Michael Cera is inspired to be bold by Portia Doubleday.
Michael Cera carries the burden of his familiar presence lightly enough to keep from wearing out his welcome. InYouth in Revolt, Cera (familiar from Juno and Superbad) again follows in his own footsteps, playing a baby-faced high-school kid who’s afraid he’ll die a virgin.
Obviously, we’ve been down this road before, but director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl and Chuck & Buck) works hard to provide some fresh views, an effort that probably leads to the movie’s overly generous helping of eccentricity. It’s possible to argue that Youth in Revolt is too quirky by half, but it does offer some real laughs with Cera doing double duty as Nick Twisp and Francois Dillinger. Nick is a high-school student with limited social skills; Francois is Nick’s alter ego. A figment of Nick’s imagination, Francois encourages Nick to assert his independence.
What motivates Nick to rebel in extreme fashion, practically burning down an entire Berkeley block? Nothing less than love — with some lust thrown in for good measure. When Nick’s divorced mother (Jean Smart) and her low-life boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) drag him off to a trailer court for a vacation, Nick meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday).
Suddenly, Nick’s life turns around. He finds a potential love interest, although a variety of obstacles clutter Nick’s path. Sheeni, a teen-age Francophile, has a preppy boyfriend (Jonathan B. Wright). Her parents (M. Emmet Walsh and Mary Kay Place) are born-again zealots.
The supporting cast proves more than equal to Arteta’s off-kilter approach. Fred Willard has a nice turn as a naive political activist, and Steve Buscemi shows up as Nick’s increasingly exasperated father. Adhir Kalyan does nice work as one of Nick’s horny pals, a bright kid who speaks fluent French. Ray Liotta tilts nasty as a cop who starts an affair with Nick’s mom and then tries to discipline Nick.
Arteta uses bouncy animated segments for scene-to-scene transitions, and keeps the movie moving. If the comic ideas don’t always play out in hilarious fashion, you at least get to see what Willard might look like if he happened to eat one too many psychedelic mushrooms. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that it’s not a pretty sight. It is, however, a funny one.
Heath Ledger standing tall before the looking glass.
There’s no shortage of imagination in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but when it comes to other matters — a compelling story for example — the movie is running on empty. Less a movie than a tribute to visual abundance, The Imaginarium can succeed only for those who find a portal into its dense and impacted world. Count me among those who couldn’t.
Look, I’ve rooted for Terry Gilliam ever since 1981 when I interviewed him in connection with Time Bandits. In the middle of that interview, Gilliam, who was working on a room-service lunch at a Denver hotel, belched. He followed this untimely expulsion of gas with a mischievous giggle. As this otherwise insignificant episode suggests, Gilliam has an ability to turn odd moments into infectious comedy; he also fearlessly follows his many muses, sometimes driving his movies into muddy ditches of confusion. Such is the case with the exhaustingly muddled The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.
Watching The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus — notable for being Heath Ledger’s final movie — is like being in a room with a brilliant conversationalist who delights in going off on endless tangents. You admire the skill and effort, but after awhile, you just wish he’d shut up. Many of Imaginarium’s most severe critics have called the movie “indulgent.” I’m not sure that goes far enough in capturing the spirit of Gilliam’s visually dense cornucopia of chaos.
The movie’s confusion also extends to its casting: Four different actors wind up playing the same character. Tony — the character in question — becomes a pawn in the efforts of Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) to win a bet with the devil (Tom Waits). That’s a reasonably epic conflict, but amid the bric-a-brac of Gilliam’s movie, Parnassus’ bout with the devil seems more fussy than Faustian.
Gilliam didn’t begin with a collaborative approach to casting. The use of multiple actors for a single role stems from the fact that Ledger died before the film was completed. In his stead — Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell signed on to finish the work. Having others fill in for Ledger — ghoulish guest shots — isn’t quite as disorienting as it sounds, but it doesn’t quite do the trick, either.
The movie arrives marked by an unhappy coincidence that seems to have unsettled most critics. The first time we see Ledger, his character is suspended from a hangman’s noose, a macabre reminder that the fine young actor no longer dwells among us. Saved from death, Ledger’s Tony joins Dr. Parnassus’ traveling troupe as it bounces around Gilliam’s depressing cityscapes, contemporary London filtered through Gilliam’s imagination.
When not rattling around London, the characters enter an overblown fantasy world that’s reached via a portal located on the stage used by Dr. Parnassus to present his revue. No more need be said about the story; it didn’t seem to matter all that much to Gilliam, and I certainly didn’t give a hoot about it, either.
A friend who had seen Dr. Parnassus before I had a chance to preview the movie told me that it was bad, comparing it to Gilliam’s woeful Brothers Grimm. I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but I had plenty of trouble finding a way into The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a movie that’s less an entertainment than a display of … well …. er …. I’m not sure I know what.
Tracy and Hepburn they’re not. Cage and Mendes share a moment inWerner Herzog’svery crazy Bad Lieutenant.
Despite its title, Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is only a distant cousin to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 movie — also called Bad Lieutenant. Ferrara’s movie starred Harvey Keitel as the world’s most depraved detective. The new version stars Nicolas Cage as an equally corrupted cop, but one who doesn’t seem to have time to plumb any Dostoevskian depths.
I’d just about given up on Cage, tagging the former Oscar-winner as an actor who appears mostly in the kind of big-ticket movies that have words such as “National Treasure” in the title. But Cage gives his chops a real workout in Bad Lieutenant.
For his part, Herzog — whose career includes both features (Nosferatu and Fitzcarraldo) and documentaries (GrizzlyMan and Encounters at the End of the World) — comes closer to mixing his sensibilities with a straightforward story than he did in 2006’s exciting but more conventional Rescue Dawn.
Part genre exercise and part goof, Bad Lieutenant revolves around Cage’s performance, which is every bit as insane as his character. As a homicide detective with back problems, Cage’s McDonagh snorts cocaine, has a prostitute for a girlfriend, steals drugs from people he threatens with arrest, fraternizes with murderers and smokes a fair amount of pot.
With his shoulders tilted at a sea-saw angle and his face looking as if it’s about to implode, Cage turns himself into a reptile with a badge, something that has crawled out of New Orleans’ post-Katrina waters and can’t shake off all the muck. Assigned to investigate the execution-style murder of a family of five, McDonagh sinks deeper and deeper into reprobate ways. Occasionally, he hallucinates, imagining that he sees a couple of iguanas on a table, for example (Granted, it’s a small field, but Herzog includes the best shot of iguanas with musical accompaniment ever filmed.)
As is the case with any self-respecting neo-noir, plenty of minor characters round out the cast. Eva Mendes plays a hooker who McDonagh keeps supplied with drugs. There are also bookies, gangsters and every other imaginable form of human slime.
Perhaps because he couldn’t quite decide whether to be serious or grimly funny, Herzog walks the fine line between both extremes. He also makes sure to include scenes that etch themselves into noir memory: McDonagh depriving an elderly woman of her oxygen exemplifies the movie’s mean-spirited lunacy. As Cage unleashes a sneering rage that’s almost cartoonish, the scene becomes an exercise in shock and macabre humor.
Usually, I hate a movie with several endings, which is the case with Bad Lieutenant. Herzog can’t seem to let go of this character, and, by the end, I understood why. McDonagh allows Herzog to make a movie that feels as if it has been composed of jazz-like improvisations, riffs so harsh they turn into a kind of warped comedy, something like the rude, low humor of a honking saxophone.
In Denver, Bad Lieutenant wasn’t screened in advance for critics, so I had to catch up with it over the weekend. It’s a seriously twisted movie, which — at least in this case — is a good thing. In New Orleans, Herzog and Cage seem to have pushed each other toward a wild, dangerous and often-funny collaboration. They’ve made a movie that lives proudly on the fringe.
The long list of technical credits for James Cameron’s much-hyped Avatar don’t pile as high as the stacks of money the movie surely will earn, but they do attest to Cameron’s ability to push the medium to its limits. Like Titanic, Avatar will be a box office bonanza, prompting multiple viewings among fans and producing a stream of devotees who believe the movie’s encompassing use of 3D and masterful deployment of motion-capture techniques will revolutionize moviemaking as we know it.
At minimum, Avatar seems destined to become a touchstone for geeks everywhere, and five minutes in, you certainly can see why it took Cameron four years to complete his elaborate sci-fi fantasy.
For more than an hour, I found myself wondering whether Cameron hadn’t achieved what he hoped, a full immersion in a world so compelling, it sweeps you away. But the movie kept on going — two hours and 40 minutes — long enough to expose its deficiencies: the over-ripe pulpy dialogue, the juvenile thinking and the obvious and dated references to such politically explosive matters as Vietnam and Bush era foreign policy.
Avatar’s catalog of effects, which carry the picture a long way, range from industrial-strength macho to Tinkerbell ethereal. And, I swear, I thought of both George Lucas and Walt Disney while watching Avatar, not quite the right references for those us who prefer Cameron in his grisly sci-fi mode, a la The Terminator and Aliens.
The thematic underpinnings of the story can’t be regarded as one of its strongest points: Avatar pits imperialism, materialism and greed against the natural purity of an indigenous population on the planet Pandora. Ravenous corporate earthlings — in cahoots with the military — want to trample the planet, regarding it only as a source of the mineral unobtainium. I’m not making up that name, by the way. Unobtainium? Why not something even less subtle? How about greedium?
The locals — aliens called the Na’vi — live in Pandroa’s forests and are in tune with the natural environment. Cameron imbues the Na’vi with many of the idealized qualities with which Earth’s indigenous populations so often are romanticized. They love of nature and understand how to live in harmony with animals, even ferocious ones. Forget selfish individualism. Among the Na’vi, there’s much talk of “the people.”
Like Titanic, Avatar also revolves around a love story. Sam Worthington plays Jake Scully, a Marine whose legs were paralyzed in combat. Jake arrives on Pandora to replace his late scientist brother. Because Jake shares DNA history with his brother, he’s able to complete his brother’s mission and become an avatar, a creature created by mixing human and alien DNA. A human subject climbs into a sleeping chamber, dozes off and emerges in the wilds of Pandora as an avatar, in this case as a member of the Na’vi tribe, 10-feet tall creatures that look like humans, although they still have tails.
Once propelled into the world of the Na’vi, Jake — or more precisely his Na’vi avatar — is able to walk and run. The Na’Vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes a liking to Jake and initiates him into the ways of the Na’vi, which include learning how to merge with the spirits of other creatures (it’s done by linking tails), riding prehistoric-looking beasts and generally adopting a greener-than-thou attitude. The Na’vi may appear primitive, but their intelligence is more geared toward survival than that of the earthlings, who already have despoiled their own planet.
At times, Avatar almost seems like a fairy tale — assuming you like fairy tales that come fully equipped with bruising battles and thudding heavy machinery. The jungles and floating mountains of Pandora are richly imagined, and state-of-the-art 3D tends to pull you into the world that Cameron so painstakingly has created.
The movie raises questions that are less than groundbreaking. We know that Jake will fall for Neytiri and that he will face a moral dilemma. Will he side with the Na’vi or with the corporate militarists — led by Giovanni Ribisi (as a heartless businessman) and Stephen Lang (as a Marine officer)? Sigourney Weaver signs on as a scientist who believes that the way to win Na’vi hearts is through understanding and diplomacy. She wants to bond with the Na’vi; the corporate guys want to break them to pieces.
I wasn’t bored by Avatar, but the longer it wore on, the more it became apparent that the thinking behind it can be as simplistic as the movie’s technology is complex. And even that wouldn’t matter if it didn’t seem as if Cameron was taking himself so damn seriously. I guess when you’re able to raise somewhere around $300 million to make a movie, ego inflation is inevitable.
And after the revenue-producing triumphs of Titanic, who really believed that Cameron would be content as the self-proclaimed king of only one world?
Well it’s that time of year again. The time when everybody creates a top 10 or best of list for 2009. And of course I will throw in my thoughts to the mix.
In terms of movies there isn’t a lot to say. Most of the drivel from Hollywood is what we have been getting for quite some time now. Half thought out revisioned remakes of ideas done far better in the past. That goes for the revisioned comic books, movies, television shows and books that all hit the silver screen this year. But, against all odds there were a few movies that were actaully worth the money.
1. Watchmen - How could you not see this film? It was the rare exception of Hollywood taking a great story (from a comic graphic novel) and not revisioning it. The result was a beautiful and shocking twist on the concept of what is a superhero.
2. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - the kids are almost all grown up. The film continues the saga of Potter and friends, and it’s still an interesting fresh movie several films into the series. The acting continues to improve and the story is modeled well after the books.
3. Angels and Demons - How can you go wrong with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard in a movie based on a Dan Brown book? It wasn’t the DaVinci Code, but it sure beat the flood of films this year.
4. Sherlock Holmes - Yes I know it’s not out yet. But I’m willing to bet on the acting ability of Robert Downey Jr. In addition his choices of films has been among the best in the industry. movie trailers can lie (and often do) but I’m willing to go with the talent and say this will make the cut.
And those are my top movies of 2009. But if you were wondering, here are the movies that made the most money (which has nothing to do with the quality of the film):
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - a movie only matched in its stupidity by the amount of CGI onscereen at any time. This is proof that hype can overwhelm quality if you throw enough money at a marketing campaign. $402 million
Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince - Number 2 on my list, it brought in $301 million. Proof that quality can make money too.
Up - Parents love to take kids to animated films. This one happened to be worth the time as well. $293 million
The Hangover - the surprise hit of the year. I never saw it, it seemed to sophmopric to me. But it brought in $277 million so there must be something to it. Likely to produce a sequel of some sort next year.
Star Trek - This revisioned make-over of the classic original television series was lauded long before it hit a single screen. But after seeing the film I found it more stilted than Shatner doing poetry. If this is the future of sci-fi I feel really bad for the next generation. $257 million. Revisionist sequel guaranteed.
A couple of other notable film revenues for the year:
Twillight: New Moon - just a question, has anyone over the age of 25 seen this film? No one I know over 25 has. $256 million and another film sure to come.
X-men Origins: Wolverine - Destroyed a great idea and character for big money. The only thing good about this film is the payday it made for Hollywood. But a sequel will happen to continue the pain. $179 million
Fast and Furious - Even Vin Diesel can’t save a bad idea. Though it did make enough to guarantee Deisel will continue to star in a few more films. $155 million
GI Joe Rise of Cobra - Hype wins again. An insulting film that makes you want to see Wolverine again. Only exceeded in stupidity and boredom levels by Transformers. Sequel will happen even though anyone above 6 will cringe. $150 million
Angels & Demons - It made a respectable $133 million. Not bad for a sequel, though more was expected.
Terminator Salvation - Not the best continuation of the series. Christian Bale made a good John Connor, but the rest of the film was lazy and as bleak as the future it redises in. But the story ain’t over yet. $125 million
Watchmen - Number 1 on my list only made $107 million. Perhaps it was just too much for audiences to take in. Especially compared to the low-brow low-quality films that topped the money list.
Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail - Love or hate Perry 2 things are true. He is the biggest boost to getting Black actors in movies since Sidney Poitier and he makes money. What will Madea do next? $90 million
Michael Jackson’s This Is It - The last tribute to the King of Pop. $72 million and it really isn’t even a film.
Land of the Lost - People went to see this? $49 million
Notorious - The worst thing about this film is it probably made enough money to spawn equally bad expoitive cash grabs. $36 million and I have to wonder how doing anything (including sleeping) wasn’t better than the film.
Pink Panther 2, Old Dogs, Halloween 2 (revisioned remake), SAW VI, Fame (revisioned remake) - I’m just amazed that none of these films, though all bad, did better than Notorious. I really hope that doesn’t mean a trend of dead rapper movies.
Well that’s my list, what do you think? Did I miss anything?
One of the more interesting films to be coming out in 2010 is something that no one expected. It’s a Black film - not by Tyler Perry - about a family dealing with the death of the patriach of the family. This is a comedy, so don’t think you can’t see it. And oddly enough it’s a remake (in parts word for word) of a British film of the same name that you probably never heard of.
Death at a Funeral is a film starring some of the best Black comedic actors (and comedians) around now. But don’t think this is a film only for African Americans. This looks to be a film that everyone can see and laugh at.
Chris Rock looks to be making a strong showing in this film as the son trying to keep his family from imploding, or exploding, or getting exposed (literally), at the funeral of his father. Martin Lawrence is his single, womanizing, more successful brother, and favorite of his mother. These 2 men are at the center of a whirlwind of events that make it clear why tragedy is the mirror twin of comedy.
When I saw this tralier I was just laughing out loud. The timing looks to be superb. The jokes are just spot on. The acting looks like everyone wanted to make this work.
The film also stars Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, James Marsden, Regina Hall, Loretta Devine, Zoë Saldaña, Kevin Hart, Luke Wilson, and Ron Glass. And as I mentioned this is a remake, but in an odd twist on things Peter Dinklage who starred in the original British film will also be in this version.
Now as I mentioned this is a remake. Which sets it apart from the ususal Hollywood trend of revisioning a film. Thus it does not suffer from the pain a revision inevitably creates for an audience. This is also the 2nd remake of the film as there was a Bollywood version of it as well, which again is odd (since the film came out in 2007) but also is a clear indication of the comedy in the film.
Even though the American version contains numerous scenes that are verbatim of the original, the differences between the English stiff upper lip culture and a more animated African American culture makes this copy fresh. Still I want you to know where the ideas come from. Here is a movie trailer from the original
Either way, a film touching on the taboo of homosexuality in the Black community, while injecting the humor of the dysfunction that is family, and including the cast that it does is worth the time. I have to say the thing that really sold me on this film was the following line that is at 2:18 on the movie trailer
“Let me get this straight. Our father was romantically involved with a guy that could fit in his pocket… And you’re mad because he’s White?!” - Chris Rock to Martin Lawrence
Ok, so Tiger Woods has a couple of girlfriends on the side. NO shock, so do most men with his kind of fame and wealth. If he were a rockstar or actor no one would be surprised. But this is a family matter for him, so I won’t speak on the subject further. Celebrities and enetertainers deserve some degree of privacy too.
Moving on to other news I have no problem speaking about, Wall Street 2 is getting ready to hit theaters in 2010. Oh the joy. The theme of this movie? Greed is legal.
Yes, Oliver Stone has made the sequel to the very good 80’s film. It will again star Michael Douglas as the powerful and successful Gordon Gekko. But this time Gekko is not the massive power broker he was in the first time. No the banks are the ultimate bad guys.
This falls directly in line with the views of extremist Stone. It also happens to be right in line with the ultra-liberal tone that Hollywood has been promoting for years now. But the question is if this will make a good movie?
Since about 2000 or so, Hollywood has increasingly made movies that are more political propodanga with filler than movies the public can enjoy. Not that politics has been something foreign to films. Dr. Strangelove is anti-war, anti-nukes, and against the cold war but it was still entertaining. Lions for Lambs, War Inc., and dozens of other recent films that no one watched in theaters of DVD are anything but entertaining.
From the sounds of what Oliver Stone has been saying, Wall Street 2 is more akin to War Inc. than the original Wall Street. It sounds as if it will be yet another film that pushes Stone’s political agenda a the cost of the tickets audiences will pay. Which does not motivate me to see the film, which is a shame since I did enjoy the original.
“Wall Street can be the engine of capitalism” and create opportunity, Stone said to one student. “But they increasingly have not done that because there’s more money in speculation.”
That seems to sum up the view that the new film will be taking. It’s a warped and skewed overly simplistic view of finance, capitalism, and Wall Street but that is fine if that is not the movie’s theme. I don’t want to go to a movie to debate politics, I do that for a living. I want to see a film to be entertained.
Well here is what I understand is the plot of Wall Street 2. Gekko gets out of prison and is a reformed man. He sees an implosion on the horizon and tries to warn the industry, but is ignored since he is a convict. At the same time he is trying to re-establish his relationship with his daughter. His daughter wants nothing to do with him.
His daughter is engaged to upcoming hedge-fund trader Jacob (Shia LeBouf). Jacob’s boss gets killed, possibly by the top boss of the fund (Josh Brolin). Jacob wants revenge.
So Gekko decides to help Jacob in exchange for help with his daughter. Cue the laugh track, or whatever.
I’m bored just writing the synopsis. Considering the views of Stone, and Brolin, I don’t get a good feeling about the film. Thinking of Gekko as a powerless good guy doesn’t work for me. The fact that the simplistic acting skills of Shia LeBouf are the driving force of this movie (to attract younger moviegoers) is another strike against the film. Oh, Charlie Sheen is reported to have a cameo too.
Still the trailers are not yet out. But some stills are available.
If this were a stock, I’d buy the leap put option.
Let’s say that you are a Hollywood executive. So between meetings deciding where you can eat dinner and get the most peer attention, and where to drink to get the most peer attention, you have to figure out a movie to greenlight for Hugh Jackman to be in.
You could:
A) Read through the pile of original scripts that you have been using as a makeshift coffee table
B) Look through your son’s comic book collection
C) Keep watching Nick-At-Nite since you are overstimulated and can’t sleep more than an hour a day anyway
Sadly for Hugh Jackman, or at least his agent, the option picked in real life was C. Thus we have yet another revisioned remake of a Twilight Zone episode coming to a theater near you. Not that the horrendous revisioning of Button Button - in theaters now as The Box - had any influence on the decision.
Yes, Jackman will be starring in Real Steel. A rip-off of the Twilight Zone episode Steel that aired on October 1963 and was based on a short story from 1956. That episode starred a real great actor, Lee Marvin. It was a tale of indomitable spirit and optimism. It was gritty and Black & White. It is so old that whichever Hollywood exec is completely sure that movie-goers by large will have no idea it’s yet another copy of a television show episode (not even a series).
Such is the dearth of ideas that Hollywood is willing to take a chance on. Their quest of “bankable” ideas matched with popular entertainers trump any real effort at providing entertainment more often than not. But at least this is not yet another sequel or comic book to movie conversion or video game to movie conversion.
The premise of the film is basically the same as the Twilight Zone episode. It’s the future. Boxing is now relegated to only androids. Jackman is the owner of a run-down android that is his last chance at success. The theory of the film, as stated so far, is that this will be a Rocky-esque film. I suppose that means the underdog will win even though there is no reason in creation why anyone would ever believe it should happen. Then again there is always the thought
Look, Jackman is ok. But a boxer? Unless he has a crazy intense workout schedule nowhere near believable shape. Especially if they follow the Twilight Zone script and have him fight a machine. Lee Marvin was a WWII Marine Scout Sniper vet with a purple heart. Jackman is a teen heartthrob (ok, maybe to ladies older than that too). Jackman is basically the guy that is the butt of the Eddie Murphy joke (just taller and Australian).
And all of this says nothing of the filler that will be thrown into the movie to fill up the time that is outside of what was already in the Twilight Zone episode. So roughly about 30 minutes of new material from writers that haven’t done anything truly original in decades. That worked out really well in The Box. I expect about the same here.
The only real hope of this film lies in the director. Shawn Levy is known for his Night at the Museum - which was decent - and the atrocious Pink Panther revisioning. That’s 50/50 odds, not including the fact that Real Steel is not a comedy. My hopes are not rising.
But there is time before the trailers come out (in 2010). Who knows, maybe a writer with a spark of originality might be hired as a Christmas gift to the public. Or more likely, accountants have figured out that it’s time for another great White hope, and theaters are the only place it will really pay off even if it sucks.
Well after being rumored and discussed by gamers for years, Prince of Persia has finally made the conversion to the big screen - no gaming system required. Yes another in the growing line of video game to movie conversions is coming for the 2010 movie season.
What we can tell from the trailer immediately is that much of the violence and gore that the game is known for will not be in the movie. That’s because this is a Disney film and will likely be targeted to the pg-13 rating target market. So that takes away from the story - if in fact the movie will follow the well executed script of the video game at all.
Beyond that revelation the big question is if this will be done well. Will it be some kiddie action flick pr something that adults and 20-something fans can really get into. Pirates of the Caribbean proved that a conversion film could do both. But there is no shortage of films that squander the source materials following and rich content. (think of Silent Hill, or more recently Resident Evil: Extinction)
The visuals of the film look big. Very expansive and rich in detail. There is no fear of CGI in this film. And some of the scenes look like the use of CGI plays out well. Though overuse of CGI tends to give me a feeling that a film is more cartoony than anything else.
We can also see that some of the gameplay elements of Prince of Persia is in the movie. The question with that is if these elements are just incidental items that work best in a trailer, or if they are integral to the movie itself. Generally in a conversion movie the answeer is more the former than latter.
Perhaps the one thing that really bugs me is none of the above. It’s the star Jake Gyllnehaal. He is matched up with Ben Kingsley who is a far superior actor (Bloodrayne excepted) and thus may not fare well in scenes with the 2 together. Add to that the fact that I don’t see Gyllenhaal as a Persian. He does not seem to have those qualities to me. Which makes sense since he is of Swedish decent. It may not be a big thing to some fans, but its a bit of a distraction seeing a Swede in Arabia as the main hero to me.
But if geography, and the expectation of seeing native populations in their homelands, is not something you ever pay attention to then the film should move along well. My guess is that the film’s plot will be about as engaging as Conan the Barbarian was. Not a great film, but good enough to watch without much complaint. Nor will you be bothered with remembering much of what the film was about 5 minutes after watching it.
None of this will stop the film from making at least $250 million worldwide. Much of that (maybe 35%) will come in the first weekend as fans of the video game, Gyllenhaal, action fans, and those interested in Gemma Arterton (probably best known for her role as Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace and soon to be seen again in the Clash of the Titans revisioning). After that weekend, I think the hype will be over and the buzz will reveal that this is an ok film but not much more.
So there you go. One of the first films of the 2010 summer blockbuster season.
John Cusack carries the weight of a crumbling world.
It’s getting more difficult to enjoy the end of the world — at least at the movies. I really wanted to like 2012, the latest orgy of destruction from director Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day). I’m shamelessly partial to disaster movies and have a strong tolerance for the melodramatic plotting and portentous dialogue that usually keeps them from greatness.
As a disaster enthusiast, I had big expectations for 2012 and for Emmerich, a proven master of the destructive cinematic art. Emmerich kept me happy enough, but not without making it impossible for me to suspend even the tiny amount of disbelief needed to carry his demolition derby across the finish line. 2012, I’m afraid, is another case of multi-million dollar effects and a two-bit script.
This time out, Emmerich takes his cue from the Mayan calendar, creating a “story” based on the notion that the world will endure a horrible cataclysm in 2012. Never mind that many scholars say the Mayans predicted no such thing; it’s a fine premise for a movie that wants to rip the guts out of the Earth and leave us trembling. Remember the quaint old days when destroying a ship (The Poseidon Adventure) or a skyscraper (The Towering Inferno) were enough to keep us riveted?
When it comes to global mayhem, Emmerich doesn’t disappoint. Great explosions erupt on the surface of the sun. The Earth’s core heats up. Neutrinos go wild. The crust of the Earth shifts, and before you can say “apocalypse for fun and profit,” the globe descends into unprecedented turmoil.
Against this backdrop of doom, Emmerich attempts to weave a variety of stories. This means he employs actors, many of whom are required to spout some of the year’s most banal dialogue. They’re also asked to gape in faux astonishment at the effects or scream like kids on a particularly precarious amusement park ride.
The movie’s main character is author Jackson Curtis (John Cusack). On a camping trip to Yellowstone, Curtis meets Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson). Harrelson plays a longhaired, hippie prophet who broadcasts his warnings over his personal radio station and who knows the world is coming to an end. He warns Jackson to gather his two children (Liam James and Morgan Lily) and flee Yellowstone.
For his part, Harrelson seems to be doing an impression of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now. If there’s a piece of scenery he leaves unchewed, I didn’t see it. Thankfully, Harrelson redeems himself in The Messenger, an upcoming drama about ramifications of the war in Iraq.
Considering that he’s making a gigantic B-movie, Emmerich populates his film with a competent and even impressive group of actors. Amanda Peet signs on as Cusack’s former wife, and Danny Glover plays the president of the United States, a job that he must have wrestled away from Morgan Freeman, who until 2012 seemed to have a lock on such roles.
Three cheers for British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who appears as a geologist and who succeeds in making the movie’s tripe-laden dialogue almost believable. Oliver Platt, another gifted actor, portrays the president’s cruelly pragmatic chief of staff, and George Segal signs on as musician traveling on a cruise ship that eventually will be consumed by the giant tsunami that engulfs the world.
At two hours and 38 minutes, 2012 is way too long. But the first hour provides the grim pleasures we expect from this kind of entertainment. Los Angeles falls into the sea; Las Vegas is destroyed. Ditto for Yellowstone National Park, Washington, D.C., Rome and Rio. These expensively mounted cheap thrills include great chunks of heaving earth, flying fireballs, crumbling skyscrapers and spewed volcanic ash. To add to the excitement, a small plane flies through storm-tossed skies carrying Cusack’s character, his former wife, his children and his wife’s new husband (Thomas McCarthy).
Never mind more details. Know, though, that if you expect anything in this mega-movie to make sense, you’ve taken leave of your own.
But wait. Maybe one thing about 2012 makes perfect sense: This destruction festival is designed to create a great rumble at the box office. Know what? It probably will. Devastation sells, and, I’ll admit it: Up to a point, I’m a willing buyer.
Michael Sheen coaches with style in The Damned United.
Years ago, I read a story about golf. The only reason I remember this particular article is that I eventually found myself at the end of it, a surprise because my interest in golf is roughly the same as my interest in illustrated medieval manuscripts. I can see why other people are intrigued, but I have no desire to follow suit. The story — by gifted Washington Post writer Thomas Boswell — made something interesting out of something that fails to make my meter race.
I felt the same way about The Damned United, a movie that takes place in the rough-and-tumble world of British football, known to us Yanks as soccer. I have no pressing interest in soccer, but found myself caught up in a story that uses professional soccer as an arena in which to examine what happens when a rising star overestimates his abilities.
The resultant kick toward reality may be predictable, but the way in which its developed proves entertaining and revealing, thanks in part to some wonderful British actors and to a script that reflects a deep understanding of the human capacity for hubris. I don’t know whether Peter Morgan’s screenplay — based on a novel by David Peace — is entirely accurate, but the movie’s take on the combustible combination of ego and big-time sports certainly rings true.
Damned United focuses on real-life coach Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), who became a British media star, so much so that he audaciously compared himself to Muhammad Ali. Clough, who died in 2004, saw himself as a man who could do no wrong when it came to soccer, and — for a time — he justified every bit of his brazen self-regard. In short, he won soccer matches.
It’s no surprise that Sheen proves perfectly matched with the role of a smooth operator who’s forced to learn the limits of his talent. The actor did equally strong work in The Queen and Frost/Nixon, movies Morgan also wrote.
Director Tom Hooper, who mostly has plied his trade in television, follows a career in which the youthful Clough is taken down a peg or two. In what I’d deem a brilliant move, Hooper concludes before Coach Clough earns his reputation as one of the greatest managers in British football history. Hooper must have understood the time-tested axiom: Failure generally proves a better teacher than triumph.
The story begins in familiar fashion. Clough kicks off his career by making a name for himself in the British backwaters. Jim Broadbent — does this guy ever hit a false note? — portrays the owner of Derby County, the team with which Clough’s rise to stardom begins. Broadbent plays a puffed-up managerial type, which means he doesn’t like to spend money. He’s ultimately bested by Clough, who insists on doing things his way.
Based on his success with Derby County, Clough was hired in 1974 to coach Leeds United, a glamor team with a phenomenal record. Former Leeds coach Don Revie (Colm Meaney) had moved on, taking command of the British national team.
Clough lived to surpass Revie, whom he regarded as a man who encouraged the kind of dirty play that undermined the game’s elegance. Clough might have fared better had he not moved to Leeds without the help of assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall). Taylor, we learn, played a major role in Clough’s success. Taylor lacked the flash that turned Clough into a celebrity, but he had an unfailing eye for talent. Left to his own devices, Clough never was able to take control of the Leeds team. His career sputtered.
Damned United is as involving a sports movie as I’ve seen in a long time, not because it shows us great soccer footage, but because it helps us understand the intricacies of character that drive men who try to prosper in the pressure-cooker environment of professional sports. This is one sports movie in which most of the sweating occurs off the field.
Well it’s almost a year to the day that I mentioned 2012, and one thing is certain. The hype surrounding that date, and likely this movie, is only growing with time.
There wasn’t a lot known in 2008 about this film - other than it would be the disaster film that might relaunch the trend in films (at least until 2012). It is sure to be followed by numerous other films based on exactly the same theme. The question is were the Mayans thinking of this film when they thought of how the world might end?
The latest movie trailer for 2012 looks like this
By the way, the words on the side of the number at mark 2:35 appear to be “Into A Place GUE[? not sure of this] Apocalaypse” which might be a reference to
“And he gathered them into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” Revalations 16:16
So it seems that the film is going to try to fit in several messages besides the CGI shock and awe. That is a bad sign though. When movies try for political or other messages generally you get crap like Lions for Lambs or War, Inc. (didn’t see them? No one did).
Given some of the imagery of the film, and who is in it, conspiracy nuts will likely love this film. I’m not knocking Danny Glover, John Cussack, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton or any of the other actors in the film - at least for their acting ability. But several of these actors are also known for their hyper left-wing political leanings and more than a few oddball beliefs. If this film is feeding into that part of their lives, well another big budget film that went that route is Battlefield Earth.
Add to that the facts of what the director has done, as I stated before
“The director is Roland Emmerich, who made Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla. Sadly he also made Godzilla, Universal Soldier, The Day After Tomorrow, and 10,000 BC. So the odds are only slightly worse than 50/50 on how well it will be made.”
But this film will probably do really well no matter what. I mean NASA is already trying to debunk the internet hype over 12/21/12. They have already made the case against a wayward planet hitting us, which I never believed. But as to the only issue that I do give some credence to, a shift in the polarity of the planet - well NASA is less believable.
Of course this film seems to be more than a magnetic shift of poles. It looks like it is based on the theory that the tectonic plates are going to move. Which makes for great CGI scenes, but hardly believable. And thus the film looks to be squarely fit next to The Day After Tomorrow - a horribly acted, unbelievable sci-fi scenario, that proved to be a bore and waste of money if you paid to see it in theaters.
I said a year ago that we will have 3 years to mull the quality of this film. Having seen the full trailer and noting the hidden message(s) already available, I don’t think it will take 3 years. Unless there is more to this film than what the movie trailer - which is meant to provide the best reasons to see this film - has shown, this is a film to avoid until the world ends. Which is a shame.
Well maybe the next 2012 disaster film, soon to be released no doubt, will be better.
So what happens when you have several old actors, a couple that never made it big time, and a few newbies thrown in for the hell of it? Well you could make a film that has been done a dozen times before.
Armored is a film we all have seen before. It’s a heist film. Which means it’s the same as Heat, or the Sting, or even a major sub-plot for The Shield. The question is really, is this a well done version of the same old thing?
As can be seen, the film is looking to convince with a couple of interesting tidbits. There is the influence of Laurence Fishburne, and Jean Reno. There is a bit of the old in Matt Dillon resurfacing in a major film after decades of straight to DVD films. Plus there is Skeet Ulrich, the go to guy for looking like you have Johnny Depp in a film.
The concept is simple and obvious. An inside job, planned to the very detail. Except a detail comes up that was never considered. And there is where the film will be made or broken.
This is not a deep film with a massive twist from start to finish like Inside Man. This is not a bad versus even worse like on The Shield. It isn’t a catchy slick con like Ocean’s Eleven. It isn’t even cops and robbers like Heat. It’s just how bad people can get like Treasure of the Sierra Madre. (hope you saw all those films to get what I mean)
The questions that hit me are far from the movie trailer itself. Is this a film that Lawrence Fishburne had enough time to really commit to since his work on CSI? Is this a good film that just doesn’t fit the summer blockbuster season, or is it a fill-in until Oscar season yet better than the ususal January throw-aways? Will Matt Dillon finally make the comeback he has been hoping for or is this another cable standard?
None of the questions I pose are the ususal ones asked about a film by the general public. Still they all reflect the quality of the film. In all likelyhood I expect this film to do 2 things:
Justify the desire to have a nice thriller/action film before the feel good and Oscar (boring) contenders come out
Keep the audience busy for 1 1/2 hours of their life
Now I will add to this. I felt the same way prior to seeing Inside Man. I came away from that film far more rewarded than I went into it. Low expectations can be a good thing when you get a quality piece of film. But low expectations are more the norm from the copycat and derivative nature of Hollywood films these days.
Still I think that this might live up to more than what it looks like. There are far too many good actors for me to think this is just a throwaway. The trailer is not filled with just random action impling the lack of a plot. It almost asks you to see it to be sure exactly how good it might be.
Would I see this instead of Ninja Assassin? No. But I would see both films. The only thing is that I am pretty sure what I will get from Ninja Assassin. I’m not as sure this will be worth the $20 a ticket. Though it at least seems like it might be, which is better than most films out around this time of year.
Tom Hardy as Bronson, a performance you won’t soon forget.
Bronson is not the story of Charles Bronson, the tough guy actor who starred in Death Wish and who died in 2003. No, Bronson is a souped-up portrait of a man who acquired the reputation of being the most violent prisoner in Great Britain.
Michael Peterson, the man in question, was given the name Charles Bronson while working as a bare-knuckle fighter in British clubs and back alleys. But Bronson isn’t known for his employment record. He’s known, the movie informs us, for having spent 34 years in the slammer; 30 of them in solitary confinement.
If Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s film has it right — and it feels as if it does — Bronson’s proclivities go beyond those of ordinary criminals. He’s depicted as an uncontrollable force of nature, a man who takes his violence seriously.
Refn seems to regard Bronson as a theatrical presence in a mundane world; perhaps that’s why he interrupts the film with sequences in which Bronson appears on a stage, addressing an audience. For his part, Bronson tells us he always wanted to be famous. The real Bronson has written books and shown works of art, but on screen, he remains a kind of unredeemed savage. You get the feeling that if you met him, you’d be afraid. Very afraid.
Sometimes, an actor will do things that go well beyond easy comprehension. In playing Bronson, actor Tom Hardy gives just such a tour de force performance: It’s a feat of extreme physicality and unremitting will. As portrayed by Hardy, Bronson seems resistant to any kind of help. This is a man whose DNA seems coded for anti-authoritarianism.
To support his actor, Refn puts other skills on display. Cinematographer — Larry Smith — knows how to compose an interesting shot, and accepts Refn’s challenge of mixing the brutal naturalism of prison scenes and the stagey artifice of theater scenes that sometimes have Bronson talking directly to the camera; i.e., to us. He also uses music that often goes against the grain of his images — from Verdi to Wagner to Puccini and the Pet Shop Boys.
Bronson’s life plays out in vivid bursts. At one point, he returns to the civilian population, having served a stint in an institution for the criminally insane. He quickly falls in love with a woman (Juliete Oldfield) who’s engaged to someone else. He begins his fighting career.
But Bronson soon returns home; i.e., he’s back in jail. Bronson seems poised for redemption — and the movie seems headed for cliche — when an art teacher (James Lance) notices his talent. Even the justly skeptical warden — a cerebral Jonathan Phillips — begins to buy into the idea that Bronson may have the right stuff for reclamation. But Bronson remains true to his idea of himself, and the movie retains its integrity. Here’s a man who never met an opportunity he wouldn’t willfully screw up.
Bronson isn’t for everyone. It’s not for those who require psychological explanations of behavior. It’s not for the squeamish. And at times, the picture comes on like a flurry of Bronson’s punches. Bam! A little biographical information. Bop! Some prison mayhem. Bam again! Bronson on stage trying to turn himself into a form of primal entertainment.
However Bronson ultimately defines itself, it’s anything but dull. Refn makes the most of Hardy’s performance. And when the movie’s finally done, you may feel as if you’ve been in the ring with a heavyweight who has gotten the best of you. I’m not entirely sure what you’ll learn from the experience, but you won’t soon forget it.
Judging by his reputation, Michael Jackson had many personalities. We got a glimpse of one of them when we learned about Jackson’s personal Xanadu, Neverland Ranch. We saw another when Jackson was forced to drag himself into a Los Angeles courtroom as the cable TV cameras rolled. Over the years, we watched Jackson grow up or maybe we watched him not grow up, but in the broadest sense, two Jacksons seem indelibly sketched on a pop canvas that spread over four decades: Michael Jackson, freak and Michael Jackson, entertainer.
It’s the latter Michael Jackson who’s on view in This Is It, an exciting concert film assembled from more than 100 hours of video footage shot during rehearsals for Jackson’s London show, the one he was on the verge of opening when he died last June at the age of 50.
Shot in high definition and equipped with a masterfully recorded soundtrack, This Is It reveals little about Jackson, the man. It’s not so much a backstage documentary as an on-stage documentary, a series of performances, many of which seem fairly polished. It makes you wonder. Maybe for Jackson, there were no off-stage moments.
Of course, there are rehearsal-level compromises. The dancers and Jackson mostly aren’t wearing the costumes that were being prepared for the show, and at various times, Jackson sings softly to preserve his voice. He also gives instructions to his keyboardist and musical director, telling him to play a lick as if it were dragging itself out of bed. At another point, he asks for more funk from a bassist, but there are few unguarded Michael moments on view.
Expect no diva-like tantrums or major revelations. What you get is music and a taste of how lavish the show might have been.
Late in the proceedings, Jackson introduces an environmental theme: He expresses a love for trees that would have made Joyce Kilmer blush. This environmental rap sounds as if it had been recorded elsewhere and slipped into the film to allow for a transition to a performance of Jackson’s Earth Song.
Still, it’s almost as if director Kenny Oretega — who also directed the stage production — knew that a documentary eventually would emerge from all the video footage, which we’re told at the outset originally was intended for Jackson’s personal use.
Skillfully combining footage from various rehearsals, Ortega gives us relatively seamless numbers, where none may have existed. And Jackson fans will take a musical journey that includes favorites such as Thriller,Billie Jean, Man in the Mirror and even a splashy tribute to the Jackson Five.
Those unfamiliar with Jackson’s concerts may be surprised by the scale and apparent expense of productions that become inseparable from the music. Thriller, for example, mixes live performance and 3-D horror footage shot for the occasion. Smooth Criminal makes use of Rita Hayworth’s sultry performance of Put the Blame on Mame in Gilda.
There’s also lots of dancing — from Jackson, as well as from dancers who seemed thrilled to have the opportunity to perform with the King of Pop and who serve as a kind of impromptu claque when Jackson performs alone.
I’m not sure how This Is It would have stacked up against other Jackson tours, but the movie is entertaining, and it does justice to Jackson, the entertainer.
Is there something exploitative about a film that follows quickly on the heels of Jackson’s death? Probably. But This Is It serves as a reminder that whatever else Jackson may have been, he was one hell of a performer. His fans will turn out, and I doubt that they’ll be disappointed. I wasn’t.
It’s hardly a secret that women will go to great lengths and incur great debt in their quest for beauty. In the case of many black women — or so we’re reminded in Chris Rock’s funny and insightful Good Hair — hair straightening is a major expenditure within the black community. Rock, who can be sharply funny, says he got the inspiration for his documentary when one of his daughter’s asked why she didn’t have good hair.
Motivated by the knowledge that “good” hair too often means straight or fine hair, Rock decided to take a camera and look into the issue. His effort results in lively conversations with a wide range of folks — from Maya Angelou and Al Sharpton to actresses Nia Long and Kerry Washington. Rock also introduces a variety of processes and products — from hair straightening to hair extensions, and he wryly points out the expense involved. At one point, Rock learns that a teacher — not among the highest paid of professionals — is willing to spend $1,000 for hair extensions. Hey, she got off cheap; some women reportedly shell out as much as $4,000.
Rock clearly thinks that devotion to what might be deemed mainstream — make that white” standards of beauty is crazy, but he finds plenty of humor in his hair affair. He also does a bit of traveling, visiting Dudley Products in Greensboro, N.C. and the Bonner Bros. International Hair Show in Atlanta, a convention-like affair that boasts a contest in which hairdressers compete to see who can whip up the most creative hairdo. Rock even travels to India where human hair is collected for use in weaves.
It’s difficult to listen to a researcher talk about the potency of hair straightening products without wondering why women would put themselves through the torture of using a substance that has industrial strength potency, but the movie understands that when “beauty” is involved, no amount of suffering is too extreme — at least for some women. Besides, attempts to alter a look can be addictive; one woman refers to her hair-straightening products as “creamy crack.”
Good Hair has two impressive things going for it: Rock, who’s one of the funniest comics in the business and a subject that proves both fascinating and revealing. Good Hair leaves us marveling at how crazy things can get when it comes to what grows on women’s heads, and it encourages us to think about the values inside those heads — and how they may have gotten there in the first place.
Remember when a regular guy stepped up and took on the mega-corporations in a movie. There was no end to coverage in the media and support for the film created a career for Michael Moore. Since that time he has jumped up and down on the Conservatives of the nation, and most recently hypocritically denounced capitalism as he reaped rewards from it. All to acclaim from the media and Hollywood.
Because the media loves when regular people step up and fight injustice and wrongdoing. At least that is what they claim.
When former Vice President Al Gore skipped around the world on private jets to promote global warming in his movie An Inconvienient Truth, the media lauded praise. The movie was instantly setup as if it were fact. It became a mantra for eco-fanatics and an instrument to dynamically change society across the world. Hell, they even gave Al Gore an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize (at least he did something to earn it).
Again the reason this film was promoted, with jet fuel being guzzled like gatorade, was because it was fighting a wrong. Or so we were told by the media and politicians.
But what if someone stood up and said, “hey, I think you got it wrong.” Well that would be fighting an injustice and preventing a wrong. The media should love it. They should be all over such a film, and praising its challenge to the big money of mega-ecology organizations. They should, but they aren’t.
The movie being ignored is Not Evil Just Wrong. You probably haven’t heard about it, since the media wants it to die on the vine. The film simply looks at the hype surrounding the “green” movement - especially global warming - and points out all the flaws. It’s a bit of honesty and prepercussions that Al Gore and others like him refuse to acknowledge.
Note the key things, which are fact. Al Gore has not answered a question about global warming in 4 years. Even as scientists are becoming more sure that global freezing is likely more of an issue than warming. When asked what he has done to correct the errors in the film he has shoved down the throats of schoolkids as fact (yes it was allowed to be shown - with a requirement that actual facts be presented with the film correcting those errors), he refuses to answer the question. In fact he hides behind the emotion of the danger to polar bears, mitigating the FACT their numbers have increased. Then he has his people shut off the mike to end the possibility of debate, the need to answer the question asked, or to prove his position.
This is what Not Evil Just Wrong proposes to address. The questions that the media REFUSES to ask. The FACTS that eco-fanatics refuse to acknowledge. And it does so not with guesses, it uses science and scientists to do so.
Further the film does something that Al Gore (and I believe Michael Moore) doesn’t. It provides the real full consequences of the actions taken. What happens when eco-fanatics get laws passed that change society. What will happen if they change things more?
If anyone believes in global warming (which I never have and continue to not believe) then they must - in my opinion - at least hear what facts and consequences exist against that arguement. They must be able to debate these findings without the crutch of emotion, to ensure that they are leading EVERYONE down the right path. Because if they can do so, then even those who disagree will join them in their efforts. But if they cannot, then we all must join together to find solution that really works, and not just make some people feel good at the expense of others.
I suggest that you see this film. Throw out every reason I have just presented. See this movie because Al Gore, the media, and the eco-fanatics are motivated to make sure you DON”T see this film. See this because they don’t want you to think about the debate. See this because they are trying to actively control your choices.
You may not agree afterwards, but like with President Obama’s attacks on Fox News, the question you should be able to answer is this
Why are they afraid to let you find out what is going on?
Remember something I have said often
“Liberals and the media are happy to have people say and do absolutely anything they want, as long as it agrees with them. The second it does not, they want it shut down and shut away. Isn’t that liberal of them.”
If we take A Serious Man as a guide, we can speculate that Joel and Ethan Coen view the universe in one of several ways: It is either godless, presided over by a deity who’s entirely indifferent to the plight of humanity, or, more probably, the work of a God who treats humans as if they were lab rats in an experiment that simultaneously serves as a cosmic joke.
Darkly funny and even gloomy, A Serious Man might be the most peculiar and least expected Coen brothers’ movie yet, a rueful meditation on the ways in which Jews suffer without benefit of consoling answers to angst-filled questions. The movie takes place during the ’60s in a midwestern suburb that supposedly resembles the Minnesota town in which the Coens were raised. In this case, the past becomes a hotbed of discontent.
Michael Stuhlbarg plays Larry Gopnick, a physics professor whose life is unraveling. Larry’s sweating out a decision by the tenure committee at his college. His wife (Sari Lennick) says she’s running off with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). His son (Aaron Wolff) listens to Jefferson Airplane and smokes pot. His daughter (Jessica McManus) is a typically clueless teen-ager. And those are just clips from the highlight reel.
Before the Coens arrive in this midwestern hell, they treat us to a prologue set in an Eastern European shtetl where the characters speak Yiddish. This mini-story (about the way in which a dybbuk or malicious spirit invades the lives of a hapless couple) sets the tone and allows us to toy with a frighteningly amusing idea: Woe can be transmitted through time. It can become an inheritance.
Larry’s story has been compared to that of Job, but it hardly seems to have the epic quality of Job’s travails. It’s Job in a shoebox. Besides, Job received a bit of divinely initiated solace at the end of his ordeal. No such comfort awaits Larry Gopnick for whom life has become a kind of loaded revolver, ready to go off at the slightest bump.
Troubled by his eroding sense of security, Larry seeks counsel from various rabbis. These encounters make for some of the movie’s funniest scenes, notably an interview in which one of the rabbis suggests that Larry look through the window of the rabbi’s study and find wonder in the parking lot. Of course, there’s wonder in all creation, but a parking lot?
Then there’s the story of the dentist who finds Hebrew letters on the back of a gentile’s teeth. Inexplicably, the letters spell out the words, “Help me.” It’s almost as if the Coens are standing outside each frame saying, “You know how absurd the world is, and you’re asking us for meaning?” In that sense, the picture is both a courageous comedy and sober rebuke.
Larry’s confrontation with suffering has a uniquely Jewish flavor. Why else contrast the man’s plight with the lives of his gentile neighbor, a scowling father who takes his son hunting or plays endless games of catch in the backyard? Larry looks at these “goyish” activities with the puzzlement of a space alien who’s unable to decipher the customs of Earthlings.
The laughter generated by A Serious Man can leave a bitter aftertaste, and some of the movie’s references may elude those who are unfamiliar with Jewish culture.
But the point remains clear: Much of what happens we’ll never figure out, although we know it has the power to torment us. The Coens are well attuned to the joke potential in such a statement. The audience for A Serious Man probably needs to share some of the Coens’ world view. And why not? After all, a joke without pain is a joke without bite and hardly worthy of the telling.
Surrogates is the latest film to feature Bruce Willis. It’s an action sci-fi combination that plays on familiar themes, and slips in a bit ot philosophy/politics when you aren’t looking.
Starting with the plot, it does have one. It’s not hard to follow and it is set-up well. The progrssion of AI and robotics eventually leads to the creation of human looking Waldo’s. Initally meant to be an aid to the disabled, it is adapted by the millitary and then consumer versions. The device becomes wildly popular and soon the entire world is using this. The ultimate couch potatoe luxury item for everyone.
Well almost everyone. There are humans that are against the idea. And they set-up conclaves within the U.S. and presumably the world, where no machinery exists. Essentially they are ludites.
All of this you probably got from the trailers for the movie. But the plot quickly moves around. We start with a murder, actually 2 of them, via the surrogate machines. Then we shift to a conspiracy to another one, and then to a love story, and finally to a moral dilema.
All of the themes work on a level, to an extent. But they all fail as well. The biggest problem is that you don’t feel like any side in this film is really all that compelling.
Ving Rhames character is a support role, but not very essential to the movie, though he is a key to the plot. In fact everyone except Willis is basically a weak minor support. Which would be fine, but the acting of Willis seems as weary and devoid of emotion as the surrogate robots the fill this movie world.
The special effects of the film are decent but not spectacular. The same can be said of the CGI scenes. Overall you geta bland feeling in looking at the various city scenes. Which is likely what was intended, as this is the effect of the surrogates.
Are there plot holes in the film? Many, and the pace of the film allows you time to wonder about them. Is there lots of gunplay and explosions? Not as much as you would thing. Though there are more than a few scenes of large groups of people being destroyed, except these are all robots so everyone is safe.
The big question of the film is, what makes us human? Is technology a tool for our benefit or a means of destroying us while we still live?
The end of the film is like the rest of it, a bit contrived and far too neat to be believable.
There is a bit of humor though in seeing what most of the characters really look like without their robotic counterparts.Not enough to make the film worthwhile but interesting for a few seconds. Similar to what we learn of the guy controlling the wife in the boring Gamer film.
There’s not much to say about Surrogates as there isn’t that much to speak about. The film is not compelling, you don’t really feel engaged at any point. Overall it was a decent film but not worth a movie ticket. I’d propbaly buy the DVD to keep up with my Bruce Willis collection of films, but that would be the only reason.
Nisareen Faour and Hiam Abbass play sisters in Amreeka.I love movies about the changing face of the U.S. I’m particularly partial to stories about immigrants who live in identity-challenging twilight zones; they’re not fully integrated into American society, and they may no longer fit into their countries of origin, either. For immigrants who arrive from the Middle East, problems are compounded by the hostility and prejudice they can face, particularly at times when anti-Arab feelings swell.
Amreekatells the story of a move to the U.S. by a divorced Palestinian woman and her 16-year-old son. They’re searching for safety and for new opportunities, and Amreeka deftly exposes issues they face as they try to adapt to a green-card lifestyle.
After arriving in the U.S., Mom (Nisreen Faour), skilled as a bank worker, can find employment only at a White Castle. Her son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) faces taunting by some of his more bigoted classmates. Faour’s Muna and Muallem’s Fadi land at O’Hare International Airport at about the time that the U.S. begins its invasion of Iraq, not the best moment for Arabs in America, even those, who like Amreeka’s mother and son, are not Muslims.
In many ways, director Cherien Dabis‘ movie is a chronicle of woe, yet Dabis — an Arab-American — has no taste for over-amped drama or hand wringing. Muna moves into the home of her sister (Hiam Abbass) and her husband (Yussuf Abu-Warda), a doctor whose patients are deserting him because he’s an Arab. The family faces a host of predictable problems: kids who are thoroughly Americanized and uninterested in tradition, bills that can’t be paid because the doctor’s income has declined, and growing marital tensions between the doctor and his wife.
Set in a suburb of Chicago, Amreeka follows Muna and Fadi as they navigate their way through a culture that doesn’t always make sense to them. Muna can’t quite penetrate the mysteries of White Castle, and Fadi’s adjustment is neither stress nor bump free, a shock to him because he initially thought life would improve drastically once he arrived in the U.S. Muna and Fadi also deal with homesickness and uncertainty about whether they’ve made the right choice by moving into a society that’s not eager to roll out the welcome mat for them.
Dabis, who’s not afraid to inject humor into the proceedings, seems more interested in describing the immigrant experience than in offering any prescriptions for her characters. They stumble along, doing the best they can. That means they’re a lot more like us than we initially might have imagined.
Not folks with whom I’d want to be stranded on an island.
Couples Retreat seems to have been designed to send couples out of the theater holding hands, reassured that it’s possible to rediscover the spark in marriages grown stale. I’m not knocking the message, but I do take issue with the messenger, a surprisingly toothless comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau.
Couples Retreat isn’t consistently funny, insightful or diverting, and it focuses on marriages that are of no special interest. There must be those among us who have been yearning to see frequent collaborators Vaughn and Favreau together again. Why not? They made what many regard as a landmark indie comedy, Swingers; they both can be funny, and both are talented. Together with Dana Fox, Vaughn and Favreau wrote the screenplay for Couples Retreat, which (as mentioned) isn’t particularly funny, insightful or diverting. Have I said that enough?
And while we’re on the subject of Favreau, it’s worth noting that he spends most of the movie looking as if his head’s about to explode. He’s playing a man with a clenched-fist where his soul should be. Favreau’s Joey has grown to hate his marriage to his high school sweetheart (Kristin Davis of Sex and the City.)
Joey’s only one of the movie’s miserable men. Jason Batemen plays another. Bateman’s Jason claims the spark has gone out of his marriage to his lovely wife (Kristin Bell). These two also have turned their love life into a chore, vigorously trying (without success) to conceive a child.
Using a power point presentation, Jason introduces the idea of a group trip to Eden Resort, a Pacific getaway that looks as if it was designed to lull even the most disgruntled of us into balmy satisfaction. (The movie was shot in Bora Bora.) But Eden is no ordinary resort; it specializes in helping couples renew their ardor, and, in service of this goal, employs therapists and yoga instructors who work for a guru-like disciplinarian named Marcel (Jean Reno). Sleep in? Hell, no. Couples therapy begins at 6 a.m., says Marcel.
Traveling with Bateman’s character are Vaughn’s Dave and his wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman). They’re happy and well adjusted — albeit a bit harried. Also in tow, Shane (Faizon Love), a heavy-set, divorced fellow who brings a 20-year-old companion to the island, Kali Hawk’s Trudy. She runs him ragged, embarrassing him by calling him “daddy.”
There’s something wrong with a comedy that casts Vaughn as the straight arrow in the group. It’s left to Vaughn, whose presence often suggests relaxed disregard for convention, to extol the virtues of marriage and of acting one’s age. Acting one’s age is fine in real life, but in Hollywood comedies, it’s tantamount to heresy. Maybe that’s why Vaughn and Faverau include a couple of scenes — one involves a guitar-playing video game — in which Vaughn’s character veers off his adult course.
Couples Retreat has been assembled by director Peter Billingsley, who works mostly as an actor and producer, and who, in this case, tries to make the most of the island scenery, giving the movie splashes of luxuriant gloss. Yes, it would be wonderful to stay in a hotel room that opens directly onto the ocean. Perhaps lulled by the tropical breezes of Bora Bora, the movie ultimately opts for happily-ever-after sentimentality.
A preview audience laughed at some of the bits, particularly a scene in which a yoga instructor (Carlos Ponce) twists the couples into quasi-compromising positions. I’m pretty sure I’d already seen that particular gag in the movie’s trailer or in a promotional clip. By the time I saw it in the movie, its hilarity quotient had greatly diminished.
I suppose one could call Couples Retreat, a middling comedy, but if I had a vote, I’d throw all these folks off the island. Only one performance struck me as memorable: John Michael Higgins plays a marriage counselor who’s annoying enough to be amusing. Otherwise, Couples Retreat manages a neat trick: It feels like a movie you’ve seen dozens of times before even though you haven’t.
Having watched Stargate Universe, and learning of the upcoming V revisioned television series, I natually started to think about the worst that Hollywood and the entertainment industry has provided viewers. The list I could imagine is hardly small. And I wasn’t the only one to come up with such a list.
It seems that the people at Rotten tomatoes had a similar thought. But I think the end of the decade had more to do with it than the latest slew of forgettable television fare. Still there is nothing like a list, especially of the worst as it confirms what you already knew.
I won’t go thru the list of the worst films of the decade. There are 100 and the list contains several of the films you would expect. I will give you the top ten worst films, and several I think should have rated higher on the list of the worst excuses to steal your money.
10. Witless Protection
9. Redline
8. 3 Strikes
7. Strange Wilderness
6. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
5. National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers
4. King’s Ransom
3. Pinocchio
2. One Missed Call
1. Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever
If you saw any of these films I really feel for you. I sadly saw King’s Ransom and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. The pain still haunts me in nightmares from time to time.
But the following I think were misrated on the list.
The New Guy - rated 94 was light on logic. laughs, or anything else, but it was cute in a 10 year old way. I wouldn’t have put it on the list, but I wouldn’t want to pay money to see it either.
Larry the cable guy: Health Inspector - rated 85. Any film with this character should be in the top 20 worst films ever, unless of course you happen to not have teeth, love moonshine, and got all your education when you finished 3rd grade.
Doogal - rated 83 should be much higher. In fact if there was a list of films for kids that should be illegal to show kids, this would be in the top ten. Truly, if you don’t like to abuse children then don’t show them this film.
Gigli - rated 73. It only made it to 73? The rest of the list has to be really bad.
The Fog - rated 66 is the first remake on the list. Considering how bad the first film was, why did they remake it anyway? Another in a long list of films proving why revisioned films suck.
BloodRayne - ranked 48. A decent game, a miserable movie. Bad writing, horrible acting, terrible action scenes. There is nothing in the film worth watching, except the leading ladies if you are pre-pubescent.
Zoom - rated 41 is really not that bad. I’m not saying it was a good movie, it wasn’t. But for bored kids that don’t have another choice on television or DVD this will work. it definitely isn’t worse than the films I’ve already commented on.
Codename: The Cleaner - rated 37 it is the Black equivalent of Larry the cable guy. Cedric may be many things, but he is NOT entertaining as a lead actor in any movie. Someone stop giving him movie lead roles.
The Whole Ten yards - rated 36. It actually deserves this rating. Nothing from the original film carries over to this film, made just to get your money. Bruce Willis slipped big on this one.
Rollerball - rated 28. Remake and revisioned. That is almost all I need to say. Perhaps it might have worked if the director and/or writers ever saw the original movie.
But I know what you are thinking. There are movies missing from the list. Notably:
Soul Plane - perhaps the worst film ever. At least the worst I have seen. It as so bad I had to fast forward through sections to stay awake.
Little Man - the Wayans family are generally talented. Shawn and Marlon are so bad in this film as to make you wonder if they were adopted.
Ghost Rider - the special effects were too good to put it on the worst list, but the acting and script really tried.
No doubt there are other bad films. I’m sure that the list of 100 had others I would have hated. Thankfully I did not see more on the list. And I can’t remember more horrible films at the moment (likely blocked from memory).
So do you agree? What do you think was the worst film since 2000?
Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner. One of them’s lying.
The Invention of Lyingis the most sweetly subversive movie I’ve seen in a long time, a sad-sack comedy that satirizes the mindset that’s required for a literal belief in a deity that presides over the world with an inflexible set of rules. As co-written and co-directed by Matthew Robinson and Ricky Gervais, who also stars in the movie, this assault on simple-minded fundamentalism sneaks up on you, making itself known only after introducing its arch premise.
Gervais portrays Mark Bellison, a screenwriter who lives in a world in which no one ever lies. Far from being an idyllic paradise of shared truth, this world is marked by an endless stream of agitated or insulting exchanges.
An example: Mark arrives at the home of Anna (Jennifer Garner) for a date. She greets him in chipper fashion, informing him that she’s sorry he’s a few minutes early because she was upstairs masturbating and hasn’t had time to finish. It doesn’t take long for Anna to tell Mark he has no possible future with her. Honesty, as we soon learn, isn’t always the best policy.
Not only is Mark unlucky in love; he’s also failing at his job. He works for a company that produces movies in the form of lectures. Mark’s specialty: the 13th century. He’s about to lose his position because no one believes that his production of the Black Plague will sell.
To make matters worse, Mark’s derided by his secretary (Tina Fey) and by a colleague (Rob Lowe) who regards him as a total loser.
The movie slips into its assault on mass gullibility when Mark discovers he’s capable of lying, a talent that gives him an unexpected surge of power. I’ll let you discover the consequences of Mark’s lie in the theater, but know that it turns him into a celebrity and part-time prophet.
Although he’s dealing with material that easily could have been overstated, Gervais maintains a disarmingly good-natured tone throughout. It was disrupted for me only by some obvious — if jokey — product placements.
The Invention of Lying is not geared to produce belly laughs, but Gervais compensates by putting some meat on its comic bones. You may leave the theater smiling before you realize exactly how far Gervais has been willing to go. How far? Let’s just say that his movie will not become a Focus on the Family favorite.
Wall Street doesn’t seem to be listening as Michael Moore calls it to task.
Here’s a shocker. Michael Moore thinks capitalism is evil.
Look, can there be any remaining moviegoer who doesn’t know what to expect from Michael Moore, the provocateur and self-annointed spokesman for the left? Moore’s shtick has become so familiar that reviews of his movies — his latest is Capitalism: A Love Story — almost seem superfluous. Moore’s supporters will laugh on cue; his detractors will comb the movie for factual inaccuracies, and another Moore “documentary” will come and go, leaving little in its turbulent wake.
This time, Moore makes capitalism his target, proclaiming that our vaunted free enterprise system is morally bankrupt. Moore finds several Catholic clergymen to endorse his evaluation of our faltering economic system, including two bishops. As if trying to upstage faith-bassd critics on the right, he invokes the name of Jesus. Moore’s Jesus loved the poor, warned the rich that they’d have a difficult time getting into heaven and never would have played the market.
Is our economy more complicated than Moore paints it? Of course. Are there brutal inequities that result from our economic system? Without doubt. Are there laughs in Capitalism: A Love Story? Yes. Among other things, Moore knows how to edit for yuks, and no one’s better at finding footage that makes his point.
Moore also serves up sights and sounds that will put a lump to your throat, notably sequences in which poor and middle class people endure forfeiture of their homes. It’s also instructive to listen to the surviving kin of workers whose employers swelled their coffers by taking out life insurance policies on the departed relatives. These policies have been dubbed “dead peasant” insurance, a designation that should induce nausea in anyone who works for one of these companies or buys their products. An employee dies; the company collects. Can there be a more ghoulish way to pad revenue streams?
As befits a scattershot effort, plenty in Capitalism connects. Watching workers at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors — they occupied their shuttered plant until the company paid what it owned them — is an inspiring example of what can happen when workers join forces.
I don’t know if the movie’s hits and misses are equal in number, but Capitalism: A Love Story fires off some awfully wobbly arrows. Perhaps to show how far removed from reality the current financial system has strayed, Moore introduces supposed experts who can’t explain complex financial instruments such as derivatives. Maybe they should have headed for Wikipedia where they could have found a serviceable enough definition:
“A derivative is a financial instrument that is derived from some other asset, index, event, value or condition (known as the underlying asset). Rather than trade or exchange the underlying asset itself, derivative traders enter into an agreement to exchange cash or assets over time based on the underlying asset. A simple example is a futures contract: an agreement to exchange the underlying asset at a future date.”
Moore evidently couldn’t find anyone capable of saying that. I first learned what a derivative was from my wife, who gave me a succinct explanation.
You get the idea. Moore can seem more interested in scoring points than in offering cogent explanations, an approach that helps if you believe that the U.S. is in decline. Moore begins by comparing life in the U.S. to the final days of the Roman Empire. Is that where we are? Really? Or are we at a point where U.S. power in the world is being redefined?
Actually, Moore’s politics — if you take a step back from the rhetoric and jokes — are pretty conventional. He’s pro union. He’s pro certain Democrats. He doesn’t like big business and opposes the privatization of functions better served by government. As an example, he cites a privately run youth detention center where the quest for profit led to judicial corruption and the incarceration of harmless teenagers.
Does it mean anything when Moore, as he does at the end of the movie, rings the New York Stock Exchange building with crime-scene tape? Only if taken as a kind of live-action political cartoon. I don’t know if Moore can draw, but he might have made a great political cartoonist because he knows how to make a point succinctly and visually.
Moore finishes with a call to action. He wants his audience to join him. But in what activity and for what purpose? Oh well, maybe it doesn’t matter. Moore’s always been better at stirring the pot than analyzing its ingredients. Unlike a lot of his contemporaries he’s not afraid to bite down hard, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t bitten off more than he or anyone else possibily could chew in a two-hour movie.
Juliette Lewis and Ellen Page are rivals in Whip It.
Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with Whip It, a film about roller derby and a young woman’s (Juno’s Ellen Page) arduous journey of self-discovery. The combination doesn’t make for anything startling, but results in a colorfully entertaining movie in which Page once again puts her considerable talent on display.
Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a young Texas woman whose mom (Marcia Gay Harden) insists on entering her in an endless string of beauty pageants. Bliss reluctantly accedes to Mom’s wishes, but only begins to find her place in life when she discovers roller derby during a night out in Austin. How anyone could be inspired by roller derby eludes me, but live and let skate, as the saying goes.
Bliss eventually finds her way onto a team, taking the name Babe Ruthless. Sure she’s small, but she uses her diminutive size to advantage, sneaking past other skaters to score points for her team.
It doesn’t require much savvy to know that Bliss will survive all the bumps and bruises. We also have a pretty good idea that Bliss’ dad (Daniel Stern) eventually will throw his weight behind his daughter’s choice. He’s the kind of guy who likes to drink the occasional beer and watch football. Bliss’ surrogate Roller Derby father appears in the guise of Coach Razor (Andrew Wilson): He’s always fighting with his charges, trying to persuade them to abandon their freelance ways.
It’s possible that the lives of the other derby women — Kristen Wiig’s Maggie Mayhem and Zoe Bell’s Bloody Holly — would have made for a more idiosyncratic movie, but Page’s character helps keep things on a mainstream track. Barrymore also appears in the movie; she plays Smashley Simpson, a woman who likes to bump her opponents off the track.
In addition to the tension between Bliss and her mom, a rivalry between Babe Ruthless and an opposing skater (Juliette Lewis‘ Iron Maven) ups the dramatic ante. Bliss’ best friend (Alia Shawkat) tags along for support until the two have a predictable falling out. Bliss even has a brief fling with a musician (Landon Pigg), an encounter that serves up another life lesson in a movie that’s full of them.
Transparent as its intentions are, Whip It is mostly enjoyable. Barrymore deserves credit for pulling off her first behind-the-camera effort. I doubt whether she’s a budding auteur, but she’s chosen crowd-pleasing material and proved that she can handle it.
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