?) and a poo-flinging chimpanzee. That’s right folks, a poo-flinging chimp. There's also some ninjas thrown in for good measure. "More like nunjas," cracks Pop Racer. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

That’s the plot. Now try stretching that into 129 minutes. There’s a “you’re kidding me” moment at least once every ten minutes. I thought the movie was mercifully wrapping up at one point, but no, we still had another act and a half to go.

Speed Racer’s racing scenes should be exciting because, heck, they’re racing scenes plus the word SPEED is in the title. But the ridiculous speed and physics-defying nature of these races sucks any excitement out of the process, if that's possible. Imagine a driving a high-speed bumper car with strobe lights threatening to blind you, all while someone is throwing Skittles and Fruity Pebbles in your face. There's absolutely no danger, except that you'll get a stray Skittle stuck in your eye.

It’d be much more entertaining to watch any NASCAR event (heck, I'd rather watch 129 minutes of this), because at least there’s a vague sense of excitement and danger. The “cars” in this movie ram into each other and fight with various offensive and defensive weapons at hundreds of miles an hour, but not a single car even gets scratched, especially not Speed’s precious Mach 5 (or 6). If a driver is thrown from the car, they’re instantly surrounded in a protective balloon or they parachute to safety, shaking their fist at Speed all the way down.

I suppose you can’t have too much intense or violent action in a PG movie, but maybe that’s the problem. More accurately, it’s ONE of the problems. This could have been an awesome movie if it had been much darker and… I don’t know. Not lame. Quentin Tarantino would have made an AMAZING Speed Racer, even if you held him to a zero body count and made him keep the poo-flinging chimp. I also would have preferred to get a taco.

There were only three things I enjoyed about this movie: 1) Christina Ricci is cute in her bob haircut; 2) I enjoyed the way the Speed Racer theme song was integrated into the sound track and 3) I now know what it’s like to take an LSD trip.

I’ve never seen the original 1967 “cartoon” that inspired the movie, but I doubt that would make a difference in my judgment of this movie. Something tells me kitsch like Speed belongs on collectible lunch boxes, and not the big screen sandwiched between Iron Man and Indiana Jones IV.

Iron Man, 4.5/5

2008-05-01T20:54:00.001-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

I don’t know what the deal is. Either I’ve just seen two of the year’s best movies back to back or my local theater is pumping nitrous through it’s A/C system.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of this comic book phase America seems to be going through, nor have I ever been a big super hero fan, Batman excepted. Heck, I didn’t even like Spider-Man. That makes Iron Man a tough sell, but man I bought it hook line and sinker.

Robert Downey, Jr. plays Tony Stark, a trillionaire playboy/weapons manufacturing genius who is just as likeable as he is despicable (he admits to failing to bed January’s Maxim cover girl thus bagging all twelve months, yet we almost feel sorry for him). While in Afghanistan showing off his latest weapon of not-quite-mass destruction, things go awry and he is captured and tortured by a rebel cell (suspiciously armed with Stark’s own weapons).

They demand Stark build them a version of the aforementioned WnqMD but instead he uses his time locked in a cave to build a super suit so he can bust out and return to his fleet of sports cars in Malibu. At the risk of giving too much away, he succeeds, but only with the help of nuclear powered pacemaker. I’ll let you guess if that turns out to be important later on as Robo-Stark inevitably begins to fight evil.

Once home, Stark renounces weapons manufacturing and retires to his basement where he proceeds to build a new and improved super suit, ironically manufacturing the ultimate weapon (with some help from some very amusing and eager-to-please robots). Now he can investigate how the bad guys got his arms in the first place, an investigation that leads right up to the company's executive suites. Hmm. How intriguing. Somewhere in there a super villain emerges, but it’s a little goofy and feels more like a forced formality than a natural progression. Then again, what good is a superhero without an arch nemesis?

Which brings us to Robert Downey, Jr. I don’t want to get all fan boy on you, but Mr. Downey is freakin’ awesome and he only gets better when he slips into character and dons a sleazy mustache and bionic super suit. He’s a remarkably funny actor and it’s his dialog and timing that makes the movie. If I were to come into several billion dollars over night, I would fund a remake of every super hero movie ever made, each starring my man RDJ. I wouldn't want to be Tony Stark, but I bet he'd throw one hell of a bachelor party.

But only if he had help from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, who is Stark’s Girl Friday (and Saturday, Sunday all the rest of the days of the week). Paltrow plays Potts with spunk and humor. She tolerates Stark’s playboy antics, but relishes showing his conquests the door the next morning. It’s obvious she is infatuated with Starks, but she keeps it interesting by remaining aloof and not fawning over him like a blithering idiot. Like I said, I wouldn’t want to be Tony Stark, but I’d kill for an assistant with Paltrow’s red hair, freckles and giggle.

Iron Man isn’t perfect and there a certainly a few chinks in the armor. The movie takes a long time to get going and Jon Favreau telegraphs certain plot points, but he has such great time doing it, it’s easy to overlook any faults. The final climatic battle between Iron Man and Requisite Super Villain is pretty bland and ordinary, especially when compared to the tone and humor of the rest of the movie.

I haven’t read the original Iron Man comics, so I have no idea if they had a political agenda or not. The movie tries to expose an innate evil and corruption in the military-industrial complex, but seeing as how movie humanity will ultimately rely on said complex to save the movie world, the message gets a little blurry.

Also, Ozzie’s classic song, Iron Man, doesn’t make an appearance, unless you count the incredibly weak cover over the ending credits. Back in Black gets airtime during the opening sequence, what a shame they didn’t roll the dice and use Iron Man regardless.

The movie isn’t brilliant art and it isn’t the best thing ever committed to celluloid, but it is a thoroughly entertaining movie and that’s good enough for me. Spring for popcorn and have a heck of a night.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 5/5

2008-04-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to see the trailer.

Here are seven reasons why Forgetting Sarah Marshall is easily my favorite movie of the year so far:

1. A Cake song plays over the opening credits.
2. Billy Baldwin pretends to be David Caruso from CSI: Miami
3. It co-stars Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from 30 Rock).
4. There is a shot of Japanese tourists posing with silverware.
5. The main character and I have the same model MacBook.
6. Jonah Hill is funny… for once. The same goes for Bill Heder.
7. The main character is writing a rock opera… for puppets… about Dracula.

Jason Segel is Peter, a loveable sad sack Everyman who composes the "dark, ominous tones" for a crime drama starring his smokin’ hot girlfriend, Sarah Marshall, played by Kristen Bell. She dumps him while he is… um… in a very vulnerable state and to get over her, he jets off to Hawaii where nothing can remind him of the past.

Of course Sarah shows up with her new rocker beau in tow, Aldous Snow, played by a very funny Russell Brand. This makes Jason more than a little bit weepy, but things begin to look up for him as the hotel staff takes him under their wing, especially Mila Kunis’ Rachel (Rolling Stone calls her "illegally adorable"). Mahalo!

The plot sounds a little cliché and you can more or less figure out where things are going to end, but Segel’s script is so darn tight and consistently funny, you really don’t care. That’s the best praise I can give a movie: it’s consistent. I laughed out loud probably ten times at jokes from ten different characters.

If you want to be a jerk about it, it does feel a tad too long and the Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill characters aren't necessary. However, one should never cut Paul Rudd from a comedy, no matter how long it is and if Jonah Hill is actually being funny, I say let 'im in. Everyone here is funny, that greatly helps the aforementioned consistency. I hated Jason Segel’s slimeball in Knocked Up, but in this movie he’s a funny, relatable guy. His goofy normalness wins you over. Even Sarah's new boyfriend, the lothario rocker from the UK is likable and very, very funny.

It's rated R for a reason. The only things that keeps the movie from being among the upper reaches of my all-time favorites list are two instances of male nudity that are inexplicably gratuitous and absolutely unnecessary (there are also a few very brief bits of female nudity). The scenes in question are so brief and oddly edited that I have no idea why they were included. They’re not funny and they aren’t sexy and that’s just sad.

I don't recall all that much offensive language, but that's not to say it's not there. If you're ready and willing to cover your eyes for a few seconds, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a can't miss.

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay 2/5

2008-04-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was one of my favorite movies of 2004, even if it was one of the dumbest. Kal Penn and John Cho have teamed up to bring us a sequel but this one just couldn’t give me the high that the first stoner comedy did.

The action in Escape from Guantanamo Bay picks up mere seconds after White Castle left off. Our dynamic duo are on their way to Amsterdam to pursue the girl of Harold’s dreams. Due to some racism and some truly idiotic actions on the part of Kumar, the pair are arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as terrorists (“North Korea and Al Qaeda working together!”). They eventually escape (along with some real terrorists, but never mind that) and must work their way to Texas to bust up the wedding of Kumar’s old flame and obtain legal help from her federal official fiancé, with homeland security official (Rob Corddry) bumbling along behind them.

It’s more or less the same movie as its predecessor. Both movies are buddy travel comedies and both involved significant scatological humor. The jokes were funny the first time around, but this time it just seems like the writers weren’t trying. Both movies involved more or less the same stopovers too… a party, a stay at a scary redneck’s house with his hot wife, and of course a glorious extended cameo Neil Patrick Harris.

Ah, NPH. He was truly the highlight of the first Harold and Kumar flick and was well on his way to shining bright in this one when… well, something goes wrong at a whorehouse (isn’t that always the case?). I’ll leave it at that.

The movie tries to get political with its “racially charged, unjustly imprisoned” plot line, but it’s too stupid to be taken seriously. I certainly wouldn’t have been the jerk that Rob Corddry’s character is, but I definitely would have arrested them and locked down the airport given their behavior and the evidence in their possession (Although he does have a great line while interrogating Harold: "Hey! Zip it, Hello Kitty!"). The movie’s George W. Bush impersonator could have at least fired off of some liberal shots, but his impression of the president is so poor it’s kills any humor that might have grown from it.

Still, Kal Penn and John Cho make a great team. I doubt there will be a Harold and Kumar III, but I'll probably go ahead and watch anything they do together.

Ultimately, given the choice of Guantanamo Bay and White Castle, I’ll pick White Castle every time.

Smart People, 3/5

2008-04-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Smart People could just as easily be named Dysfunctional People. While the former is probably more marketable (and perhaps more ironic), the latter is probably more accurate.

The dysfunctional father, Lawrence (played by a severely bearded Dennis Quaid), is a jerk of an English professor who is shopping a book with the gentle title, You Can’t Read. His dysfunctional daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page), is a pot-smoking uber-Republican who gets a 1600 on her SATs and develops an inexplicable crush on her dysfunctional adopted uncle (the fun as always Thomas Haden Church) and his dysfunctional haircut.

Why are they dysfunctional? It’s partly because Lawrence’s wife died several years ago, but mostly it’s because it makes for a fun movie and give them an opportunity to Grow. It also allows Sarah Jessica Parker, a doctor/former student of Lawrence’s, to meet cute and develop a dysfunctional romance that more or less gave me the willies. Does Vanessa approve of her father’s relationship with a former student? I’ll give you three guesses.

The actors are mostly superb, but it’s still just not quite enough rescue the movie for me. Quaid’s gravely voice, exhausted eyes, and screw you way of walking (and parking) through life let you know there is some serious heartbreak in his life. Thomas Hayden Church is at least as good as he was in Sideways and Ellen Page is, well, amazing.

But, like I said, it just wasn’t quite enough for me. Sarah Jessica Parker’s character was very flat and uninteresting, while the movie never succeeded in setting a tone. It’s funny, but not hilarious. I’m not even sure what genre you can put this movie in. it certainly isn’t a comedy in the traditional sense. It’s a little like Sideways (they have the same producer), but it isn’t near as sharp at that 2005 film. I was never sure how I was supposed to feel and I’m pretty sure the screenwriters were just tired when they came up with the ending. Maybe that’s appropriate. Maybe a movie about dysfunctional people should be dysfunctional.

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, 3/5

2008-04-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Rated G. Click here to view the trailer.

Disclosure: I have never read the original Horton Hears a Who!

It’s impossible to mention the movie Titanic without bringing up its record breaking box-office take. After reading other reviews, I must conclude it is equally impossible to mention this new adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s work without mentioning that “it is significantly better than previous attempts such as the live-action films How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat… not that that’s saying much.”

No, it’s not saying much, but it’s true. Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! isn’t on par with the 1966 cartoon Grinch nor is it even as good as any of the Shrek trio. But it is OK and that’s saying something.

Horton (voiced by Jim Carrey), is a spastic elephant living in the Technicolor Jungle of Nool. He fights the 88-minute battle of his life to save a tiny speck on a “clover” (although I’d contend it’s a dandelion, not a clover) that he believes is home to a tiny civilization known as Whoville. Meanwhile, a purple dictatorial neo-con kangaroo (voiced by Carol Burnett), labels Horton a trouble maker and mal-content and assigns a Slavic vulture to get rid of the clover and/or Horton.

Back in Whoville, the Mayor (voiced by Steve Carrell) is the lone voice and evidence that the microscopic town exists. He fights a parallel who-battle to Horton’s as he tries to convince the blissfully who-ignorant Whos that their who-world is in who-danger. There’s a shoe-horned-in subplot about the Mayor and his punk little emo son, but who (get it? Who?) gives a rip?

It’s a wacky plot and it has promise. It’s a shame that it just bounces around without ever pulling the funny trigger. In fact: here are the three sole funny items in the film: 1) an out-of-left-field Henry Kissinger shout out (it's so over kids' heads that I've given credit for it); 2) Horton’s talented “ear puppets; and 3) a spot-on who-anime parody. Largely, it just falls flat. The producers most likely knew this and that’s why they tossed tiny roles to Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, hoping they’d up the movie’s sex appeal. It doesn’t and their roles are barely worth mentioning. NOTE TO FILMMAKERS: You don’t have to force your movies through a Judd Apatow filter to make them funny.

I think the true problem is that people try too hard to Seuss-ify their movies. Yeah, Green Eggs and Ham was trippy, but it was also subdued in its own quirky way. The remakes of The Cat and Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Horton for that matter, aren't subdued.

Those who would remake classics would be wise to ask themselves what they can add to the original. If the answer is "add a Canadian comic's voice," they need to go back to the drawing board.

Starting with Jim Carey, the whole movie seems miscast. Carey doesn't work as an elephant and Carrell doesn't work as His Who-ness, the mayor. As I said before Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill have tiny roles and are unimpressive. Will Arnett DOES work as Vlad the vulture, but that's a fluke.

Theme-wise, I picked up on a quiet pro-life theme, as Horton repeats his mantra, “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” This might be intentional, especially given the pro-life trend of certain high-profile movies. The other possible theme isn’t near as conservative, in that there’s a slight pro-global warming message. The Whos choose to remain ignorant of their impending doom, despite ample evidence. I may be reading too much into it, but that’s just what I picked up on. I would point out that even though their doom might have been legitimate, it was not Who-caused :-). In reality, Seuss's original work was probably more concerned with McCarthyism, free speech and freedom of inquiry than arguing against abortions or arguing that global warning is a genuine threat.

Just as it’s impossible to not mention The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas as one begins a Horton review, it’s also impossible to end it without recommending the viewer stick with the old-school animated shorts of The Grinch, Green Eggs and Ham, The Lorax, or, my personal favorite, The Star-Bellied Sneetches. I’ll one-up those recommendations and tell
you to stick to Theodor S. Giesel’s printed works.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, 3/5

2008-04-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

A Rough Cut's first exclusive, pre-release movie review!

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opens nationwide April 18.

I tried not to be star-struck, but it was hard not to watch Ben Stein watching himself during the pre-release screening of his new documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I sat behind Missouri’s first lady, with the governor to her right and Ben (he and I are on a first name basis now) sitting next to him. I could hear him chuckle at his own one-liners and listened intently has he pointed out the nuances of several scenes to governor. At one point, he pulled out a telescoping back scratcher and took care of an itch. That's not really germane to the movie review, but the kind of fact that just needs sharing.

Stein’s incredibly dull and (yet infinitely Jewy and entertaining) monotone droll narrates the documentary, in which he explores the death grip Darwinian evolution has on the scientific intelligista. It’s certainly not a Christian movie and it doesn’t argue that the Judeo-Christian God created the earth in six days then rested on the seventh. It does however make the Christian (or Darwin doubter) feel much more confident in the scientific foundation of Intelligent Design (the idea that life is so complex, it is impossible that it occurred randomly and is best explained by an intelligent Creator).

Heck, why not let Ben speak for himself:

We began working on this movie because were concerned that Darwinism – which is a beyond-words brilliant theory – was being taught as the only scientific explanation for creation, for development of life, for the development from inorganic to organic matter, even into astronomy, physics and thermodynamics. We have been very troubled by this strangle hold Darwinism has on academic pursuits and by the fact that if you raise the slightest question about Darwinism, you can get fired, lose you job, grants and website. This didn’t seem to us to be constant with the doctrines of free speech and freedom of inquiry that are basic to the functioning of the United States of America. So many people did not give their lives so that one certain dogma could have a stranglehold on academic pursuits while everything else was expelled.

Stein is just about the perfect person to star in a movie like this. He’s funny (see his work in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Clear Eyes commercials), he’s smart (Win Ben Stein’s Money, he taught law at Pepperdine University) and he’s a conservative (he’s a former Nixon speech writer). Most of all he’s likable and he doesn’t attack the Darwinian scientists he interviews, nor does he suck up to the ID proponents.

Stein uses a motif of the Berlin Wall throughout the movie to illustrate that Darwinian scientists have walled themselves in, refusing to hear any alternatives to their god, evolution. In fact, the movie suggests Darwinism is their religion even as it suggests Intelligent Design is in fact a science.

As a junior at a conservative Christian liberal arts university, one of my required courses focused largely on ID. Even though I whole heartedly agree with it’s premise, I must admit I found it to be scientifically lacking and unconvincing to those who didn’t already have religious faith as background (although I did think secular professors should emphasize that evolution is just a theory). The highest praise I can give Expelled is that it convinced me otherwise. I am now thoroughly convinced ID is legitimate science and am excited with the research possibilities it holds.

Expelled is the anti-Inherit the Wind - it’s not fictional and it’s intentionally funny - and Ben Stein the anti-Michael Moore - he’s not over bearing, not overweight and fully believes in your right to disagree with him (although like Moore, no one would dare call Stein a fashion trend setter). It's good movie and I recommend it heartily, but it is still a documentary.

However, Stein does hope to set a trend in preserving academic inquiry. It sounds a little melodramatic, but refusing to hear opposing idea can lead to some pretty dire consequences. As Stein asks at the close of the movie: “Freedom of inquiry is the kind of freedom that makes this country great. Is anyone left to fight this battle? Anyone? Anyone?”

Semi-Pro, 2/5

2008-03-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

Simply and brutally, Semi-Pro is only semi-funny. Sure, it’s hard to live up to wacky sports comedies like Dodgeball or Talledega Nights, but if anyone can, surely it’s Will Ferrell, right? I mean, he’s done it at least three times before, right? Too bad he couldn’t pull out a fourth. We should all at least be thankful he doesn’t run around in his tighty whities, although we are “treated” to some slow motion up-the-short-short views.

Will is Jackie Moon, the favorite son of Flint, Mich. (“with the possible exception of Henry Ford”) and the owner/coach/pre-game announcer/power forward of the Flint Tropics. The Tropics and the ABA as a whole are going out of business and can’t compete with their rival, the NBA for fans, viewers or $$. The NBA has agreed to buy out the ABA and absorb the best four teams into the NBA, thus giving Will and Co. the motivation they need to drag themselves out of the basement.

A quick cruise through Wikipedia shows that the Flint Tropics were not part of the ABA and are entirely fictional. I think the film makers are probably trying to be funny with the whole irony thing, but it’s just so lame, the optimist in me hopes they just picked slips of paper from two hats.

By far, the funniest thing about Semi-Pro is the series of Old Spice commercials Will did in promoting the film. Seriously, they are 18x funnier than this movie.

Here’s a typical Semi-Pro joke set up and crash. To bring in fans, Jackie promised free corn dogs to each person in the stands if the Tropics score 125 points. This is a problem, because there are no hot dogs. Despite his best efforts, the Tropics win by with 126 points. Does hilarity ensue? Nope. It’s just the end of the scene.

Will plays basketball, but it’s not funny. He promotes games with wacky events that (should be funny but) aren’t funny. He’s a disco one-hit wonder, but it’s not funny. I’m not really even sure Jackie Moon qualifies as a character. His mother is Patti LaBelle, but it’s not funny. The Flint Tropics is made up of colorful characters including Woody Harelson and Andre 3000, but they’re not funny. I think Will’s fro and Woody’s I’m-not-sure-what-you-call-that-hair-style are supposed to be funny, but they’re not. The referee (at every single game, no less) is a priest, complete with a collar, which could be really funny, but isn't. He wrestles a bear named Dewey, and that IS kind of semi-funny.

Andrew Daly and Will Arnet try to pepper in some humor as the team’s play by play radio personalities, but aside from laughing at Will’s mustache, the jokes are pretty few and far between. Then again, it is hard to compete with Jason Bateman and Gary Cole from Dodgeball.

Oh, there is a vague (and I do mean vague) love triangle between Woody, Maura Tierny (from News Radio) and Rob Corrdry, but it’s so, well, vague, that it’s not even semi-funny.

Tim Meadows makes an appearance, proving once again how not funny he truly is. At all. Bad, Tim! Bad! He must have some really juicy dirt on Will.

This movie is rated R, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why. There’s no violence, no drugs and no sex. There is a tiny bit of language, but you’d hear worse during 10 minutes of an average little league game. Fine, I’ll give it a semi-R.

Rambo, 2/5

2008-01-28T15:28:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

You’re either a Rocky man, or a Rambo man. I’ve always considered myself a Rocky man and the new film Rambo confirms it. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI) was a surprisingly well-done and well-acted comeback story that made your heart swell. Rambo, the fourth in the series that began 25 years ago with First Blood, is a bloody gorefest with more dead Burmese rebels than you can shake a severed leg at. It makes your heart swell, but only because 50-cal rounds are bursting through it. Heck, the MPAA rated it R because of "strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults and grisly images." Judging from this movie alone, its star, director and writer, Sly Stallone, has some serious issue. I'm guessing his daddy never hugged him.

John Rambo is an aging-but-still-ripped ex-Green Beret who, after fighting injustice in the U.S., Vietnam and Afghanistan (back when the Afghani rebels were still the good guys), has forgone the stereotypical retirement villa in Boca and instead has settled into the quiet, secluded life of a cobra wrangler/blacksmith in the jungles of Thailand. There’s a brutal (real life) civil war up stream in Burma (actually, it's called Myanmar now, but who's keeping track?). But, his killing days over, Rambo keeps his boat well south of the fighting and is content to scowl silently as he spends his days fishing with his bow and arrow.

He reluctantly agrees to use his boat (complete with its impossibly tiny, hand-forged propeller) to drop off some ill-prepared, inept NON-BAPTIST missionaries in the war zone, but only after Pretty Blond (Julie Benz) begs him and gives him her cross necklace. Aww. Rambo done gone and got religion! Too bad he has to get back to snake wrangling (“I don’t need any more cobras! I want pythons! I have enough cobras!”) and can’t play missionary.

All is going hunky dory until - GASP! - the genocidal Burmese guerrillas attack Pretty Blond & Co. and then the movie turns into Viscera City. Heads are shot (with bullets, bazookas AND hand-made arrows), torsos blown apart and limbs fly like confetti while buckets of blood explode towards the camera in qualities that put Kill Bill to shame. Remember the scenes in Saving Private Ryan where the D-Day soldiers are getting mowed down as they storm the beaches at Normandy? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: is it possible this movie is more gruesome than dating in New York - umm... I meant "more gruesome than actual genocidal civil war"?

The baddies take Pretty Blond’s God Squad hostage. After they aren’t heard from, their pastor from Colorado flies to Thailand and hires Rambo to ferry a group of ethnically diverse mercenaries to rescue PB. (I wanted to know why the big pansy didn’t go on the trip in the first place. It's called "leadership," Rev!) One ‘Nam flashback later, Rambo agrees and tags along on the rescue, but only after forging his own special Ultimate Machete of Justice and Pain (at least that’s what I called it... see the poster above). Hilarity ensues.

I won’t spoil the ending by telling you whether or not Rambo succeeds in rescuing Pretty Blond and personally gutting the pedophile guerrilla General. Yes, I will. He does. I’d love to be at the “afterglow” service when the mission team and PB get back to Colorado. Thankfully, Stallone spared us and did not write a May-December romance between him and Pretty Blond, although there is a vague feeling that he wanted too and decided Rambo was just too tough for love. Or is he? The ending credits show Rambo lumbering down the driveway to say hi to his estranged father in New Mexico. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you.

Here are two questions you can ponder:

Is it against the Geneva Convention to physically rip a man’s trachea from his throat with your bare hands?
After Rambo single-handedly disembowels an saws an entire regiment of the army in half with the .50 cal. and saves one small village, what is the fate of the rest of the nation which is now facing the rest of the army, only this time sans a geriatric superhero?

No one has ever accused Stallone of being cerebral, but after the touching and engaging Rocky Balboa, Rambo and its mindless fight-violence-with-violence ethic (not to mention its mindless dialog) feels utterly... well, useless. Stallone supposedly hopes the film will generate awareness of the brutal carnage that truly is going on in Burma. Either he has no sense of irony or he is going senile in his old age.

Atonement, 4/5

2008-01-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click to view the trailer.

Atonement just won the Golden Globe for best drama. Good for it. I can honestly say it deserved it. However, I can also honestly say it isn’t a film I need to see again any time soon.

Based on the beautifully written novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, Atonement hinges upon three key misunderstandings on the part of young, confused, would-be writer Briony Tallis (played so well it’s creepy by Saoirse Ronan). Her confused perception (dramatization) of reality threatens to break apart her older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightly) and the family’s groundskeeper, Robbie (James McAvoy). The audience is forced to ask a question. Is it truly possible to atone for a sin? Is regret enough? Toss in a bar tending chocolate magnate (“here, try my choc-tail”), a red-haired Lolita, the evacuation at Dunkirk during WWII, and the mother of all plot twists, and you’ve got yourself a movie.

I hate to pigeon-hole Ms. Knightly into typecasting, but she was born to play pre-war, headstrong, rich British women. It blows me away that she is only 22 years old. I have significantly less of a crush on James McAvoy, but I must say the man has amazing eyes and can act.

Each actor does a superb job in their role and the film is so well done and well written that I can’t figure out why I don’t like it. I had minor problems following the timeline of the movie, and director Joe Wright chose to shoot with a handheld camera at odd times, but those are only minor quibbles. Also, the audience (and I) laughed at moment’s I’m not sure were supposed to be funny (“choc-tail” being one of them). The movie also feels a tad long, clocking in at 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Quibbles aside, Atonement is a very well-put-together piece of work. In fact, it feels very Shakespearean. Briony’s writing ambition translates into a motif (from the opening credits to the subtitles telling us the scene and date to the very font used in the movie's poster above) that I only appreciate now in retrospect. The confusing timeline is probably a necessity as we see the pivotal events between Cecilia and Robbie from two points of view. They also make more sense when we hit the plot twist.

Ah, the plot twist. My gut tells me this is the movie’s weakness. If not the twist itself, then the way it is handled. From what I’ve been told of the way it is address in the book (I’m only one third of the way through it myself), it works much better there. It isn’t quite as gimmicky as an M. Night Shamma-lamma-ding-dong movie, but the twist near the end hit me just as hard as learning Bruce Willis was a ghost in The Sixth Sense. Instead of being blown away, however, I was pissed off. “What the hell?” were my exact words, I believe. It makes it a far better movie from a literary sense, yeah, I get. Still. What the hell?

If you’re into dramas, you can’t do better than Atonement. If you’re not, at least you get to ogle Keira Knightly in a wet, clingy slip for a few seconds. That's worth something.

Walk Hard, 2/5

2008-01-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click to view the trailer.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, is Judd Apatow’s version of the Scary Movie series, and this parody of Walk the Line and Ray (and a few other bio pics). Is only slightly better than the Scary Movies.

Dewey Cox (the lovable-as-usual John. C. Reilly) stumbles through the lives of Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, fathering dozens of children and dabbling in various illegal substances along the way. Reilly is pretty much the only thing that salvages the movie. Honestly, is there anything he hasn’t made better? (Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, A Prairie Home Companion, The Aviator, Boogie Nights, Chicago, The Perfect Storm, The Thin Red Line, etc). He marries Kristin Wiig’s Edith at 14 but ultimately leaves her for the sluttified Jenna Fisher. Personally, I prefer her slightly more demure if frumpy character from The Office. The four young gentlemen behind me in the theater apparently disagreed, vocally approving of her scantily clad-“ness” and decolletage so I guess that was the goal.

Surprisingly, the songs are pretty strong. Although the songs are chock full of double (and maybe even triple) entendres, they do sound like songs The Man in Black might have actually sung (Especially “Guilty as Charged”). Most of them (I liked “Let’s Duet”) are clever enough, so I’ll give them a pass.

The best part of the movie is spotting cameos: Is that Harold Ramis? Dude! It’s Frankie Muniz! Is he old enough to be in a rated-R movie? Jack White makes an awesome Elvis (although he was actually channeling Johnny Bravo more than the King)! How’d they get Eddie Vedder, Jewel, Ghostface Killah, Jackson Browne and Lyle Lovett? Come on, does Jonah Hill have to be in ALL Apatow’s movies? Is that really Justin Long? Who knew he, Paul Rudd , Jack Black and Jason Schwartzman made such a great Fab Four! They (especially Paul Rudd as John Lennon) were the highlight for me. I would kill for a Beatles documentary starring these four.

If you must see it, Walk Hard is better off as a DVD viewing, if only because the male frontal nudity would be much smaller and much less in your face. Only slightly better executed than the Scary Movie series and the like, it only reminds you how much better Ray and Walk the Line were. It would have been significantly better if the same cast got together made a straight-faced fictional biopic (but not parody).

Note to casting directors: I can handle a lot of SNL stars making the jump to movie. Kristen Wiig, Chris Parnell (both in this movie) are fine by me and then there's the gold standard of cross overs, Will Ferrell. However, Tim Meadows just can't hack it on the silver screen. Sorry Tim. Go back to Rockefeller Center. I'm sorry.

Juno, 5/5

2008-01-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

Rated PG-13. Click for the traile r.

Between Juno and the DVD of Knocked Up, I've seen more than my fair share of women peeing lately. That awkward moment out of the way, I loved Juno. It is a heart-warming, funny, earnest and pitch perfect gem of a movie. Seeing this movie just 24 hours after enduring Bee Movie just emphasizes how good it really is.

If you've even seen a poster, you know the story. 16-year-old Juno, played by Ellen Page, gets pregnant and hilarity, awkwardness, dirty looks and heart warming ensues. This isn't just a teenage version of Knocked Up (although that film was sweet and touching in it's own way). It's smart, contains substantially less profanity, and feels like it really could happen.

The superb cast rounded out by Michael Cera (Paul, the father of Juno's child), J.K. Simmons (Juno's father) and Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the prospective adoptive parents, make this movie work.

Ellen Page is quirky but adorable. Judging by the way she talks and acts in real life, she was born for this role. She makes is it easy to see why Paulie (and the dumb jock who makes fun of her) are both smitten, and she delivers more razor-sharp one-liners (check out the video below for a taste) than you can shake a stick at. (Wow, two cliches in one clause... I'm on a roll!)

No one could play the geeky cross country runner Paulie Bleeker like Cera, who plays a slightly more mature if more shy version of George Michael Bluth from Arrested Development. He plays the awkward but earnest guy better than anyone I can imagine, and that includes my own perception of myself sometimes. Whether it's in Arrested Development, Super Bad or Juno, he nails it. I fear he is going to be typecast, but that's just a risk we're all going to have to take.

The same high praise goes for Mr. Simmons who hits a home run just as he did Thank You for Smoking and the Spider-Man Movies. I could sit and just watch film of him reading the newspaper out loud and thoroughly enjoy it.

As much as I love him, Jason Bateman (also of Arrested Development) does a fantastic job of behaving like a massive tool and although Jennifer Garner's character gets on your nerves at the beginning, you grow to like her and want her to be happy.

The writer, Diablo Cody (seriously, Diablo?), does a marvelous job of "keeping it real" without succumbing to cliches. (SPOILERS AHEAD.) Juno's father and step-mother, although not exactly thrilled with the news ("I was hoping she was expelled, maybe a DUI. Anything but this.") They are both very supportive and loving. It would have been so easy to cut the step-mother out the stereotypical "wicked" cloth, but she supports and defends Juno to a fault. Juno's best friend, a picture-perfect cheerleader, also should have been a two-timing witch according to typical movie formulas but she is a genuine, helpful friend. We expect Juno, strong young woman that she is, to go it alone without any support, but instead she has a pretty solid support structure. Paulie is supposed to get angry with Juno at some point in the movie only to rush in during the delivery help Juno because her step-mother and father are tied up in traffic but he doesn't and they don't. Cody gets bonus points for giving Juno a hamburger phone.

I hate to keep bringing up Knocked Up, but Juno and it both bring about a discussion of abortion. In KU, Allison decides to keep the baby because she sees the heartbeat and maybe perhaps as an act of rebellion against her mother (I just watched Judd Apatow's commentary). Juno actually takes steps toward abortion but is put off by the depressing decor (and clientele) of the clinic (honestly, is that the best word?) and the knowledge that the little "sea monkey" inside her had fingernails. The knowledge that a fetus has a beating heart would be enough for me but wow, the fingernail thing really gets you for some reason or another. (Anatomically, I'm not sure if that's true about the un-born baby having fingernails. It seems to me that would be one of the last things to develop.) Judd Apatow said he isn't necessarily for or against abortion (or "schma-schmortion"), just that there wouldn't be a movie unless she kept the baby. I don't know Ms. Cody's personal feelings either, but I can't help but pray these two movies, in their own, weird ways, convince at least one woman to save the life inside her. Jamie Lynn Spears was photographed leaving Juno the day before she dropped her bombshell on the world (I'm extremely embarrassed I know that) and you can't help but wonder if that was a tipping point for debate about keeping the baby.

The credits and soundtrack both have a Napoleon Dynamite feel which isn't surprising considering they're both Fox Searchlight Films (as are Garden State, Little Miss Sunshine, Thank You For Smoking, Waitress, The Darjeeling Limited and The Namesake). God bless you, Fox Searchlight.

Also, sit down and watch these hilarious PSA's with Cera and Bateman.

Bee Movie ,.5/5

2008-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

Rated PG. Click to view the trailer.

The "Bee" in Bee Movie (we're working with phonetics here, people) could stand for blah, bland, banal, boring or barf. Then again, it also stands for (b)lame, (b)crap, (b)unimaginative, (b)weak and (b)retarded.

I genuinely like Jerry Seinfeld so even through Bee Movie didn't sound the most cerebral of films, I went into it optimistic. I can't say I'd rather be stung by a bee, but I probably would opt for a single mosquito bite than be forced to pay $3 at the (3) Dollar Theater to see this again. Jer, you let me down. You too, Matthew Broderick. Ferris Bueller ought to know better.

Rotten Tomatoes has Bee Movie listed as 53 percent fresh, which is not good. But with jokes like, "She's bee-utiful" and "none of your bees-wax," I'm flat out impressed they're ranking the double digits. The movies is just so... I don't know, blah. It's everything Shrek, Robots or any Pixar film is not. It's dull, both as in not exciting and as in not sharp. That's probably the best way to describe it: dull. The animation is dull too. Imagine yourself as a child and your watching those old, crappy, generic, non-Hanna-Barbara/Looney Toons cartoons, you know, the ones with the non-Porky the Pig? That's Bee Movie, accept the colors haven't faded and the audio isn't blown out.

I won't even both with the plot, other than to say it's dull. The movie gets minor bonus points for including Sting (HA! GET IT? STING? HOLY CRAP, THAT'S HILARIOUS BECAUSE HIS NAME IS STING AND BEE'S STING! WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING?) and Ray Liota, but it's far too little to salvage this train wreck.

Go rent A Bug's Life and thank me in the morning.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, 3/5

2008-01-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

Rated PG. Click to view the trailer.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is nothing but a silly re-hash of a knockoff (of The Da Vinci Code). Roger Ebert describes the hole-ridden, fantastical plot as "not only playing tennis with out the net, but also without the ball and rackets."

He's right, but who cares? No one is going to see NT2 unless they've seen and enjoyed the original and that automatically makes them a perfect candidate to enjoy this film, despite its many and obvious faults.

Director Jon Turteltaub and the cast of the original reunite with their various expertise to sift through clues and dodge the aforementioned plot (if not pot) holes. These include Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates; Jon Voight as Ben's father, Patrick Henry Gates; Diane Kruger as the sexy Library of Congress staffer, Abigal; Justin Bartha as the scene-stealing smartmouth assistant, Riley; and Harvey Keitel as the trusting FBI agent. There's also a minor character played by Armando Riesco. He nor his character are amazing, but it's fun to remember him firing flaming arrows at Zach Braff and Natalie Portman in Garden State. With a new national treasure to find, it stands to reason we must get new characters and we do. They include Ed Harris, who surprisingly is a worthless excuse for a villain and some generic guy to play the President of the United States. How do we know he is the commander in chief? He wears an ugly blue blazer that tells us so. There's also Ben's mom, Emily (Helen Mirren), who just happens to be a scholar of pre-Columbian Aztec languages (hmm... that might come in handy later). She also shows an alarming amount of cleavage for a 62-year-old.

On to the plot, or what I can remember of the plot. Gates' great-grandfather is fingered post-post-post-post-posthumously as the mastermind of the Lincoln assassination. To prove otherwise, Ben flies a miniature helicopter around Paris, breaks into the Queen's office in Buckingham Palace, pimps his wife (I think she's his wife) out to break into the Oval Office, kidnaps the president (in the blue blazer), discusses colonial architecture with his captive (the prez studied architectural history as an undergrad, dontcha know), releases him (don't worry, he's picked up by a trucker), breaks into the Library of Congress, escapes with literally the entire FBI on his tail. Somewhere in there are two planks hidden in desks written in an ancient language (I've got a C-note that says its pre-Colombian Aztec) that presumably will tell us that Cibola, the fabled "City of Gold" is hidden in the hollowed out base of Mount Rushmore.

Along the way there are gun shots, reconciliations, knowing glances, pithy one-liners from Riley, tired, determined stares from Cage, underground floods and skeptics that just keep getting proved wrong.

\NT2 is just as stupid and unbelievable as the first, but is also just as fun. Even though I only gave it 3/5, I recommend it. It's not going win at Cannes and I won't be buying or even renting the DVD, but it's a universally fun movie that was well worth the price of matinee ticket.

Darjeeling Limited, 3.5/5

2007-11-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Rated R. Click to view the trailer.

To say Wes Anderson's movies are quirky is like suggesting that turkey might go well with those mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce you've got sitting on the table. It's an unnecessary understatement, and it should be no surprise that like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited bears the distinct Anderson touch: It's self-aware, quietly funny and touching with just a taste of the bizarre and magical. It also bears the distinct Anderson casting call, starring, among others, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray and Angelica Houston (although the latter are relegated to fairly tiny roles).

The three brothers, Francis (Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Schwartzman) set out on a spiritual journey roughly a year after their father's death. They have not dealt with their emotions and they tote their father's emotional and literal baggage (Louis Vuitton baggage... Pop must have been loaded) as they journey across the Subcontinent towards what they hope is peace and a reunion with their nun mother on the Indian "luxury" train, the Darjeeling Limited.

The three of them are each damaged in a physical or emotional way. Jack suffers from a broken heart, Peter fears his soon-to-born son will ruin his marriage and Francis, well he has a broken face. Their conflict and injuries threaten to derail (weak pun intended) their journey as they lie to each other, confide in one another, share medications, and bicker about who should wear the pants - I mean belt - in the family.

Owen Wilson's bi-polar character takes on a new realism given his real-life suicide attempt and Adrian Brody acts so well with his eyes. That I was continuosly focused on them and not his nose is remarkable. I can't complain about Schwartzman's performance, other than to say that personally, a little bit of him goes a long way.

At first the concept of these three very distinct looking actors as brothers bothered me, but as the story unfolds, it became very easy to believe they've spent a lifetime loving and hating each other. They effectively build a three-way love-hate relationship that only rival siblings can know. My second favorite line in the movie takes place as Francis and Peter fight:
Francis: I love you! I love you!
Peter: I hate you! I hate you!
Jack: I love you both but I'm going to mace you!
My favorite line is also the most clever:
Peter: There's been a lot of Indian giving in this family.

The Darjeeling Limited is full of beautiful and straight forward yet subtle metaphors. At one crucial point, the brothers lose their way spiritually and physically as they are kicked off the train. At another, the three are spiritually reunited by a baptism of sorts and funeral that allows them to reconnect and deal with death in a way they would not or could not at their father's. Still another is the trio's moment of salvation (so to speak) when they finaly let go of their baggage (again, literal and figurative) and choose to truly live.

Anderson uses the setting of India and her people in a very tasteful and quiet way. He obviously made a conscious effort to avoid stereotyping and it pays off by allowing India to exist quietly in the back ground as naturally and as comfortably as if the movie took place in your own hometown.

My screening (and most screenings if I'm not mistaken) included the 13-minute "prequel" film, Hotel Chevalier. HC is a totally different type of story, even though it stars Schwartzman and the woman who gave him the aforementioned broken heart, played by Natalie Portman (Portman appears in the main feature for just 2-3 seconds). It more or less exists on its own and the information we're given only slightly enhances our knowledge and background of Jack and perhaps makes him seem like the artificial star of the main movie. HC isn't so much to advance the main story, as it is to allow Anderson a chance to direct a totally different type of film without creating new characters or seeking more financing.

Across The Universe, 4/5

2007-10-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13. Click to view the trailer.

It’s hard to think of another movie with such a thin plot that I so heartily recommend nor one that I can’t wait to see in the theater again as Across The Universe. Then again, such is the nature of the musical. No one has ever accused Andrew Lloyd Weber of weaving masterful plots and a person either loathes or adores Grease. So when Julie Taymor set out to direct a two-hour, 13-minute musical, she could have down worse than to shoehorn a plot into The Beatles’ catalog.

The plot: Artistically minded Jude (Jim Sturgess), leaves Liverpool searching for his father and ends up befriending Princeton dropout Maxwell (Joe Anderson, who reminds me of a young and slightly less smoky Denis Leary). To answer your questions, yes, Maxwell does at some point make use of a silver hammer. No, it doesn’t come down on someone’s head. The two young men move to Greenwich Village apartment teeming with such characters as the Janis Joplin-esque Sadie (Dana Füchs), guitar hero JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy), the love-lost lesbian Asian cheerleader Prudence (T.V. Carpio) where they are soon joined by Max’s idealistic and naive sister Penny Lane no wait... Eleanor Rigby, no wait... Lucy! It's Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood)!

Jude and Lucy hook up just as her brother is drafted and Lucy’s activism against the war drives a peace-shaped wedge between her and Jude. Even though the ending is clearly visible from miles away, the plot that more or less flows from one song to the next is enjoyable enough as is very ably acted. Imagine Moulin Rouge (sans the big name stars) set Vietnam era New York with a soundtrack scored by John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Still, you’re not going to slap down your hard-earned $12.50 to see another Vietnam Era War on the Home Front story. You’re in it for the Fab Four. You won’t be disappointed. A list of the songs we get to hear and see:
• I Am The Walrus
• Girl
• Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
• Hold Me Tight
• Because
• All My Loving
• I Want To Hold Your Hand
• Something
• With A Little Help From My Friends
• Oh! Darling
• It Won't Be Long
• Strawberry Fields Forever
• I've Just Seen A Face
• Revolution No. 9
• Let It Be
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps
• Why Don’t we do it in the Road?
• Come Together
• Across The Universe
• If I Fell
• Helter Skelter
• Dear Prudence
• Happiness Is A Warm Gun
• Flying
• Black Bird
• She’s so Heavy
• Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
• Blue Jay Way
• Hey Jude
• Don't Let Me Down
• All You Need Is Love

(Personally, I would have loved to have seen them work in Eleanor Rigby, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.)

Talk about a killer soundtrack. I know some consider The Beatles’ music sacred and shun any tampering, but Across The Universe gives us some amazing covers. Upbeat pop songs such as I Want to Hold Your Hand and If I Fell are given slow, soulful treatments that highlight just how beautiful and transcendent the songs’ lyrics truly are. By using music different than the original masters by The Beatles, the composed words truly shine. Let it Be is more or less out of place, juxtaposed with Detroit race riots, but I defy you to hear it and not be moved to the verge of tears.

All the main cast take a stab at the McCartney-Lennon songbook and they largely succeed. Sturgess sings with a thick Liverpool accent and it would have been very easy for his performance in particular to fall into Beatles imitation or worse, parody. Luckily, he carves out his own niche – despite his mop top – and does a good job handling his songs.

As an added bonus, we get to see Bono, Eddie Izzard and Joe Cocker make musical as well as acting cameos. Bono is the best as Doc Roberts who leads the cast on a magical mystery tour on a bush that would make the Partridge Family blush with shame. Eddie Izzard takes on Mr. Kite (in a scene looking like Monty Python plus Jim Henson on acid) and Cocker does double duty as a pimp and “mad hippie” (though he does not sing With a Little Help From my Friends… this isn’t The Wonder Years).

As mesmerizing at the music portion of the film is, a few words must be devoted to Across The Universe’s visuals. This is probably the movie’s weakest link. Once too often Taymor takes the easy way out and shows 1960s turmoil using psychedelic swirls and exploding colors. A little bit of this goes along way. I’m not sure where I stand on her use of puppets and makeshift animation. It is an obvious homage to The Beatles’ movies, but it stuck out to me. On the other hand, the underwater shots are gorgeous and scene where the military indoctrinates Max is genius, with ghostly Uncle Sams singing "I Want You!" A scene depicting bleeding strawberries is terrifyingly beautiful.

Considering the backdrop of the Vietnam War (I’m thinking of a poignant scene where soldiers literally carry the Statue of Liberty through rice paddies) and the setting in peace/protest movements in 60s, this movie is remarkably a-political. The movie largely ignores the issue and routs songs like Revolution No. 9 in a mainstream direction.

The bottom line? Go ye therefore and watch Across The Universe before it’s too late and it’s replaced by a screening of the latest Dane Cook movie.

A rough cut

2007-10-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

I now unleash my movie reviews upon the world (two regular readers)! MuWaHA-HA-HA!