Montag's Movie Reviews

The Grey: A Movie Review

2012-02-05T22:54:00.001-06:00

To jump right in, the grey is a movie about a group of men that survive a plan crash in Alaska and their struggle for survival as they are hunted by a vicious pack of wolves. Now, while that simple description does roughly cover the movie, it really does not do it full justice.

For such a seemingly simple concept, there is a surprising amount of depth to this movie. While the characters are not all that well fleshed out, the acting is quite solid so you still do manage to get a sense of them as individuals and there are some small glimpses into their lives here and there that give perspective on their motivations as they struggle to continue living.

This movie is not a fancy exercise of intricate story telling. The plot is very simple. But even so, it is striking and forceful. In the scene where the plane crashes, there's an incredibly visceral feel to it that I've not experienced in many other films. I've seen a lot of movies where they use erratic sound and jarring camera angles with frantic jump cuts to convey a sense of panic and confusion, but nothing like this. In fact, there are multiple scenes within the movie that just forced me to react because they just seemed so convincing as a result of good directing and cinematography.

To be clear: this is a movie for the guys. It's not a feel good affair and I honestly have difficulty imagining that many of the ladies would enjoy this and it is most definitely not a family film.

Oh, one final word: some people might find the ending very frustrating, if you do, make sure you stay all the way until the end of the credits. It makes a difference, believe me.

In Time: A movie Review

2011-11-06T08:26:00.001-06:00

   When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought to myself "this looks kinda neat, I think I'll enjoy it." So after that I promptly stopped watching any trailers for it and avoided all news media concerning it. Didn't even look on IMDB for the filmography. Yes, I review movies and remained willfully ignorant of as many of the pertinent details of the film as possible. Why you might ask? It's simple really, when I saw TRON, it was the same deal: I avoided being saturated by news media about the film like some of my friends and was thus able to enjoy the movie more than they did. I was actually really excited when Daft Punk showed up because I had no idea they were going to be in the movie.

Anyhow, what's this movie about? The simplest and fastest explanation is this: it's a dystopian future where time is quite literally money, and life. Everyone has been techno-organically wired with clocks that keep time, which they use as currency to purchase everything and also determines how long they will live. One of the side effects of the process is that no one ages past 25, which does make things kinda funny since you have no idea how old anyone really is.

   When I started writing this review, I finally looked up the filmography and found out that the movie was directed by none other than Andrew Niccol. Now this name probably doesn't mean anything to you and I don't blame you if that's the case. However, Andrew directed at least one film that is very near and dear to my heart called Gattaca, which is a terrific sci-fi gem from that 90's that quite frankly deserves a review of its own even now (at least I know what my next review will be). Oh yeah, he also directed the Truman Show if you liked that, I thought it was interesting at any rate.

     The two thing about Gattaca were that it didn't get a lot of attention at the time it came out and still doesn't have the kind of recognition I think it really deserves, the other thing was that it really got across an important message about bio-ethics without being heavy handed and preachy. This is reflected somewhat with In Time, where the message is about wealth and class. I feel it has some similarities to brave new world, but feel free to disagree.

So, the review proper: the acting is pretty good and the writing is solid enough for most discerning palettes I think. I've never really hated on Justin Timberlake too much, but I have to admit I was a bit incredulous about his skills as an actor until this realization dawned on me: he was able to fool entire hordes of teens into thinking his work was legitimate music for years; the man has definite experience in suspending disbelief. But seriously, he's a really solid lead in this and Amanda Seyfried is no slouch either (the fact that she's really hot doesn't hurt either). The action is not as intense as I would have liked, but it is serviceable and Timberlake's tongue-in-cheek attitude towards a lot of what happens is actually rather refreshing when compared with the usual smug self assured or dark archetypes of most action leads.

Final analysis: this movie is interesting and somewhat compelling, go see it and if you don't feel like there's an interesting message, just sit back and enjoy the eye candy anyway.

Colombiana: A movie review

2011-09-02T10:36:00.001-05:00

The story of Colombiana is pretty standard, but it comes from a writer and director that I like very consistently: Luc Besson. I've been following him more or less ever since he wrote and directed one of my personal favorites; Leon: The Professional. He also did The 5th Element and a bunch of other stuff I really liked, even the transporter trilogy, which admittedly isn't the most intricate storytelling ever, but its still a lot of fun.

But anyhow about the movie: it's got good acting, solid action, and reasonably good pacing. Some parts are a bit far fetched, but that's par for the course with a Luc Besson production. It is a little on the short side at an hour and forty minutes (most movies these days being 2 hours or longer) and that's good because it gets straight to the point and doesn't waste your time with a bunch of superfluous junk.

Admittedly there are a few shortcomings in the plot development and it feels a bit rushed and while that would be crippling for most films, it only ends up being a minor hindrance in this case. Some of this could be attributed to director Olivier Megaton (I thought that last name was funny too =P, if you've played fallout 3 anyway). He directed Transporter 3, which was a perfectly competent popcorn flick, but I think Colombiana needed a little more finesse than that to really be a success and sadly it just ends up being ok.

One thing I will say strongly in this movie's favor is that it has one of the most brutal and convincing hand to hand combat sequences I have ever seen. I really can't do it justice with words, you just have to see it for yourself.

Don't bother seeing this one in theaters, but definitely add it to your netflix queue.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: A funny movie review

2011-09-02T10:14:00.000-05:00

It's time for an indie movie review! What do you get when you mix classic gore/slasher elements with a comedy? Usually something pretty godawful and not worth mentioning here or anywhere else. However, sometimes, the slasher/comedy combo can be pulled off competently. Please note that all of the "Scary movie" entries are complete and utter failures and I have no idea how they made 4 of the damned things, the first one wasn't even that funny.

Fortunately I am glad to report that Tucker & Dale is a success story for slasher/comedy combos. Now admittedly I am getting to this movie a bit late, it was making the indie circuit about this time last year. However, indie films are a little quirky in when and where they're released (reference similar issues I had with Boondock Saints II). But happy days are here and I found this little gem amongst a rather large pile of dross whilst wandering through the cavernous expanse of the interblag...blag.....blag.....blag (this joke would probably be a lot funnier if I had audio, but I refuse to let you people hear my actual voice, sounds terrible over a mic).

So what makes Tucker & Dale a success? If I had to pin it on any single element of the production, it would be that the story at its core is quite simple: a single misunderstanding explodes completely out of proportion. There's no sleight of hand and no fancy tricks, just stupid people making assumptions based on fear. Now there's plenty of gore, but the way it ends up happening is actually pretty inventive and I won't spoil anything, but I think its good to see classic slapstick reapplied to the horror genre. God knows it needs an overhaul in the creativity department these days.

So anyhow, good fun romp, see it if you can. It will likely be available on netflix in the coming months.

Peace out everyone.

Captain America: The First Avenger :: A movie review

2011-07-23T00:40:00.001-05:00

So where to begin? At first I was a little apprehensive when I found out that they had cast Chris Evans for the role of Cap, since I've never seen him in anything all that serious and lets face it, Captain America is a pretty big deal. But I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by how things turned out.

In my opinion this may be the best Avengers movie yet. Blasphemy! I know! Thor didn't offer too much competition, but that really wasn't its fault since Thor has never had the most interesting plots anyway, unless you've got a real thing for Norse mythology or something. Please allow me to clarify though: Thor was not bad in any way really, it just wasn't great either and it just ended up somewhere in what I consider to be a respectable sort of middle area, being better than mediocre, but not as good as great. Anyhow, the Iron Man movies were good, but they didn't have one advantage Captain America uses to the fullest: a little thing called world war 2.

The other Avengers movies so far have had to struggle in some respects because they had to generate their in-film realities from scratch to a certain extent. In the case of Captain America, the cinematic reality has already been created many many times, I mean seriously, how many WWII movies do we have? And some of them were actually pretty good too. To it's favor, Captain America essentially has a very well made pre-rendered reality and atmosphere that's been built up from all the other WWII movies that have already been made. There is a wealth of cinematic information about how to make this type of period piece and it shows in the atmosphere of the film which feels both familiar and believable. There is one exception to this: I'm sure WWII history buffs that see this film will scoff at all the inaccuracies in this and every other WWII movie. But in my opinion, the reality of Captain America is very thorough and has plenty of depth.

One of the things I liked most about the movie was the casting. Not just the leads, and Chris Evans did pretty well, but maybe that's just because I was scared that he would perform terribly, but the supporting cast was one of the best I've seen in a while and in a superhero movie to boot! The character of Howard Stark is interesting and really helps to build the contiguous reality of the Avengers and I'm really happy for that, since continuity is going to be a big deal for the avengers going forwards. I must say Dominic Cooper was a solid choice for the role, but for some weird reason he reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio. Hugo Weaving is a terrific choice as the red skull (I am not spoiling anything, if you didn't know, you're just willfully ignorant at this point) as he has proven himself to be an excellent villain before in some other film I just can't seem to recall...........

So anyhow, the basic breakdown is this: good atmosphere, believable acting, solid action, and actually pretty good plot. Initially I wasn't sure how they were going to tie it all in with the other Avengers threads, but now it all meshes rather nicely.

Important notes: The 3D is pretty good, so it's worth the extra $3 or so in my opinion and you DEFINITELY want to stay after the credits and I mean ALL the way after the credits. It seems like they might have done the same thing that they did with the Hulk where they put the teaser right at the end, but they have a little something extra after the credits and it is AMAZING! Won't say another word about it.

So go see it, it's great and check it out in 3D, they did a lot better than they did in Thor in my opinion and being in 3D was supposed to be a big part of the ad campaign for Thor, go figure.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon:: A movie review

2011-07-02T02:05:00.001-05:00

So there are some things that I liked about TF3 [that's transformers 3 and not team fortress 3 (sorry to the team fortress fans)], and a few things that I didn't like. Right now I'm feeling in a dessert first sort of mood so I'll start with the things I liked. Number one: No Megan Fox. Now this may seem like a really shallow thing to give a movie points for, but any movie that previously had a Megan Fox infestation and finally had the good sense to see the doctor and get a shot of good decision making deserves points in my book. Rumor has it that when initial contract negotiations were taking place, Megan Fox was demanding more money and Michael Bay was like "ha yeah right." So miss Fox threw a tantrum and was then disappointed to find out just how valuable she really was to the transformers franchise (and much to my joy they went with someone else, who I personally think is better looking and a better actress, pouty lips and all).

The second thing I liked about TF3 was Alan Tudyk. Now let me be clear: I think that Alan Tudyk is a wonderful actor and an absolute delight when you put him in quirky roles that let him get a little whacky and just give voice to all the pent up nerd energy felt by the core demographic of this movie. If they had tried to make him a more serious character (which he is fully capable of, see Dollhouse), I feel like it would not have worked as well in this film.

The third thing I liked about the movie: the plot. Now please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying the plot was particularly good, I'm just saying it was there, it existed and it had some at least slightly interesting twists, plus it's always cool to hear Leonard Nimoy playing the voice of a transformers character. Plot was something that really wasn't very strong or even all that present in the first two movies.

Now on to the things I didn't like: there are really only two.

One: The movie was a bit on the long side, nearly 3 hours total running time.

Two: There just wasn't enough transformer action, it centered on the humans way too much, but hey what do you expect, we need to be able to relate to the characters (although Avatar proved that we can identify with non-human protagonists, if only from its massive box office numbers). Although on balance, there were tons of explosions and I did love that, after all, it's Michael Bay.

So, final analysis, it's probably the best of the transformers movies in my opinion and its certainly worth seeing, but I don't know about the 3D, so if you're feeling iffy about that, don't bother.

Peace out.

Green Lantern: Made of Fail

2011-06-19T02:35:00.007-05:00

If someone gave you $300 million dollars and said "Make me an awesome movie about the Green Lantern", you might think to yourself 'Ah, twice as much money as Thor and X-Men: First Class had - easy as pie!'. If you're director Martin Campbell and you've impressed everyone with movies like Edge of Darkness and Casino Royale, but secretly hate super hero movies and Hollywood producers with an insane cunning, and really want to make an expensive pile of fail, you'd have made "Green Lantern".

The short review - don't waste your money on this unless you *literally* have nothing better to do than watch paint dry. If you like comic books, or even just action movies, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Where to begin... I heard bad things about the movie, but I thought 'How bad could it be?'.

First things first. Ryan Reynolds. Generally known for playing slightly air-headed characters with a sense of humor and formulaic Hollywood looks. Star of fifty-two mostly forgettable movies. And this is the person you cast for a tent-pole blockbuster that is about as comedic as Schindler's List? The Green Lantern's romantic interest, Blake Lively looks good, but can only do so much with the steaming pile of dialog she's been handed. Peter Sarsgaard as the mad scientist turned-host-to-evil-from-beyond-space! does quite well as a somewhat sympathetic villain. Save Sarsgaard and Mark Strong to a lesser extent, it's a text book exercise in bad casting of middle-of-the road actors.

Second, 150 million for marketing, 150 million for production, that buys some seriously impressive CGI, right? I mean, all three Lord of the Rings movies had about 15 million less for their combined budgets and look at the CGI there. From a tragic airport field at night that resembles a ray-trace from 1983 to CGI characters with entirely humanoid features (the Guardians) that aren't even lip-syched to a monster with a face that looks like something out of a Saturday morning children's cartoon and is roughly as terrifying, it's an amateur effort all around. Then there's the Green Lantern himself - something about the human head on the CGI body looks off for the entire film, and you sit in the theater thinking about a floating head attached to a CGI body rather than an actual character.

Third, the dialog, characters and plot belong in a straight-to-DVD release. Credited writers Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg are most known for Dawson's Creek, Smallville, CSI: Miami and Bed of Roses, respectively. With an all-star team of writers like that... Oh wait. Right. Most of those are awful in terms of writing. It's almost as if someone set out to create an all-star team of the most cliched and bland writers they could get.

Super hero movies are experiencing a golden age - for the first time, CGI has gotten to the point where comic books can make the transition to the big screen and be something to actually take seriously and not just as entertainment for children. And for the most point, in no small part due to Marvell Studio's efforts - they've done so flawlessly. With a batting average far above Hollywood as a whole, a reputation for quality in an arena that has historically commanded little respect, they've succeeded far beyond the initial hopes of fans everywhere.

DC, Marvell's traditional rival in the comic book world, on the other hand, is doing their best to sink all of that to the bottom of the Mariana trench. With such efforts as Smallville and Jonah Hex, they're doing a bang-up job at that. The notable exception being RED, while not a fantastic movie, it was decidedly entertaining. The rest of their production credits read like children's entertainment. Oh wait, it is!

It all comes together like a perfect storm of fail, with DC at the helm of the SS Failboat assuring everyone that it will be a wonderful film as the viewers watch in horror as a giant wave of bad acting, horrendous plot and shambling dialog prepares to smash the entire ship to flinders. Even Ang Lee is laughing, because the title of worst big-budget comic book movie has been snatched from his grateful hands. If you don't see this film, you won't have to work to forget it. Save yourself the trouble and don't.

X-Men First Class: A movie review

2011-06-06T10:35:00.001-05:00

Lets kick this off with saying that X-men first class is the best x-men movie I've seen so far. The first two movies were ok and the third one and wolverine origins were utter dross. I have a sneaking suspicion that Marvel had a little more to do with this production than the last 4 films, even though the movie was produced through 20th century fox.

Anyhow, as for the movie itself, it's good. All the characters are interesting in some way and despite being mutants, they're very human in how they feel. The film is very much a social commentary on outcasts and social acceptance and the general close mindedness and fear that tends to dominate the average persons outlook when it comes to anything new or different. Aside from all that the film is simply very well done. I loved the casting, James Mcavoy was a great choice for Professor X, but even better than that was the choice for Magneto.

Michael Fassbender has really managed to capture what I think is the essence of magneto's character, especially for the age he's at in the film. He's full of angst and rage and rightly so when you look at it from a somewhat detached perspective. In a real way, Fassbender's portrayal of magneto really gets across that he's a tragic character. He's realistic about the limitations of people's ability to adapt to new things, but he can't get past his own experience enough to see that more peaceful options do exist.

The action is not as solid as I would have liked, but it is an origins story so that's to be expected. I have a very good feeling if they continue to make X-men films along this route, staying true to the spirit of the source material and not just making crap up from the minds of people who know nothing about the comics.

One thing I didn't expect from this film is that its actually somewhat moving and that's saying something for a super hero movie.

So final word: go see this movie, it's great.

Hanna: A movie review

2011-04-16T20:31:00.000-05:00

It's hard to know where to begin with Hanna. The movie certainly isn't what you expect and it definitely isn't what I'd call a feel-good film. At its core it's dark and edgy with a relentless soundtrack that's just a little heavy handed at times. If I had to pick any single guiding influence on this movie it would have to be Clockwork Orange, just because of the cinematography, pacing, and atmosphere. There is definitely a British feel to the movie, a lot of which can probably be attributed to director Joe Wright. Wright hasn't got a lot of work under his belt thus far, but what he has done has been good and he was definitely branching out of drama and into action going from easily recognized titles like Atonement and Pride and Prejudice to Hanna.

Hanna doesn't have any definitive problems as a film, the directing is fine, the cinematography is good and the plot, in spite of a few nagging holes, doesn't completely fall through at any point. The main thing I see as an issue for Hanna is that when Joe Wright went from drama to action, that gear shift was a little clunky. There are drama elements within the film that don't feel like they completely fit and some of the action sequences felt like they could have been much more aggressive.

One thing I would like to say strongly in Hanna's favor at this point is that although it was operating under a PG-13 rating, it didn't fail to make the most of its material. Where Sucker Punch made all these grand promises and simply didn't deliver, Hanna makes reasonable promises and delivers....... well to be honest something a little strange. From one point of view Hanna makes perfect sense and that point of view is that of Hanna herself. If you look at the entire movie from the context of someone who was raised in the wilderness with limited human interaction and no connection to the outside world, all the jarring, overwhelming and chaotic elements of the film suddenly make sense.

Just a few brief words on the cast here: Cate Blanchett is an excellent villain with a good amount of depth and substance given the amount of screen time she has, Eric Bana does well enough with the part that he has to play and our leading lady Soairse Ronan (something curious about that last name...hmm) turns in a solid performance for a part that must have been physically very demanding, if not a dramatic departure from work she's done in the past.

So bottom line: Hanna isn't for everyone, if you're looking for formula action or you hated Clockwork Orange, this isn't for you. I also wouldn't suggest this movie for younger audiences, even if it is PG-13. However, if you're up for something strange and different, Hanna might be just the trick for you.

Sucker Punch: A movie review

2011-03-26T23:36:00.000-05:00

If I was to describe Sucker Punch in a single word, it would be this: disappointing. Now the reasons for my disappointment aren't as simple as "the movie was just bad." On the whole sucker punch isn't bad per se, it had a lot of potential and it just didn't deliver on that, hence the disappointment. When I first saw the trailer, I thought "hey, this looks like an interesting idea and with Zach Snyder at the helm, it should be well executed." Now I will admit that I made a mistake in assuming the movie would be good just because a director I liked was working on the film. I've been disappointed before in cases like Kurt Wimmer and the award winning stinker Ultra Violet.

Admittedly, I should have taken a clue from the fact that Zach Snyder had only directed 4 full length films before working on Sucker Punch. 300 was sort of idiot proof because it had such a simple concept, although I know all the historians were booing and hissing fervently the entire time. Watchmen was really good and was even well received critically, but maybe that's only because some of the writing was done by Solid Snake......I mean David Hayter (who knew?). Just because a writer or director has some titles under his/her belt that you liked, doesn't mean that they will always put out solid material.

So anyhow, the movie itself is not bad, it just fails to make the most of what I felt was a significant amount of potential. The first and strongest item in the films inventory was its concept: young girl gets thrown into a desperate situation and copes with the stress by shifting her perception of reality. This concept is not wholly novel, Donnie Darko did the same thing in essence, but executed the concept more deftly because it had actual character development and a plot that felt like it had some actual depth. The problem with this concept in Sucker Punch is that very little is explained, which is fine, but then the pacing falls through. You have these brilliant set pieces for the major battle sequences, but you jump in and out of them so rapidly and it feels like its coming out of no where, so I end up not really caring about these dramatic shifts in perceived reality by the characters.

The pacing seems to speed up appropriately for the major battle sequences, but there just isn't any dramatic buildup or tension leading up to the event. Its just like: moving along, nothing too special, then.....holy crap! Fighting zombie Nazis! This sort of lag and jump is fine for video games where you as a player determine the speed at which events unfold, but it simply doesn't work for a movie. The dramatic portions feel like their only there to act as bridges between the giant battle sequences, almost making them seem superfluous.

When I first saw the trailer, I made a prediction of sorts that the movie would rise or fall on the merits of the actors. However, there's very little acting in the movie. All the dialogue is short, there's no real character development, the back stories all made sense, but they were so brief I just didn't care, and finally there were the shifts in perceived reality themselves. As a frequent movie goer and a nouveau cinephile, I get the idea that the protagonist in the story alters her perception of reality to cope with the harsh situation that she's in, but if you were just passing by, it wouldn't make any sense at all. You have these dramatic shifts in reality, but only once do you really get a sense of how that shift is affecting actions in true reality. The rest of the time, you just get the appearance of crazy stuff happening without a lot of obvious correlation to the plot.

Sucker Punch would have been a lot better off if it had simply ditched the action over tones and gone it alone as a dramatic work. The harrowing story of a young girl trying to escape from an insane asylum after being imprisoned there by her evil stepfather is interesting enough. And maybe if they had done that, Emily Browning could have had some actual dialogue and a chance to really act.

On a final note, I feel that one place the movie really fell through was that they decided to go for a PG-13 rating. I understand that movie studios are out to make money and that going with a PG-13 rating is a way to reach out to a wider audience, but in this case I feel that it really tied hands creatively and ended up watering down what should have been really aggressive segments of the movie that in all honestly should've dialed up the gore and profanity and gone for the gold with an R rating. Obviously going for an R rating doesn't magically make any movie better, but I have the strong sense that in the case of sucker punch, it would only have made the movie more believable.

Unthinkable: A movie review

2011-03-19T16:12:00.002-05:00

Normally, I'm not a big fan of direct to DVD releases. They tend to have low production values, bad writing and sub par acting. However, every once in a while some titles will be released directly to DVD because of factors other than being crap. Sometimes a movie has a good idea, solid writing, and a strong cast, but the studio involved just feels like it doesn't appeal to a large enough audience to make a sufficient profit. Sometimes you can run into material that is either controversial or in the most rare cases, ends up with the almost superfluous NC-17 rating. As far as I know, there has not been a widely released title in theaters that held an NC-17 rating for as long as I have been alive (I could always be wrong about this, but I would need to do more digging before I found out for sure).

In the case of Unthinkable, the film runs into the controversy category for reasons to be straight lined to DVD. The main premise of Unthinkable is torture. Not that torture is good or bad necessarily, just torture. Initially that might sound like a very not-selling point, given films like Hostel that have torture as their premise and just suck lots of ass. However, if Hollywood proves anything, it's that there are as many ideas and as many ways to express them as there are people under the sun.

In all honesty, I should probably elaborate on the plot a little bit: an American born Muslim played by Michael Sheen has lost his marbles and decided it would be a good idea to use his special forces training as a demolitions expert to acquire nuclear materials and use them to create high yield explosives that he then leaves around the country in an attempt to get the US to withdraw from Muslim countries. Alright, so the plot is admittedly a little convoluted, but it has to be said that it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Hell, it's not even that far fetched when you really think about it: fundamentalist whackos are everywhere these days and nuclear materials are neither impossible to acquire nor are nuclear weapons all that hard to fabricate if you have the knowledge and experience. I think we tend to assume the idea is ludicrous simply because it's never happened to us, but I think that has more to do with the fact that we have a very aggressive national security policy and a lot less to do with the fact that there are people out there with the will and the means to do great harm to the people of the United States.

So you've probably gathered by now that there are a lot of inherent politics involved with this movie. When I think about it, I'm actually a little surprised this movie even got made since most of Hollywood seems to be composed of PC control freaks. Anyhow, the movie is dark and edgy and doesn't apologize for anything and I really liked that. There's also a very interesting dynamic between Samuel L. Jackson and Carrie Anne Moss. Jackson plays a veteran torture expert full of angst and madness while Moss plays an obvious and intentionally juxtaposed FBI agent who is very by the book and straitlaced. As the story unfolds, the interaction between the two characters can be seen as a metaphor for the dilemma of the human conscience in cases like this: can you really justify sacrificing one person for the sake of many? Even if the sacrifice is horrible?

Taken one step further, the film can also be considered as a look at human nature: just how inhuman are we willing to be when our backs are up against the wall? The movie posits that we are willing to be completely inhuman for the sake of our own preservation and I am inclined to agree. The drive for survival is one of our most powerful urges as humans and we can sense it on many levels, not just the personal and physical.

So I need to wrap things up before I drag on forever. This movie is dark and uncompromising and I liked that a lot. It stood up, spat in the face of political correctness and told it in no uncertain terms to go to hell. This movie is definitely not for everyone and would never be appropriate for younger audiences. But, if you think there's a place for the darker part of human nature in the inventory of necessary skills, then you will probably get something out of this movie.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days :: A BAD movie review

2011-03-13T11:10:00.000-05:00

If I've learned anything from writing in the public sphere it's that people don't look at your work the same way you do. Your masterpiece may never be regarded as such by anyone but yourself to the day you die. And if I've learned anything from writing reviews it's that people only seem to have fun when I'm busy ripping a film a new orifice. So in this vein here is another secretion from my literary bile duct concerning a direct to DVD (for reasons that will become abundantly apparent in this review) sequel to what I felt to be a reasonably good movie.

To start 30 Days of Night was originally a comic book written by Steve Niles and it was really good and gathered a pretty loyal following from what I understand. Enough so that it found itself being adapted into a full blown movie under the direction of David Slade, who really hadn't done much film directing at the time and honestly had spent much more time doing music video productions (admittedly for some very recognizable groups like P.O.D., Stone Temple Pilots, and R.E.M.). However, the combination of Steve Niles writing, David Slade directing and a pretty decent B+ cast, the movie became a relative success.

What I liked most about 30 Days of Night was that it acted as a much needed antidote to emo within the vampire genre that came to be popular in books and TV shows prior to 2007 and that seemed to explode in 2008 with shows like True Blood, Vampire Diaries and the Twilight movies. The vampires in 30 days are not misunderstood or romantic in any way, they are outright scary, feral, and visually unappealing. As a film, 30 Days of Night had excellent pacing for being set over the course of 30 days in Alaska during the monthly season where there is absolutely no daylight, hence the name. Most of the characters come across as being real humans with actual motivations and feelings of their own and managed to make me care whether they lived or died. As I understand it, the film was not completely faithful to the source material due to time and funding constraints, but I feel that as a film, it stands perfectly well on its own merits.

What I hated most about 30 Days of Night: Dark Days was that for starters the whole affair is one confused and poorly directed effort to cash in on a moderately successful film that only did well because all the right elements came together on a shoe string budget the way it rarely does, but when it does the results are beautiful and you get films of lasting quality like Gattaca or [Leon] The Professional (or maybe even The Fifth Element, but I think they had a pretty good budget going in). There are so many things I hated about this movie its hard to know where to begin. However, since I am of a literary bent, I will start with the writing.

I don't know what happened to Steve Niles that made him pass off on this project as a partner in the creative process but the result was a disaster. The motivations of all the characters are totally one dimensional; no one is even remotely fleshed out, the back stories are crap at best and the dialogue is dodgy even at its best. If I were to describe the major motivation of every single protagonist in this film it would read EXACTLY like this: vampires took someone close to me, so now I wants revenge! Also, the screenplay was written like all the characters are terminally stricken with severe retardation or at the very least a strong lack of practical sense.

This is admittedly one of my big hangups with horror movies in general: the protagonists always do stuff that I would never dream of doing and if anyone ever suggested the idea to me I would strike them in the face for even suggesting such a thing. Here are my pet peeves: splitting up, investigating strange noises, failing to level superior firepower when definitely available, "going it alone" for the sake of the group, or the ever classic cracking up at a moment of low tension and running off just so you can draw attention or run off and get skewered. It's like the writers make characters that intentionally do the dumbest things possible to make me as frustrated as I can possibly be as a viewer. I found myself silently screaming at all the characters in this movie for every obvious bad decision they made and every massive tactical fumble they made, seemingly right on cue to try and ratchet up the tension unnecessarily.

To clarify: people up against an unknown and obviously superior enemy = scary. People who make stupid decisions in the face of a dangerous but not invulnerable foe does not bloody equal scary, it just pisses me off and makes me want to abandon horror as a genre entirely because it makes me think there is nothing that can redeem such blatant stupidity.

Ok, enough about the writing. The acting is pretty bland so there isn't much to be said about that aside from the fact that it makes an already bad production worse. Not only do these people have nothing interesting to say, but they say it in the most boring way possible. I suppose that actors take what they can get, but this is simply repugnant.

The directing is crap. Scene transitions don't seem to make much sense and there's no feeling of the natural passage of time. Stuff just happens one thing after another and they don't seem to be related at all. Ben Ketai needs to go back to film school and that's all I have to say about that.

Alright, so I need to wrap all this up: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days says it makes twilight look like nursery school in its tagline. Well, that's true, but it makes it look like the nursery school where all the well fed and good mannered children went while it spent its detestable youth in some European hostel run by the certifiably insane.

Ultra Violet : A BAD movie review

2011-03-12T01:08:00.001-06:00

It's time for a retro movie review!

Ok, so lets jump into the way-back machine to about 9 years ago and take a brief look at an amazing but little known film called Equilibrium. It was the brain child of Writer/director Kurt Wimmer. Equilibrium was a brilliant action film and although it never took off in theaters, it has since become a cult classic. The film had excellent pacing, solid acting (thanks in large part to the surprisingly A-list casting), fantastic action and terrific concept design. Equilibrium was a good action film and a surprising social commentary given the fact that it was an action movie.

Now lets jump back into the machine and take a look at a film just 5 years back called Ultra Violet. Odds are you never saw this movie and I'm going to encourage you to continue to not see Ultraviolet. Why you might ask? The simple answer is that Ultra Violet sucks out loud which is both sad and a little unexpected. It's sad because Wimmer has proven himself to be a decent enough writer when it comes to action movies with titles like The Recruit, The Thomas Crowne Affair, Law Abiding citizen and Salt to his credit. Granted in one of my previous reviews I panned Law Abiding Citizen for its ending, but even in spite of that I still say the writing was pretty good on the whole.

So what happened that made Ultra Violet suck so hard and what makes it such a crappy movie? Well, first off, there's no real way of knowing just what happened to get such a crappy movie released, but as for what sucked about it I have a laundry list of complaints.

The first and most noticeable thing about this movie that sucks is the dialogue. The pacing of the conversations and the actual lexical choices always end up coming across as overblown and pretentious. At one point Milla Jovovich's character refers to herself as a monolith for crap's sake! If there were a different director I might blame this on him, but since Wimmer wrote and directed this tragedy, all blame falls squarely on his shoulders. Instead of coming across as a lonely heroine struggling against impossible odds, Violet just ends up looking like a self absorbed ego maniac because her dialogue is just so bad.

The opening title runs the credits like a comic book that Ultra Violet was based on, but what's really screwy is there never was any Ultra Violet comic book! Ultra Violet would have been a much greater success if it had been released as a comic book and nothing else, because bad dialogue is much more forgivable in comic books.

Alright, so enough harping on the bad dialogue, lets get on to the bad acting! I don't know what happened here, but all the characters in this movie behaved a lot like blocks of wood, as if their sole motivation in life was to stay in the shape they were carved into by the hands of their misbegotten creator. There is nothing dynamic or even remotely interesting about any of these characters. I understand in action movies character development isn't always critical, but in this case it's just embarrassing. Not only did I find myself not caring about the characters, I actually didn't like pretty much all of them with one exception.

William Fitchner is a little bit of an oddball as an actor and he seems to be type-cast in oddball roles, but that's ok because he seems to do it pretty well. It's possible I only liked him in Ultra Violet because he had so little to say or that with such a short part it was hard to screw up. However, if I had to hand out any praise for this god awful film, it would have to be for dear William and his consistent portrayal of the murky and mysterious support character that never gets enough attention or development.

Ok, so that's enough from me, this movie just flat out sucks, never see it, EVER!

Battle Los Angeles: A movie review

2011-03-12T01:04:00.001-06:00

Sometimes it's darkest before the dawn

Ok, so the first and biggest thing that came to my mind when I saw the trailer for this movie "is this going to be like Independence Day?" Actually that's not true, the first thing that came to mind was "hey, there's Aaron Eckhart in an action movie, that should be pretty cool." I am admittedly something of a fan of Mr. Eckhart ever since he starred in a movie you may or may not have heard of called Thank you for smoking. I had the feeling from that point on that he had the chops to be a leading man in a bigger production, the opportunity just hadn't presented itself. So then Battle: Los Angeles came along and he got his chance to be the leading man in a summer blockbuster that came out..........before the beginning of spring I guess.

So here's the rundown: no Battle LA is not ID4 (Independence Day). From the very beginning Battle LA is intense and dramatic, there is very little time for pause or taking spare breaths. The film doesn't rush, but the pacing does feel a bit on the fast side, like it can't wait to get from one scene to the next. However, that's a very good thing when you're making a movie that has desperation, fear, anxiety, and the rigors of war as its major themes. There are a few moments when the movie has a brush with being cheesy in some of the dialogue, but even then it still shines because the dialogue is still well written and well delivered by Aaron Eckhart (damn that man and his handsome jaw line).

Independence day fell flat a bit in my opinion because it was supposed to be this big epic battle, but you had all this side distraction crap and shmaltzy acting in the middle of everything, or rather on top of everything. In Battle LA, there are still personal elements, but they're played out so much more smoothly as the movie progresses. The film never lets you forget that it's set in the middle of a major war zone. Even though it s a war against aliens, that's not really the big draw. The big draw is that an embattled force of brave souls is up against a superior foe and the odds are not in their favor. As Americans, we love underdogs coming up from seemingly impossible odds, it's a part of our culture. So this movie isn't about humans vs. aliens in some big "what if" scenario, it's about courage and valor in the face of incredible adversity. The fact that aliens are involved really seems to be a sort of secondary element in my opinion.

So final word: get your summer blockbuster fix early and see Battle: Los Angeles

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader:: A movie review

2010-12-21T00:33:00.001-06:00

Alright, so I've had a very long string of movies that have been good and I've loved them all like strange only recently discovered children that I will send off to homes where they will be well cared for, but I will not see them again unless I really want to. (always terrible to end a sentence with a preposition XP). So, bearing that in mind, this will be the last "good" review I do for a little while. After this, I will issue as much bile as I can muster. But until I find a worthy nemesis on which to unleash my critical venom, it's time to say some more good things about another good movie.

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a wonderful, whimsical, child-like (not to be confused with child-ish), classical fairytale adventure. One of the first things I want to say about this movie is that it is beautiful, well written, atmospheric, and character driven. The last thing I'd like to say about this movie is that it looks great in 3D.

Part of what makes the Narnia series movies great is the rich atmosphere they inhabit. Think of it as a less gritty, less serious version of Lord of the Rings. There are a lot of parallels between the two movies, the biggest in my mind is the fact the the books the films are based on were written by two men who were friends around the time of world war 2. Both stories reflect a lot of the concerns and feelings of people at the time, the battle between good and evil, the value of family and friendship, the importance of courage in the face of adversity and a whole bunch of other good messages.

If you really want to zoom out and view either Tolkein or C.S. Lewis' masterpieces from a more general perspective, they can both be viewed as moral tales. And fortunately for us, moral tales can often open up into bigger scale epic adventures. Every Lord of the Rings movie was a chapter in an epic, viewed in the classic sense (bigger than life heroes doing incredible deeds). So we get romping great adventures and climactic battles with lots of ass-kicking in the middle and righteous resolution at the end where the bad guys get they comeuppance and the good guys get to take a well-deserved break.

There is the very real possibility that there will be another, possibly three more Narnia movies (there were 7 books in all). But for me, Voyage of the Dawntreader felt like a sendoff to me and I think it's a rather fitting way to send the series out. The movie isn't as exciting as the first two films, but there isn't every a spot where it feels like it gets completely boring. Overall the movie has a message about growing up, taking responsibility and moving on. To be honest the story is pretty simple, but because of good storytelling, good cinematography, and good acting, even this simple story still manages to be moving.

So go see this movie, preferably in 3D, because it's really good.

OK, so there's just one last little thing to tie up: it's about time that I ripped into a movie and as a reviewer, it's mandatory that I rip some movie (preferably a suitably bad one that a lot of people like anyway) a new........behind. The laws of cynicism demand it. (damn, ended with a preposition again). So I will be taking suggestions for a movie that is popular, but deserves a good ripping. And I've already ruled out Twilight, we all know it sucks (no pun intended).

So Please, give me suggestions for a BAD MOVIE TO WATCH!

TRON Legacy: A movie review

2010-12-20T14:42:00.001-06:00

So apparently prior to TRON coming out, there was a whole bunch of media exposure that I just missed out on. I don't watch TV too much and I'm not a big follower on YouTube. Roughly a month or two before TRON was released, there was a massive amount of media exposure on TV in theaters and online. A big chunk of it had to do with the fact that international techno sensations Daft and Punk were writing the soundtrack for the movie, or at least a good portion of said soundtrack.

So I missed all the hype. Which for me seems great because I didn't get over-exposed to the film like a lot of other people and was able to see the movie with dewy fresh fan eyes and not cold jaded reviewer eyes.

Ok so enough crap lets get down to the review: a good number of critics have put the spurs to the old girl and I think that's honestly a bit unfair. To be completely honest, having been based on a movie that's just 2 years shy of being 2 decades old, I think the movie is pretty damn good. It took a concept that wasn't terribly well fleshed out in other movies, books, or even games, except for the one back in 2003. So there is not a lot of source material for this franchise and while I will admit that this fact is evident within the film, I do not believe it to be a true impediment to the work as a whole.

The film is visually breathtaking, every element within the grid is beautifully rendered and it has managed to do what is probably the most important thing for a franchise like this: it took an old but well loved concept and managed to make it current with today's influences. All the visuals look right, there is the appropriate amount of cyberpunk influence, and there was no heavy handed approach to the fact that this story takes place INSIDE A COMPUTER. Now pardon the last bit of shouting, but if this movie was unrepentantly honest, the characters would be speaking in C++, or most likely Python at this point in time. Now I don't know about you, but I put English as my default language on all my digital devices, so all the coding nerds that might have actually understood complicated coding references can go.....vacuum something unpleasant with whatever orifice you find least pleasant for the task.

What this movie has done is truly noteworthy when you look at it as a work of art and cinema combined, rather than just on the face of it. As a work of art, it's beautiful, as a work of cinema, it is excellent. TRON has done something excellent in combining both of those things, which is impressive when starting small and trying to build an entire franchise. I'm not entirely convinced there will be sequels, but hey who knows.

Alright, time to kick this pig: as much as I've belabored the point, this is a good movie. You should go see it. Don't listen to all the critics that can't get past the fact that this isn't Citizen Kane inside a computer. That would make a pretty awful movie anyway. Go to see this movie because it's pretty and fun and full of excitement. Yes the story line is not intricate or complicated, but to be sincere, does it need to be? The answer is no. This is TRON, it looks pretty and it's enjoyable to watch. Also, don't see this in IMAX unless you really want to, but you SHOULD see it in 3D. I was not exactly thrilled with how much I had to shell out to see it in IMAX, but I would be perfectly willing to pay the extra $3.00 (depending on where you live) to see it in 3D.

Go see this movie: END OF LINE

NOW GET BACK IN HERE DILLINGER, THE MCP NEEDS A REBOOT ^_^

Faster: A movie review

2010-11-29T03:27:00.000-06:00

If I were to describe faster in a single word it would be this: surprising. Granted, Faster was everything I expected it to be, a violent rage fueled revenge festival, but it was also a lot of things I wasn't expecting at all.

The first and most surprising thing about this movie was that Dwayne Johnson is a good actor in the right circumstances. Either he was born to play this character or something else just synced up at the right time. Now I'm not saying that Johnson is a bad actor, I'm just saying that in my opinion, he hasn't been a terribly good actor in the past. In the case of Driver however, Dwayne Johnson's performance was excellent. His character has a constant agitated sense of restlessness. Even when he's not moving, you can sense the tension he feels and the intense emotions that drive him.

There isn't much back story and I think that's part of what makes the movie great. You've got violent protagonist X within murderous motivation Y and he needs to kill dudes A, B, and C. The plot is very simple and I feel that's what generates lots of room for solid characters. Driver is not just a murderous thug driven purely by anger. He's a murderous thug driven by anger who is still struggling with a profound sense of loss even years after the event. The plan seems simple: go out and murder a bunch of dudes and then call it a day.

However, things are rarely as simple as they seem at the beginning. From one step to the next, we see a depth and complexity to Driver that would not be obvious upon first perusal. Choices aren't easy and simple, there's a certain amount of thought and pain behind all of them, some more than others.

Aside from Driver, Cop and Killer, the other two main characters are also interesting and compelling in their own ways. I won't delve too far into them because I don't want to ruin anything, but suffice to say, these guys just add to Faster being a very strong, very character driven film in my opinion.

So should you see this movie? Yes, see it now.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

2010-09-12T23:55:00.001-05:00

So, the most basic question anyone wants to know right off the bat is: is this movie good? Well sorry to dissapoint, but you're going to have to wait for that a bit.

The first thing to note about this movie is that it's in 3D and it's good. There is a critical fact to note about movies when they are released in 3D: were they originally intended to be in 3D and were they filmed for 3D from the beginning? One notable example of where this failed was clash of the titans, where the 3D effects were simply tacked on at the end in post-production and the lack of immersion was a total letdown (the only upside to that movie being the presence of smokin' hottie Gemma Arterton).

A very good example of immersive 3D filming where it was designed for 3D from start to finish was James Cameron's Avatar, which was amazing. The thing that made Avatar so good was that in spite of what anyone said about the film, the experience was immersive and memorable and for those of us with high stimulus seeking behavior, it was very enjoyable in the frontal cortex (biological psychology joke, if you don't get it, don't worry).

Resident Evil went ahead with the same technology that Cameron pioneered and from everything that I could tell in the movie, they used it from start to finish to great effect. Visually the movie is engaging and stimulating. The dialog is less than fantastic, but lets face it, given the game it's based on, it's a miracle the characters in this movie even speak intelligible English. There is a bit of a letdown in the character development department, since all the time is spent running from flesh eating ghouls. But even in spite of that the characters could have been made a little less one-dimensional.

The plot is pretty standard fare as far as resident evil goes, which isn't necessarily bad, just don't go in expecting intricate story telling. The cast is solid with Wentworth Miller (circa prison break etc.) as Chris Redfield and Shawn Roberts as Albert Wesker. Granted these characters are Very one-dimensional to begin with, Chris (grr, gritty gritty determination), Wesker (evil mcEvil pants). But you know what, in the end it all works out because I went to see a movie about zombies getting shot up and people running for their lives from hordes of zombies and that's what I got.

So go see this movie if you want to see a zombie movie, don't go see it if you're not looking to see a zombie flick. Go see it if you want an example of good 3D, don't go see it if you don't care about 3D.

Oh, and I almost forgot: the soundtrack is REALLY GOOD.

The A-Team (fun with explosions)

2010-06-16T23:23:00.001-05:00

The A-Team: A movie review

Yesterday at 11:20pm | Edit Note | Delete

Lately there has been a trend of re-packaging nostalgia using contemporary wrapping paper. Now usually I'm quick to call foul when I sense a lack of creativity, but recently, it seems like the re-packaging has gone over pretty well in several cases.

Alright so lets dive right in: this movie is an origin story about the A-Team and all the crazy hi jinx they get up to along the way. How closely is it tied to the 80's TV show that it's based on? I don't really know, never watched the show. But, I do feel that it stands pretty strong on its own merits all the same.

The casting was the first right choice the films creators made. Everyone is great for the role they play, especially Murdock. Sharlto Copley is someone I had never heard of before his debut in District 9, so I had no real feel for his style or personality going into district 9 or the a team. I must say though that I like what I've seen so far.

Now I'm not sure where he's supposed to be from in the A-Team, but his accent seems to switch around a lot and what I can only assume is his natural South African accent tends to bleed through a lot. For a lot of roles I think that this would constitute a real impediment, but when you're playing a crazy man, I think it only helps to convey a very believable sense of "wow, this guy is nuts."

This is a pretty good lead- in to what I think makes the A-Team a good movie: it knows what it is and it runs with it. You look at the trailer and say to yourself "wow, this movie looks like a lot of crazy stuff happening and stuff blowing up all the time."

And it's just that. For some time now I've been frustrated with movies trying to be something they are not; junior trying to be a comedy, any saw movie after the first one trying to be scary or surprising, The Matador (a movie I hate beyond words) trying to be a buddy comedy (when really it's just a steaming pile of excrement discharged from the pustules of a syphilitic leper......hmmm....guess I did have the words after all).

Anyhow, this "movie being what it is" is best demonstrated in another movie I'm rather fond of: Shoot 'em Up, which is totally ridiculous, over the top, and it KNOWS IT. So it milks the testosterone soaked bullet train for all its worth and it's great!

Ok, so down to business: go see this movie, it's a lot of fun and it delivers the goods.

Peace out.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (don't worry it's actually pretty good)

2010-05-29T02:48:00.001-05:00

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Prince of Persia The Sands of Time: A movie review

Today at 3:37am | Edit Note | Delete

Ok, so going in I had pretty high hopes for this movie for 2 reasons: the Prince of Persia game series was friggin' awesome and pirates of the Caribbean was a fun movie to watch. But I was worried like so many people who have seen beloved video games turned into crap movies: what if they screw this up and completely ruin the memory of something that was totally awesome for me?

We've seen it so many times: street fighter (arguably the worst video game movie ever), Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros, Wing Commander, Double Dragon, the list goes on and on. The appetite of Hollywood for cashing in on name recognition at the cost of artistic integrity can never be fully satisfied it seems.

However, all members of the gaming community can breath just a little bit easier this time (at least in my opinion). The movie is good, not great or spectacular, but not bad or mediocre either. In the 1 to 10 scale it sits comfortably in the 6.5-7.0 range, not at all unlike myself. The best thing this movie has going for it in terms of being related to the game is that it contains all the important plot elements: invading army, sacred relics, the prince, some evil usurper, lots of free running/parkour elements, very tongue-in-cheek humor by the prince, and a hot babe for the prince to chase around/save/get totally frustrated by.

Half the reason I went to see this movie in the first place was because I knew Gemma Arterton was going to be in it and she is HOOOOOT! (slightly elevated pitch in voice to add emphasis on juvenile fixation on smokin' hot babes). But enough of that.

What I liked most about this movie was the way it managed to capture the experience I had when I first played the game, which was a mix of curiosity, excitement, wonder,and just a little something I can't quite make a name for just yet. The plot and action of the movie are straightforward, the acting is good, the action is solid (as opposed to liquid, or supercooled liquid [like glass]), and the visual landscape is lush and beautiful. That last point is pretty important since this story is trying to capture the environment that inspired so many stories that have captured our imaginations for ages like Aesop's Fables or the Grimm Brother's fairy tails.

So should you see this movie? Yes. And if you're a big fan of the games, just relax, everything is going to be just fine (just try to relax and enjoy the movie and don't spend all your time trying to compare it to the games).

Heavy Thoughts on Iron Man 2

2010-05-21T17:38:00.002-05:00

Word on the street has is that Iron Man 2 is a boring film. That's depends on what you're looking for in a film. If you're looking for a lot of great lines, big swooping scenes, some physicality and a lot of "Mommy, wow!" moments, Iron Man 2 delivers...if you're a fan of clever dialog.

The lines were dense and duplicit constantly popping off like a fully automatic weapon. Sitting in the theater I was instantly reminded of His Girl Friday specifically and 30's films generically. Despite the Jazz Singer being release in '27, it took some time to perfect and implement dialog recording devices that would actually work with film. When the technology was finally there, writers went hogwild with the ability to put their words in character's mouths to the point that a lot of early talkies had more dialog than they needed just to use this new development.

Iron Man 2 carries on this tradition; it is not a film for the lazy ear.

Much like the first film, this film didn't feel like a two hour movie. Granted, the first film felt like a thirty minute film. Iron Man 2 felt more like an hour. I must say, I'm really impressed with Jon Favreau's work. He really understands pacing.

That having been said, something needs to be done about the writing. Sure, there's some great dialog in the film but the plot takes a back seat to the action in the film. Typically this is forgivable, but one has to ask: what's the point of introducing Ivan only to have him and Iron Man fight twice? It just doesn't seem right.

After the the too slow reveal of the almost MacGuffin, there's a minor altercation between Ivan and Iron Man at the race in Monaco then the not-so-big big fight immediately after killing the drones. Maybe Favreau's secret ingredient is an old marketing trick: never fully satisfy the customer. Just like portions that are just three bites too small or a blog that never quite answers the searcher's question, so too does the new Iron Man franchise give the public the fights between machines, man and technology and yet leaves the viewer wanting more because he doesn't feel there was enough.

If there's a subliminal message in this film, it's hard to ascertain.

Tony Stark's speech after his grand entrance to the Stark Expo was platitudinous at best. "It's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about us. It's about our legacy and what we leave behind." I suppose a really clever individual with enough tenacity could try to somehow spin the speech into supporting overzealous conservationism in the name of saving the eco-system, but that's antithetical to the positively reinforced message of letting Stark Enterprises continue to manufacture weapons capable of mass destruction.

True, the overbearing Senator Stern was quite representative of our current Congress: an arrogant elitist that has lost all connection with the common man and the Senator was annoying an fun to dislike, but there was no animosity and the distaste for this character could hardly be construed as hatred. Compared to the real clowns in office that have already caused more damage and rage than any fictional character could, Senator Stern is a lovely man; there isn't a 60's message of distrust and dislike the government. No political points to be made here.

Iron Man 2 doesn't even go after the patriotic. Simply put, Iron Man 2 is a story about huge, weighty technological marvels fighting each other for two hours.

Despite being a huge fan of the wildly popular British TV show Top Gear, I was oblivious to the various cars used in the film. Sitting in the theater I did have three thoughts: this movie feels like a light-hearted Daniel Craig Bond film, it's too bad that we won't get a third Daniel Craig Bond film this year due to MGM's bad aura and I recalled the episode of Top Gear where Hammond tried to drive the Grand Prix racing car but couldn't keep the car going fast enough to keep the tires warm enough to hold traction.

Robert Downey's Oscar Worthy Performances and Talent as an Actor
Much to my chagrin, I did not review Sherlock Holmes last Christmas. I say that because one of the things I wanted to focus on in that review is Robert Downey, Jr.'s career.

I'm sure there are a lot of people wondering where his talent magically sprang from or think that there's some magical flip from addiction to focusing on work. Whatever his personal story is, I think that the truth is much simpler than that: I think that Robert Downey, Jr. is a natural-born performer.

In order to put this in proper perspective, you have to go back and look at Chaplin. Watching Chaplin, you get the feeling that you're watching a slightly dramatized documentary rather than a biopic. (Although, isn't that the point of biopics?) Things to look for in Chaplin: physicality (major), delivery of lines, timing‚Äìall ingredients that, when properly applied make a good performance a great one.

There's a reason that Chaplin was nominated for three Academy Awards.

I think it's because of Downey's Oscar-worthy performance in Chaplin that he was able to make a comeback in the business after hanging himself out there to dry. Granted, I haven't seen all of his work, but I thought that his work in Good Night, Good Luck and Zodiac were decent "training wheels" to lead to bigger and better things like the Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes franchises, not to mention a wonderful performance in The Soloist. Downey now has a solid career ahead of him and I think that having gotten to the place where he is now he won't make the same mistakes he made in his prime.

It's the Chaplin level of performance that Downey has been consistently giving that makes Iron Man what it is given the demand for physicality for the role both on camera and in motion capture.

Cheadle vs. Howard - A Ruse
I have no qualms with Don Cheadle's Rhodey nor do I have qualms with Terrance Howard's Rhodey. I like both actors equally well because they both have worked on films that really push the envelope; case in point, Crash which they starred in together though I don't recall them sharing any scenes. I refuse to compare the actors or their interpretations of Col. Rhodes. I think they both did a fine job and brought their own personal touches to the role. My gripe is with the money men.

I don't understand why producers can't just leave well enough alone. Rumor has it that Cheadle was always the first choice for Col. Rhodes. Fine by me. What's not fine by me is getting used to one face and then having to switch to another. So what if you wanted Cheadle? He wasn't available when you needed him. You couldn't buy him out of his obligations at the time and you couldn't hold production on your movie, so you hired a different actor. You're also starting a franchise. The point of franchising is creating a brand. You can't create a brand if you change the product with every iteration.

I'm reminded of the Katie Holmes/Maggie Gyllenhaal switch-a-roo. I hated it. In fact, I hated it so much I was against Dark Knight during production until I saw the first trailer. Then, with the story of Heather's death being sold to the public the way it was, I got caught up in the hype and believe that Dark Knight was a masterpiece of a film created by a very talented crew.

I think I would prefer Katie Holmes being on screen to Maggie Gyllenhaal, but Gyllenhaal pulled her weight and didn't kowtow to the cries of an ornery fan base. I also think that Chris Nolan is a very talented director and it was his leadership on Dark Knight that caused the film to be a success on so many levels. But the Iron Man situation isn't congruent.

I don't have a preference for either Howard or Cheadle for the role by themselves. If my life depended on it, I would tip the scale in Howard's favor slightly because it was his role first. The other factor that makes Iron Man different from Dark Knight is that there wasn't as much pressure on Favreau to perform given that he had a capable actor regardless. I don't know how much input Favreau had in the decision to can Howard, but what's done is in the past‚Ä¶unless someone decides it's a good idea to swap the two actors in the next installment.

Mickey Rourke's Contribution
It's nice to see Mickey Rourke continuing to build his comeback career. Though his character was shallow thanks to hollow writing, Rourke found his groove and had fun with the material even if it was subpar and cliched.

Though I'm no expert in Russian accents, I believe I can say two things: Mickey Rourke was well coached into the accent he does use in the film and he did an excellent job of keeping the same accent throughout the film.

Ivan's whole back story felt like a MacGuffin. It took forever to fully put Ivan's motivation on the screen but despite the slow reveal, the question felt unanswered immediately after being unveiled. There wasn't any empathy with Ivan's plight to destroy Iron Man.

Sundry Performance Notes
Scarlett Johansson was underused in this installment of Iron Man. When she was given her moments, she did just fine, but the drama between her and Paltrow's Potts just didn't work on any real level. Ditto the buddy cop routine between her and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Furry. Johansson is a leading actress for fuck's sake. Let her lead!

In Iron Man I, Paltrow seemed like a square peg that was sanded down to fit the round hole that could fit if enough force were applied but it didn't change the fact that she was a square peg and the role was a round hole. She was more more comfortable with her character this go around, perhaps because she got to have massive amounts of control over various characters throughout the film.

Sam Jackson's appearance as Nick Furry was more of an elongated cameo. This isn't a character type that he hasn't already played before numerous times in his career so this isn't much to remark on for this serving. Perhaps he will have a larger role in subsequent installments.

Looking to the future
Looking at Robert Downey, Jr's IMDB page. it looks like the next movie in the sequence will be The Avengers prior to the official Iron Man 3.

IRON MAN 2: Totally Awesome!

2010-05-08T09:19:00.000-05:00

Iron Man 2: A movie review

Today at 10:17am | Edit Note | Delete

Ok, so I was really excited when I first saw the trailer for this movie. Then I saw the second trailer and I was like HOLY CRAP IT'S WAR MACHINE!! And yes he does feature prominently in this movie. Right from the beginning this movie is good, the pacing is excellent, there are no lulls waiting for something interesting to happen.

There's good character development, engaging relationships between the characters, a well written (if not especially deep story, but that's ok this isn't supposed to be Tolstoy), solid action, interesting villains and lots of good explosions =D.

Now there is the running undercurrent of hints about the upcoming avengers movie (totally awesome), which adds an element of mystery to the movie where you'll find yourself constantly looking for tidbits or blurbs about the upcoming and totally awesome movie we're all waiting for with bated breath. In this regard, the movie most certainly doesn't disappoint, but you MUST wait until after the credits end, yes, just like the first movie, but it is TOTALLY worth it!

So this movie pretty much kicks ass, go see it now!

The Wolfman, Classic Monster Mayhem

2010-02-15T22:06:00.001-06:00

I've never been big on monster movies, I think mostly because all the good ones came before my time. However, as cinema begins to hearken back to the ideas of yesteryear, things end up getting reused with a more contemporary paint job (circa Poseidon (1970), The Italian Job (1969), Gone in 60 seconds (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) etc.).

Now sometimes this works because the original concept was good, but the technology just didn't exist at the time to give truest form to the idea being expressed. Obviously there are twice as many examples of movie remakes that were tremendous flops, demonstrating only the lack of creativity and originality present within much of Hollywood.

However, once in a while they manage to get things right. As I said in the beginning, I'm not big on monster movies, but I feel that fan or not, this movie was a very well executed example of the genre. The setting is atmospheric, the characters, while a little one dimensional, are believable, the pacing is good, and the suspense is well maintained.

I guess a lot of it boils down to what makes a monster movie? My basic premise would be: 1. A MONSTER 2. LOTS OF SCARED PEOPLE 3. GORE or at least a lot of people dying and 4. DEAD MONSTER AT END OF MOVIE WITH CLICHE SUGGESTION OF MORE MONSTER TO COME.

So the long and the short of it is, if you like monster movies, go see this. If not, rent it, because it's still pretty good.

Legion: Angels vs Automatic Weapons - Guess Which Wins?

2010-01-27T22:35:00.005-06:00

Who screams for ice cream? I DO!!

The trailer looked interesting, I'll give it that. The premise made me shake my head though. God decides humanity has to go. Only 6 people with a trunk full of automatic weapons stand against the full might of the Almighty.

So they're cinders at the end, right? Nope. Nooo, nooo nooo. No sir. Not at all.

As it turns out, angels are pretty vulnerable to bullets. And most of all, headlocks! Seriously, you can darn near kill an angel with a headlock! True ~~story~~ film bro!

So. God has had it with Man. That God you heard about who destroyed cities with angels? Well, apparently God is all out of those guys. Michael the Arch Angel has decided he doesn't care for God's new plan of action. He falls to earth, cuts off his wings, grabs a ton of guns and heads out on the road.

Out in the middle nowhere, with a dollop of desert scenery, six ~~decent actors~~ humans with completely boring stories, flaws, and unexplainable motives are in a diner. One of them is pregnant.

How? You never find out. Why? You never find out. Another ("Jeep", Lucas Black) follows the pregnant one ("Charlie", Adrianne Palicki) like a lost puppy dog. Why? Visions, apparently.

In what must be one of the worst "C'mon, doing this for the paycheck, remember, doing this for the paycheck" career moves Dennis Quaid ("Bob Hanson") has ever made (and he's made some bad ones, so this took some doing), Quaid is forced to play one of the most hackneyed dim-witted country-folk cliches you've ever seen. Nice guy, but every time he moves on screen, says anything - you just shudder.

Charles S. Dutton ("Percy Walker") plays a very under-utilized role as the diner's cook. A noble, caring soul who never seems to have any explanation for any of his motives, actions or dialog.

Paul Bettany play perhaps the most aesthetic, thin-figured version of the Arch Angel Michael ever seen on this earth. Another good actor with terrible, terrible dialog, motivations... Well, everything, really. Much like all the other decent actors, all of the blame lies in the director's staggeringly incompetent hands.

Seriously - from what you hear of the Arch Angel Michael, you get the impression that he invented ass-kicking. If you could imagine someone that'd put Rambo and any role ever played by Schwarzenegger to shame, you'd be blinking at Bettany as he goes through the motions onscreen.

All the other angels don't have names (cannon fodder, of course), save Gabriel, who is played by Kevin Durand with hit-and-miss acting that's almost entirely composed of 'miss'. He wields the most amazing Ginzu Dewalt Swiss Army mace you've ever seen. Seriously, every time you think you've seen the most ridiculous thing it could possibly do, it tops it.

They battle hordes of humans possessed by angels (no, really) in your standard cliched zombie / horror movie style, and only Gabriel gives them a hard time. But he's incredibly vulnerable to headlocks as it turns out, so at the end, all is well.

AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW OR WHY ANY OF THIS HAPPENED!

So. so, so, so bad.

Summary: Nice visual effects. Good actors. Good scares. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, plot, story, directing, dialog... Everything else - just terrible.

This is the movie Uwe Boll turned down. UWE BOLL. The worst director in existence! Well, he has some serious competition now.

Don't pay to see this. Please.

AVATAR (AKA totally awesome)

2009-12-27T00:21:00.001-06:00

Ok, first of all, I need to clear the air about something: yes, Avatar has the same basic premise as the 1990 Kevin Costner film Dances With Wolves. However, and that's a big however, pointing that fact out as if it were some sort of impediment to the movie and as if you were somehow clever and intelligent is completely false. The fact is that yes, this storytelling convention has been used several times before: outsider joins indigenous people to better understand them so they can be defeated, falls for tribe member/becomes engrossed in the culture and decides to switch sides (circa dances with wolves, the last samurai, the last of the Mohicans, the new world, etc.).

What the aforementioned fallacy illustrates is an inability to recognize that storytelling conventions are not always bad things, and used properly can actually make the story more accessible to an audience and save you lots of time on unnecessary exposition. Lets all face it, we could all do with a bit less unnecessary exposition in movies.

Alright, so that's out of the way. So what did I think of this movie? IT WAS FRIGGIN' AMAZING! The visual effects are stunning, immersive, and incredibly detailed. The environment of the film looks less like a special effects background and more like it was simply shot on site at some exotic location. I saw the movie in IMAX 3D, which is the best way to go in my opinion, and I'm not sure I even blinked during the entire movie. Yes, the movie is a bit on the long side, but it's so good you really won't notice the passage of time. When the movie was finally over and I got up, I couldn't understand why my legs hurt so much as if I had been standing completely still for 3 hours. I was genuinely confused until I looked at my watch =P.

So given that the movie is so gorgeous, one might assume that all the cinematography will automatically be great too, not so. But it is anyway. To clarify: a movie can look really good but still have bad cinematography, but in this case it has enough of both that if it were to be expressed in terms of gummi worms, half the continental united states would be drowned in a deluge of tastiness. Goofy metaphors notwithstanding, every shot is well put together and all the transitions are smooth with no detail left out.

The acting is also spectacular in this movie, with Sam Worthington becoming a fast favorite for me and old hand Sigourney Weaver putting in one of her best performances since Aliens (hey, another really good James Cameron movie =P). Even though a majority of the acting is performed via motion capture, there still has to be motion there to capture and the actors have done so very, very well.

Now for a little bit of shameless fan praise for James Cameron: this man is a genius. He has always been pushing the technical limits of the medium of cinema and this case is no exception. In fact, Cameron spent roughly the last decade and nearly $300 million to develop the technology to make this movie possible the way he initially envisioned it in 1999. Now I don't know about you, but that's what I call dedication.

In conclusion: This movie is absolutely amazing, go see it now, preferably in IMAX 3D because it really does make the experience come alive. So go see it now! What? You're broke you say? Not a problem! Just go knock off some convenience store and........oh........wait, ok, so maybe you can't do that, but short of those measures you have no excuse not to see this movie.

Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

2009-12-15T11:06:00.000-06:00

You might be wondering why I took so long after this movie was released to review it, that's because it wasn't released everywhere at the same time. This movie didn't come to my area until this week. Oh well, limited releases and all that.

Ok, so first off let me dispel a lot of hate speech people have been putting out concerning this movie, it's not bad, not horrible, not awful. What it is could best be described with the use of a single word: schizophrenic.

Bear in mind: crazy is not always a bad thing, Vincent van Gogh was arguably pretty nuts and that worked out pretty well for him, at least from a historical and artistic perspective. So while this movie isn't BAD, it is nuts, but it does manage to take the pigskin of lunacy and run with it.

There have been endless complaints by people comparing this movie to the first and while those arguments would be valid with most sequels like the matrix trilogy where the quality steadily and systematically went down in a nice curve that would give any statistician the warm fuzzies, that is simply not the case here.

This movie is not actually a sequel per se, what it is is a side story, or more accurately it's a collection of anecdotes involving characters that happened to exist in the movie boondock saints, that's all there is to it really.

Now the obvious argument becomes: "But Daniel, what you're arguing is sheer lunacy, you can't have a movie with the number in the title and have it not be a sequel!" Well my good sir, the first flaw in your argument is that you used my name and the word lunacy in the same sentence, as madness is my Forté, you have no chance to survive and I will most assuredly make your time. Secondly a movie with a number in the title in no way has to be a sequel or even related to any other film for that matter, see history of the world part one by Mel Brooks.

I refuse to say this movie is bad because it isn't, there are things ABOUT it that are bad, but in and of itself it is not bad. The acting is good, with the exception of Julie Benz, who I respect a great deal as an actress but simply cannot condone her failure to portray a character with a beating heart and functioning brain in this film.

I will admit that the aesthetics were better in this movie than the other (note that I say other and not first) boondock saints movie, but it failed to grasp the structural techniques that made boondock saints good: the jump cuts that actually left you wondering what happened and how in that funky usual suspects/fight club sort of way.

The plot did wonder about a bit in a disjointed manner and the movie was definitely on the long side and I will admit that was annoying, but you really don't have much time to notice that as you skip onto the next dream sequence.

So what is the bottom line? (yes I know if you actually read everything up to this point you're most likely saying "yes you bastard! what is the damn bottom line?! do I see this movie or not?!"

The bottom line is don't see this movie in theaters, it's not bad and you should rent it, but don't shell out $8 for it, honestly it's better spent on that cheap Christmas gift you're wavering on whether or not to buy for that random person you may or may not harbor homicidal tendencies for, but still wish to be on good terms with.

"Where the Wild Things Are" or "The Nasty Childhood Divorce You Never Had In Two Hours"

2009-10-18T03:50:00.002-05:00

"Where The Wild Things Are" may be rated PG, but it's not a kids movie. I'm not even sure it's an adults movie frankly.

Spike Jonze takes whatever nostalgia you had for Maurice Sendak's novel and slowly grinds it into the salt and glass-shard encrusted ground while spritzing you with a bottle of lemon juice.

It captures all the joy you never had of going through a terrible divorce as a child and compresses it into two incredibly miserable hours.

Completing the 'nasty divorce as seen through a child's eyes' allegorical tale is the amazing voice acting, of which I wish there had been none. It really made you feel like your parents were arguing and yelling right there in the theater and you happened to be eight again. Inane arguments that make no sense to a child, miserable lame excuses as to why two people who seemed so in love can no longer be together, etc, etc, etc.

Go watch the latest Saw movie. You'll feel better, both in general, and about humanity having seen it over "Where the Wild Things Are".

G. I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra should be Retitled Sloppy Boring Joe

2009-09-01T21:20:00.008-05:00

Tinseltown has failed to produce a real hit this year and G. I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is no exception. Sure Angels & Demons came close to being a home run, if only an infield one. Even the much hyped Watchmen suffered from a badly edited theatrical cut as LA continues to dump on itself, licking its wounds from last year's strikes and this year's recession.

G. I. Joe isn't anything new or spectacular; it is, in fact, quite the opposite: overused CGI, actors chosen for looks, not ability; too many plot lines that turns into tiring exposition; lots of pointless effects; unneeded comedic relief; pointless love interests and plenty of eye candy.

The first clue that this movie was going to be a waste of time was Dennis Quaid is featured prominently in the trailer as General Hawk. Quaid must have thought this would be his redemption movie that would turn his career as audiences saw him in a new light, much like what Stranger Than Fiction did for Will Ferral, but alas, that's not the case. Quaid sure does look tough in poses for press junkets but as soon as he opens his mouth, it's game over. Let's face it: Quaid has always played soft-spoken character roles. In a phrase, he's no Bruce Willis.

Then you have Channing Tatum as Duke. What a waste. He simultaneously tries to be serious and a pretty boy, Brad Pitt look alike and doesn't do either well. His only saving grace is that he's acting beside a hugely miscast Marlon Wayans. Tatum is eager, but only time will tell if he's talented.

Marlon Wayans being miscast is quite the understatement. It was like watching Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave all over again, which is, to say the least, painful. It's not that Wayans' performance is bad in isolation; no, he gave exactly what director Stephen Sommers asked. The problem is that as advertised, G. I. Joe was a serious action film, not some blown out genre buffet.

Ripcord's love interest with Scarlet doesn't serve the film either. It plays second fiddle to Duke and Ana's relationship and hence redundant to the film's needs. It's not actually funny nor is it the stuff that a good romance is made of. It's fodder for the screen.

Next is the eye candy. Boys, this is simply a matter of hair color preference. All three girls have nice figures, so this is a matter of picking your poison, but again, this is yet another example of how you can have too much of a good thing. Granted, I used to not think that you could have too many hot girls in a film, but now I'm persuaded otherwise. Simply put, this is a film, not a porno, The girls compete with each other for screen time but there's nothing arousing about My personal preference has the least amount of screen time, but boy is she a site for sore eyes: Karolina Kurkova as Cover Girl.

Though it's nice to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt take on more prominent rolls, it was just creepy watching him play such a twisted character. I think he should stick to smaller, lo-budget dramas where he's done his best work: Brick, The Lookout, and Killshot. The winning performance of the film is Jonathan Pryce's President of the United States--a performance that restores prestige to the high office.

Ultimately, while sitting in the the theater, one clearly understands that the girls on the screen is fake and there's no chance in hell of meeting them much less sleeping with them and this reality is hammered into your thick skull with the horrific compositing. One gets the feeling that Sommers took the George Lucas approach: stick everyone in front of a green screen then make the movie in the computer. Every underwater shot screams "Look at me! I'm CG!"

The dizzying cinematography didn't help either. Granted, you don't get the motion sickness that the shot of the LHC in Angels & Demons. The fights were pretty good, but the fly-wheeling, whiz banging, zip-zoom-flying that passed for establishing and tracking shots made you wonder if this wasn't some kid's plaything.

And that's the real rub of the film. This was a movie that was supposed to be about some kid's playthings from years ago. Of course, Paramount couldn't keep their grubby marketing paws away, so naturally the film got modernized to sell to an audience of sheeple. This wasn't a decent modernization like with Iron Man. No, this was another rehash of How NOT to make a comic book movie.

This movie tries to be all things to all men an fails miserably at it. Yes, there's something for the whole family to enjoy here but the parts just don't make a good whole. Even Alan Silvestri score is forgettable--I can't hum one bar. For crying out loud, we're talking about the guy who wrote the Cast Away score.

Inglorious Basterds? More like 'Inglorious Letdown'

2009-08-24T07:55:00.004-05:00

Inglorious Basterds is Tarantino's latest film, and given how awesome some of his past films have been, I was pretty psyched about seeing it. When I left the theater though, my opinion of the movie was 'meh'. Sure, it has some great moments, and there's certainly a few hilarious scenes, and plenty of suspense. But it drags on, and it seems to be uncertain when to be serious and when to treat it all as one great big joke. Everything is a caricature of a caricature. When it's good, it's great. But when it's bad, it's just tiring. And it's bad more often than it's good.

The movie looks great. The acting is... Well, all the actors are great at what they've been told to do. It's just what they've been told to do doesn't make for that good of a movie in the end.

Long story short, the movie isn't anything special. It's an amazingly violent fairy tale painted with strokes of WWII, with no connection to historical fact (not that it's a bad thing). In the end, the sum is less than the parts, and I wouldn't pay to watch it again. It drags out, and would have been better if it had been edited down to be half as long.

Between trying to be campy and funny, and trying to be serious and say something, it achieves neither and falls flat. A few great moments, but not enough to sustain the film. Some incredible acting. But not enough to sustain the film. Some incredible cinematography, but when the rest of the film is 'meh', it's just window-dressing.

Not worth paying to see, unless you've got absolutely nothing else to do.

Public Enemies: The Cinephile's Enemy

2009-07-08T01:08:00.004-05:00

I'm with on the false advertising in trailers thing: I think that studios that snooker you into the theater via false advertising in their trailers ought to have to pay out punitive damages in a class action lawsuit. All of the good shots of Public Enemies was in the trailer. Michael Mann owes me $10.50 for a midnight ticket after being drawn, beaten, horsewhipped, set on fire and quartered. I demand that Universal personally send Johnny Depp with my refund check, even though he and Christian Bale were the only things right wit the movie.

There's very little good to say about this movie. I can't recall a lick of the score because it all sounded like source music. The only recognizable piece of music in the film is Otis Taylor's Ten Million Slaves which, if you don't buy the linked single, you get forced into buying the the whole damned album.

For whatever insane reason, Director Michael Mann decided to film on cheap digital cameras.It's impossible to tell if that was a fatal flaw or not. I think what did happen and isn't being 'fessed up to is an American DP was hired, shot a few scenes and then someone went, "Hey, let's hire the DP from A&E's Pride and Prejudice.

Ok, so I just checked, Dante Spinotti didn't DP P&P, but he might as well have. Public Enemies is a far cry from L.A. Confidential.

For most of the picture, it felt like the camera was put on sticks sixty feet away from the action and filmed with a telescopic lens. Close ups were few and far between, but even so, when they were there, they felt fake and reeked of amateurism. The nighttime scenes were so dark that you couldn't tell what was happening.

Production design was non-exisist outside costumes, cars and buildings. There were too many shots that were just too clean. No, this isn't the fault of the digital cameras having more resolution or less depth of field (actually, digital cameras have more depth of field, but all you dumbass filmmaker wannabes out there get it backwards. The fuzzier you make something, the less depth of field you have.)

The sound designer and his crew need to undergo the same tortures as the director immediately after the DP and production design crew. The sound kept fading in and out and was blatantly fake more than once. And when I say blatantly fake, I don't mean you realized how they used object A to make the sound of object B, I mean the sound you heard didn't match what was on the screen. Again, this aspect reeked of amateurism.

I'm convinced that Johnny Depp can't give a bad performance and he's proved that in Public Enemeies. He was the only constant in the film. Though Johnny's performance can't save the film, he can suck you into the story and even garner a certain bit of empathy as he is, in a sense, living the ultimate American Dream.

Bale's performance comes and goes, but I think this has more to do with bad editing and horrible composition than it does raw performance.

The real winner here is one that has gone unmentioned in all the press junkets and that is Billy Crudup. I swear, Billy's the best goddamned character actor out there. I've seen a ton of his films: Almost Famous, Big Fish, The Good Shepherd and Watchmen, but for the life of me I can never identify Crudup. That's character acting.

Overall, I can only give Public Enemies 3 stars out of 10, one star for each star. Seriously folks, save your money and wait for your no good neighbor to pirate the thing.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Angles & Demons Reviewed

2009-06-05T15:57:00.002-05:00

While Ron Howard's latest excursion into the religious surreal is, without question, a high-tension, fast-paced thriller, Angels & Demons is, nevertheless, created with human hands--and the flaws show. Though Dan Brown attempted to pass himself off as an intellectual atheist on a mission with The DaVinci Code, receiving praise and accolades from today's so-called progressives, Angels & Demons reveals Mr. Brown as a lowly writer because Angels & Demons fits together too conveniently, ultimately leaving the audience saying, "Of course that couldn't have happened! It's just a movie."

THe main contrast between Angels & Demons and DaVinci Code is that Angels & Demons is very respectful to religion in general and Catholics specifically whereas DaVinci Code is purely atheistic volley designed to destroy Christendom.

Ewan McGregor was perfectly cast as Camerlengo. Everything about McGregor's performance, yes, even his accent is perfectly executed. You feel the little boy trying to come out of the thirty-something year old man--the taught humility fighting the powerlust while the whole time being in awe of the very power being veraciously juggled. Ayelet Zurer does a wonderful job playing second fiddle to Tom Hanks' leading Professor Robert Langdon. Pierfrancesco Favino and Stellan Skarsgård hold their weight as supporting actors supplying exposition. Armin Mueller-Stahl adds a human element, reminiscent of a wise grandfather that knows when and how to say "no."

Tom Hanks was paid "the highest salary ever paid to an actor" to reprise his role as professor Langdon just days before the announcement came that Johnny Depp was being signed to Pirates of the Caribbean 4 for the even higher salary of $56 million. Is Hanks worth the dough? His name might be, but it takes at least two viewings to appreciate his performance. On the initial viewing, there are too many times when you felt you were looking at an actor who was doing the best he could with the material he was handed.

For example, in order to execute a plot twist, Hanks had to pull the rabbit out of the hat with an "oh, I wonder if..." Granted, this may not all be Akiva Goldsmith's fault. I wouldn't be the first to call Goldsmith a hack, but having not read the book and being told the twist in the book was executed similarly, I'm not sure who's at fault. Perhaps this is the lowest common denominator floating to the top and the blame ultimately belongs to Dan Brown.

Regardless, director Ron Howard puts together a piece of entertainment that does indeed distract the audience from "the man behind the curtain." Howard's biggest disservice to the story is making the guilty too innocent thus raising suspicions almost immediately when the film begins. Howard also needs to reign in his DP Salvatore Totino. There are enough spinning shots of the Large Hadron Collider in the beginning of the film to give one motion sickness watching the film on the big screen. For those self-proclaimed film buffs out there, at least one shot of the LHC is reminiscent of the shot in Apollo 13 of the spark of electricity that ultimately causes the oxygen tanks to blow up.

Speaking of reminiscent, Hans Zimmer's Angels & Demons score pays much tribute to the DaVinci Code's track Chevaliers De Sangreal. Indeed, the last track of the album 503 heard in the film over the credit roll is a fuller but shorter orchestral rendition of Chevaliers De Sangreal. Joshua Bell's absolutely sublime violin work is featured prominently on several tracks and serves the score much like a favorite easy chair at the end of a long day. The score starts energetic, then proceeds to become the aural battle of Heaven vs. Hell as fought on earth. Indeed, the track Science and Religion is selfless, altruistic sacrifice as personified with sound waves. The keen listener will note a breath of a phrase from Hannibal and the percussion through the album is a tribute to John Powell's Bourne Ultimatum.

Whether Dan Brown got his facts straight or not, one thing is for sure: Angels & Demons will do for Art History--particularly Rome's--what Watchmen did for turning the younger generation on to 60's & 70's music. The sudden interest in art, architecture and Catholic procedure and history should not come as a surprise. After all, the film's message is "Faith is a gift we [intellectuals] have not yet received"...but we keep searching for the Truth.

Terminator Salvation - Holy Crap, It's Actually Quite Good!

2009-05-22T01:30:00.016-05:00

Terminator Salvation is surprisingly good. Given the disappointingly forgettable summer popcorn flick that was Terminator 3, the fourth title in the series didn't give one hope of being much better. Worrisome things like the fact that McG, the new director's most notable movie was "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" didn't help either. The fact that the credited writers were the geniuses behind the appalling Terminator 3 script really made it seem like an abandon-all-hope scenario. An audio recording of Christian Bale losing his temper on set was fairly amusing, but definitely not reassuring in any fashion.

Given all of this, I went into the theater with fairly low expectations, and came out stunned and impressed by what I'd seen. Certainly stunned by the fact that the movie was almost just as good as T2 had been. Impressed by how well everything had been done - the writing, acting, effects and the entire movie overall.

The scope of the movie's post-apocalyptic view of the future is simply breathtaking at times, the action is jaw-droppingly impressive with the unmistakably solid feel you get from sequences that were actually shot in real life, on location, not the green-screen cheesy composited sterile stuff that you see so often now. And robots. OMG, ROBOTS!! Giant assault robots the size fifty-story buildings, grim-looking chain-gun totin' T-600's and everything in-between. They're worth the price of admission alone. And the music drives it all home, with a score by Danny Elfman that really makes it seem like an epic Terminator movie. Overall, just... Wow.

The movie starts out with an interesting scene with Helen Bonham Carter and a death row inmate, and soon after that, a solid amount of action that really never lets up throughout the entire movie. Christian Bale plays a fairly good John Connor, though it's the rest of the cast that really pulls the movie along, especially the new friendly terminator played by Sam Worthington.

The future is indeed suitably post-apocalyptic, people are universally gun-shy (or robot-shy, I suppose) and seem like they've actually gone through a horrific nuclear war that destroyed the vast majority of humanity.

People in the future are also surprisingly radiation-proof, as John Connor and others go through nuclear blasts that should have teeth falling out and skin bleeding in a few hours from being so close to that much radiation. Not to mention the fact that John Connor can duke it out with a T-600 in a fist fight and not be dead after the first few punches. Although the skeptic in me dimly noted this during the movie, it really doesn't distract, and it's unlikely your average viewer would notice it at all. And that's really the worst I can say about the *entire* film. It's just that good.

Skynet has bigger and better robots, and some of them are extremely intimidating. At last, you feel like you're seeing what's truly possible, the things an AI with unlimited manufacturing and resources could pull off. Robots the size of buildings, etc. Skynet is still not very good at exterminating humanity, and it certainly seems to lack the tenacity the humans in the movie possess in surprisingly large and believable quantity. However, while you get the feeling that while it may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer at catching humans, it's got the 'overwhelming numerical and military advantage' thing down pat, and given enough time, wouldn't have a problem in killing off the human race in total.

Ahhhnold makes a surprising appearance as a CGI version of his 30 year old T2 self, and if I hadn't been told it was CGI, and hadn't seen Ahhhnold before, would not have been able to tell that it wasn't a human being. CGI, you've come a long way, baby. Some of the facial expressions, especially when he cocks his head to one side quizzically, gives one this eerie deja-vu that you're seeing Terminator 2 again, or somehow they really did have access to a time machine and got the exact actor from the exact same year to play a quick scene. His screen time as a human-looking terminator is short, but something that will seen as a pioneering moment in cinema for years to come.

John Connor goes to save the young resistance fighter that will one day be his father, and goes into the belly of the beast and comes out alive with him in tow. Mostly alive, anyway. No spoilers, I promise!

It's definitely worth your $9 to see in the theater, and for the first time as a reviewer, I'd be up for buying the DVD when it came out. There are very few movies worth watching more than once, and this is one of them. Color me happily surprised indeed!

A Prediction

2009-05-19T05:19:00.001-05:00

I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction about the new Terminator movie: I think that it will be boring and halfway through it, people will start quoting the Christian Bale rant. What say you? You heard it here first on Montag's Reviews.

Star Trek XI: The Future Is Full of Lens Flare

2009-05-10T01:53:00.013-05:00

My god Jim! It's full of lens flare!

The first few mentions I heard of the new Star Trek movie didn't really bode well for it. A prequel? With 'younger versions' of Spock and Kirk? Directed by J.J. Abrams? Star Trek meets Lost? Oh my. This can't end well.

The funny thing was, it did. It even broke the curse of the odd-numbered Star Trek movies being worse than the even numbered ones. Not only was it good, it was surprisingly good. It's possibly the second or third best Star Trek film ever, actually. Which is really impressive, frankly. Aside from a few minor annoyances, like the heavy use and abuse of lens flares (apparently everything in the future is so bright it causes lens flares. That's how you know it's the future!)

So what's the move like overall? Click below to read the rest of the review and find out!

The movie follows Kirk and Spock as they grow up, and it's pretty funny at times, especially as you see hints of the people they will be in the future. Kirk, played by Chris Pine is a womanizer, lover, and at times the brash, risk-taking leader that's so familiar from TOS. He also has swagger, bravado, and a surprising amount of intelligence. He's no caricature of Kirk, but someone who makes it look like you're seeing a younger version of Kirk all the same.

Spock is played by Zachary Quinto, and while he's not quite Nimoy's spitting image, at times it's almost eerie how well he captures the character. Aside from a few odd moments (Vulcan has school bullies?), it's great to see him grow into the character we all know and love.

Dr. McCoy is played by Karl Urban, and he really does look the part. At times, you could swear he was channeling DeForest Kelley, especially when he's being grumpy and complaining about something. Best of all, you never get the sense that he's trying to play the character of McCoy, just that he happens to be a younger version of him - no easy thing to pull off.

The antagonist of the movie, a Romulan by the name of Nero (terribly clever name, no?), played by Eric Bana is a bit lacking by comparison, though perhaps more for lack of decent scripting than any lack of skill as an actor. He's a miner who watched Romulus go bye-bye in the future, and he has it in for the older version of Spock. He may have bugs that tunnel into human beings to make them do as he pleases, but he's no Khan Noonian Singh. You get the feeling that most of the Romulans would rather just go home rather than wreck their vengeance on the people they blame for the loss of their planet.

The threat manages to bring all the characters onto the Enterprise and the movie hits a fast pace and doesn't let up from there.

Leonard Nimoy plays the older version of Spock, and it's a real treat to see his role in the movie - something you won't want to miss.

The movie is excellent, and if the ones following it are even only half as good, the franchise is better off than it has been ever before, and will certainly be something worth coming back to time and time again.

To sum it up, it's worth your $9 and then some - go see it!

The State of State of Play

2009-04-19T22:18:00.002-05:00

State of Play delivers on its promise to aspiring journalists to get adrenaline pumping and imaginations running wild as the viewer is treated to what it must be like to work a "real" story in a big metro. Crowe's character Cal is a seasoned, "old-time" reporter i.e. print media. Rachel McAddams' (who will forever be known as "the chick from The Notebook") Della Frye is a snippy blogger who churns out more content more often than Cal. Though Della is labeled as unseasoned, this relationship isn't played up like a buddy-cop franchise, vis-à-vis Lethal Weapon.

Cal's a-long-time-ago roommate--now Senator Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck)--is today's news topic after his ~~Monica Lewniski~~ young, attractive intern is found to be murdered. When Senator Collins shows up on Cal's doorstep that evening, the race is on at the Washington Globe to get the whole story. Instead of taking up his boss' suggestion of bringing in another seasoned reporter, Cal politics for blogger Della to be his partner-in-~~crime~~writing.

There's been much ink spilled bitching about how State of Play and The Soloist are movies designed to prop up a dead industry. Nonsense! State of Play is a movie about chasing down the story.

Take away the newsroom workplace aspect and assume that blogging is the way that everyone consumes their news. Still the same film, isn't it? So long as no no-name blogger scoops the story, there will always be pros who have connections, tips and sources. That is what journalism is about--recording the facts and leaving the journey to the reader.

Oddities: Cal isn't the typical embittered has-been that saves the day one more time while passing on his secrets to his tag-a-long. Instead, Cal is rather affable all-in-all. Robin Wright Penn makes for a stunning Senator's wife despite the fact that she is in tears the majority of her screen-time. Jeff Daniels makes another Traitor-like cameo which seems to be his MO. Similarly, Jason Bateman scores another groundhog role with State of Play.

Kevin Macdonald has a good start for what could be a long career in features should he decide to give up his documentary filmmaking ways. (Previous Macdonald feature that got press: The Last King of Scotland)

Will this film make money? It's hard to say. Rising ticket prices means fewer movies seen in theaters per year by average Joe Blow. Add to this the consternation that Crowe has been reported to be the least profitable actor and all signs point to no. In the end, it all comes down to whether or not people want to see a journalistic thriller.

A Waltz with Bashir

2009-04-05T23:38:00.000-05:00

I recently got around to watching "A Waltz with Bashir" and while it was a powerful and well made film about the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, at the end of it, I was unhappy with the film because intellectually, it did not have anything to say about the horrors that had occurred.

It recounted the experiences of one man dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder that he suffered from as a result of participating in the fighting, but past that, it did not have anything to say of weight about the events, beyond perhaps 'humans are good at killing each other, one revenge inciting the opposite side to do the same'.

By the end of the film, it's just the feel-bad movie of the year, and you feel if there was nothing of worth to take from the film. Not that there has to be a positive message. Or a negative one. Just *any* message of *any* intellectual depth.

If you make a movie about explosions, no one expects Shakespeare. If you make a movie about events you compare to the Nazi holocaust, you'd damn well better have something to say about it.

In some ways, the film just made me feel like the residents in a thousand mile radius of the area were all guilty, either for participating in the violence on either side, or doing nothing to stop it, or get away from it.

All of those people that live there and accept their fate and lot in life like lambs to the slaughter are in my mind, just as guilty as those carrying out the slaughter on both sides.

To use a notion from Kant, humans have a moral imperative to act, and inaction does not bear any less guilt than actively participating in the wrongdoing.

Get up and walk away. Don't stop walking until you're dead or you're somewhere else where war is not a daily fact of life. Short of 'they will shoot me the moment I try to escape', there is no valid excuse for the failure to do so.

Introducing Professor Tom

2009-04-01T02:58:00.002-05:00

Professor Tom has kindly joined the blog, and given how often I manage to write a new movie review, this is definitely a good thing. He's someone that can write a good entertaining review that isn't the equivalent of a scene-by-scene post-mortem by the assistant director or a lovely informative one-liner like "THIS MOVIE RAWKS! GO SEE IT!"

Montag's Movie Reviews - we'll make you laugh, and we'll make you laugh even harder after you've seen the movie or your money back.

Watchmen a Film to Watch

2009-03-30T14:28:00.004-05:00

The market's being flooded with ~~comic book~~ graphic novel-based films. Given the ever increasing offering, how do you if the latest one is right for you? ProfessorTom lets you in on the inside scoop of Zack Snyder's Watchmen.

I had no idea what to expect from Watchmen as my only connection to the material prior to the movie was through the teaser with the Smashing Pumpkins' The Beginning is the end is the Beginning. I knew from the trailer that there was once a group called Watchmen who defended the city back in the 30's but they were long gone. One of them had been killed, so solving that mystery and avenging the murder was the premise of the film.

When we got to the theater, there were signs in the window warning that Watchmen had been rated R for intense violence and explicit sexuality, almost as if the film should have gotten an NC -17. Immediately, i was reminded of the Sin City debacle, namely, the alleged theater in Texas that only took cash because there were so many senior citizens going to see the movie and the theater didn't want to refund the money or have a way for the patrons to stop payment on a check or credit card. I was also reminded of the headline Walt Disney's Sin City does $21 Million Open Weekend and the aftermath.

Filled with a cast of accomplished, though unknown actors, Watchmen was very well acted. Through the twists and turns of the plot, each character got more screen time as their character's backstory was told. The person to keep your eye on is this ensemble is Patrick Wilson. Wilson doesn't have a long list of credits to his name. His most memorable credits are playing a fop of a boyfriend in Andrew Lloyd Webber's film adaptation of his Phantom of the Opera and a pedophile that is in turn tortured by his victim in Hard Candy. (For a real treat, go grab a copy of Hard Candy to see a pre-Juno Ellen Page in the role of...antagonist?). Wilson does rather well playing the role of an overweight has-been--so much so, that it doesn't feel acted at all, much like Rosie O'Donnel's performance in Riding the Bus with My Sister.

Jackie Earle Haley--there's not a lot to say about this guy. Yes, he was Rorschach who was, in some respects, the main attraction. But there's only so much performance that you can put into body language and voiceovers alone--an actor needs to be able to emote. Morgan's scenes as Walter Kovacs were distracting because I kept comparing him to William Fichtner.

Malin Akerman was a sexy Silk Spectre and as such was only so much eye-candy. Billy Crudup is one of those great character actors that you can never identify much like Gary Oldman: you only know they're in the cast because the credits told you so. For the record, there are enough shots of the blue schlong to make women happy, but I don't think that anyone other than a pre-pubecent teen will enjoy the elongated sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre.

If there is any lack of character, it is that of the Comedian in his older days. Granted, it wouldn't have served the story for the Comedian to be around if he wasn't in flashbacks outside of the opening scene, but it's a damn shame. Despite his imperfections, I think his older, mellower self would have made a fine drinking buddy.

Zack Snyder doesn't disappoint when it comes to showing the ass-kickings that are constantly being dished out, something that the younger generation will enjoy because they have no outlets for their angst. If this film will do anything to the "yute of America" it will be to turn them on to old sixties and seventies music. Nearly all of the choices for the soundtrack were sensibly used with the exception of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". This song was so disharmonious that it actually worked against the scene in question and made one want to head to the concession stand. I personally sung along to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence". It will be interesting to see which songs are downloaded and listened to by the younger generations that see this film.

The ending was anticlimactic. You didn't really care about the antagonist and by the time you figured out what really happened, you really didn't care. The film does seem to drag on and on even though you want more and more. I caught myself looking at my watch more than once trying to calculate when the film would conclude not due to lack of interest but due to wanting to get up out of my seat.

Speaking of the ending, I do have a gripe with this film's final moments. After all is said and done, there's no news to report on because evil has been abolished. The reporter turns to his editor and says "What should we run? That actor Reagan is running for President." Now, I know that Reagan laughed at the joke when it was in Back to the Future. In fact, when they showed Back to the Future at the White House, Reagan had them stop the film, run it back and play the joke again.

I was miffed with this line because I thought it was yet another pot shot at one of the greatest Presidents that we had ever had. After I had seen the film, I ran into a buddy who had read the graphic novel. He said that this was in the source and that you have to remember that in the comics Nixon had four terms. Armed with this understanding, I can give the "joke" a pass, but I'm afraid that the younger generation will not fully understand the background to this line and will walk out of the theater hating a President they never knew.

All in all, I feel like it would be worth $6 to go see this film on the big screen.

Max Payne: The Movie - A Review

2008-10-17T02:43:00.013-05:00

It all started innocently enough back in '01. Some company named 'Rockstar' put out a video game. It was like playing a cross between the best cliches of pulp detective novels and a combat system right out of the Matrix films. Some crazy fool turned it into a movie, and after seeing it tonight, I came to a few conclusions.

One, the first video game was better than this movie.
Two, this movie was still better than the second video game in the Max Payne series.
Three, a few punches can put Max Payne in a hospital bed, but he can laugh off a shotgun blast to the chest from three feet away.

If you're reading this, all you care about is 'should I bother seeing it or not?'. The short answer is, if you like stuff being shot up reaaaal good, go see it! If you're interested only in seeing Oscar-worthy movies, you'll probably want to skip this one. And for those of you sticking around for my humorous take on the movie...

Max Payne is a man with a past. We know this because we're told exactly that in the first few minutes of the film.

ROOKIE: "Who's that hard-boiled looking fellow at the desk?"
OLD AND WISE DETECTIVE: "He's a man with a past son."
OLD AND WISE DETECTIVE: "Well, actually, we all have pasts, but his is more hard-boiled and full of bad pulp detective novel cliches."
ROOKIE: "Ah."

Max Payne is a man with a mission. His wife and child were ruthlessly murdered, and now he's looking to find the killer that got away. Much like O.J. Simpson, but with less golfing. Managing to shoot two of the three intruders that broke into his house, he notes the fact that they were junkies and proceeds to search for the third one assuming he's the same. In fact, he decides to go Junkie Hunting(TM), walking the subway late at night wearing an expensive watch.

JUNKIE ONE (SWEATING BALLS AND SHAKING, VIALS OF A BLUE DRUG IN HIS POCKET): "Hey man, see that dude with the watch? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
JUNKIE TWO (NEEDING A FIX AND SHAKING): "He could tell us what time it is?"
JUNKIE ONE: "No you idiot! We could steal the watch, sell it, and get more drugs!"
JUNKIE TWO: "That's a brilliant plan! I have a gun!"
JUNKIE THREE (REALLY, REALLY TRIPPING OUT): "Maaann, what if he has a gun too?"
JUNKIE ONE: "You idiot, law-abiding citizens aren't allowed to have guns here! How do you think we'd survive if they did?!"
JUNKIE TWO: "Let's go fuck this guy up!"

Max Payne wanders into a clean restroom in a subway station. That's how you know that this is HOLLYWOOD and not REAL LIFE. He sets the expensive watch down on the sink and waits. Seconds later, the three junkies burst through the doorway.

JUNKIE ONE: "Hey man, that's a nice watch."
JUNKIE TWO: "Yeah, that watch looks real familiar."
MAX PAYNE: "Yeah, because this is the same watch you pawned earlier today after robbing that person."
JUNKIE THREE: "Holy shit, have you been stalking us?! OMG!! I'd get a restraining order if I wasn't TRIPPING THE FUCK OUT!"
JUNKIE TWO: "Shut up and give me the watch. I have a GUN!"
MAX PAYNE: "That's nice. I have bullet time."
JUNKIE TWO: "WTF?" (STARTS TO SHOOT MAX)

Max Payne moves with amazing speed, disarming the junkie and shooting him. The first junkie jumps under the bathroom stalls to hide. Max Payne starts blowing the stall doors open with a PISTOL that SHOOTS SHOTGUN SHELLS. This is REALLY, REALLY COOL. Max finally corners the junkie in the last stall after BLOWING THE BATHROOM TO HELL AND BACK.

MAX PAYNE: (HOLDING UP PHOTO OF HIS WIFE) "Have you seen this woman?"

JUNKIE ONE: "WTF?! No!"
MAX PAYNE: "Damn."
MAX PAYNE: (POINTING GIANT REVOLVER AT JUNKIE) "BLAM!!"

JUNKIE THREE has run out of the bathroom and is now WALKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SUBWAY TUNNEL TRACKS. He is REALLY TRIPPING THE FUCK OUT. He sees WINGED SHADOWS and then he is HIT BY A SUBWAY TRAIN and it LOOKS REALLY PAINFUL.

MAX PAYNE searches for new leads and crashes a drug party being thrown by his former SNITCH.

SNITCH: "Max! WTF are you doing here?! I don't associate with low-class criminals any more! Just the high-class ones that cops don't bust!"
MAX PAYNE (STARTS SENTENCE, BUT IS DISTRACTED BY SLINKY WOMAN): "That's an interesting tattoo" (LOOKING AT WING TATTOO ON HER WRIST)
SLINKY WOMAN: "Interesting pickup line..."
SNITCH: "Max, slinky woman, slinky woman, Max." (RUSHES AWAY)
SLINKY WOMAN: "Hey, why don't we go back to your place and I'll lick your **** until you ****. And then I'll **** your **** so hard that you'll ******** *****."
MAX PAYNE (COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS): "So you'll tell me more about your tattoo?"
SLINKY WOMAN (ROLLING EYES): "Yes. But I'll have to do it while in your bed and totally nude."
MAX PAYNE: "Ok."

Back at MAX PAYNE'S APARTMENT, we see the SLINKY WOMAN and MAX PAYNE walk into a very utilitarian and depressingly spartan set of rooms.

SLINKY WOMAN (WALKING INTO MAX'S BEDROOM, REMOVING DRESS): "Oh dear. I forgot to wear a bra. Whoops!"

MAX PAYNE walks into his bedroom. The SLINKY WOMAN has managed to loose every slip of clothing and is now only wearing MAX PAYNE'S bedroom sheets. The sheets cover VERY LITTLE.

SLINKY WOMAN: "So what was her name?"
MAX PAYNE: "Huh?"
SLINKY WOMAN: "I'm nude, in your bed, and moaning and you've barely noticed. Obviously you're preoccupied. Tell me her name, you can call me that when we **** and it will be kinky."
MAX PAYNE (VISIBLY UPSET): "Tits? GTFO!"
SLINKY WOMAN (LAUGHING AT MAX): "Ok, whatever, I need another hit of that BLUE DRUG anyway."

The SLINKY WOMAN grabs MAX PAYNE'S WALLET on the way out, walks out into the night and down a dark and abandoned looking alley-way, wearing very little and COMPLETELY ALONE. We know what THIS means.

SLINKY WOMAN (SUDDENLY SEES WINGED SHADOWS): "Oh shit. That last dose must have been stronger than I thought..."
SLINKY WOMAN (SEEING MANY MORE WINGED SHADOWS): "Fuck."
SLINKY WOMAN: "SCREAM!!"

The next day, MAX PAYNE walks into work, but is called over by his FORMER PARTNER before going into the building.

FORMER PARTNER: "Hey, come with me, I've got something you should see."
MAX PAYNE: "Hey, I don't turn tricks any more man."
FORMER PARTNER: "No, I actually do have something you'll find interesting."

MAX PAYNE'S FORMER PARTNER drives him to a CRIME SCENE. There are pieces of SLINKY WOMAN all over the place.

FORMER PARTNER (HOLDING UP MAX PAYNE'S WALLET): "She had this on her. You realize this makes you look really guilty, right?"
MAX PAYNE: "I don't care, it's not like I killed her."
FORMER PARTNER (SLAPPING FOREHEAD): "Wow."
MAX PAYNE: "I hate you. I'm walking back to work."
FORMER PARTNER: "I did everything I could to solve your wife's murder! C'mon!"
MAX PAYNE: "Fuck you." (WALKS BACK TO WORK)

Later that night we see MAX PAYNE'S FORMER PARTNER looking over a new series of JUNKIE murders. He notices a WINGED TATTOO on the wrist of the JUNKIES and has A FLASH OF INSPIRATION. He searches the files from the case for MAX PAYNE'S DEAD WIFE and notices that one of the killers also has the same WINGED TATTOO. He calls MAX PAYNE with excitement, only to get his answering machine. He tells him he's found something new and is coming over. But we know that bad guys have EVERY PHONE LINE tapped, and when MAX PAYNE gets home, he finds his FORMER PARTNER dead. He gets the shit PUNCHED out of him by SOMETHING HE CAN'T SEE and wakes up in the HOSPITAL.

OLDER EX-COP: "Hey Max, good to see you're awake. I've never seen anyone as HARD-BOILED as you being hospitalized from a few punches, but whatever."
MAX PAYNE: "My FORMER PARTNER?"
OLDER EX-COP: "He's dead. The funeral is in a few hours."
MAX PAYNE: "I should go pay my respects."
OLDER EX-COP: "Not in that ratty shirt! I'll give you a new one, but it's over at my office."
MAX PAYNE: "This isn't a pick-up line, is it?"
OLDER EX-COP: "No, I just need to show you that I work for an EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY for PLOT PURPOSES."
MAX PAYNE: "Ah."

After touring the EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY and getting a NICE SHIRT, MAX PAYNE goes to see the widow of his FORMER PARTNER to pay his respects. She SLAPS him in one of the LEAST CLICHED MOMENTS in this movie, and expresses anger that her husband's death is his fault and NOT THE FAULT OF THE EVIL GUY WHO ACTUALLY MURDERED HIM.

WIDOW: "You bastard!"
WIDOW: "SLAP!"
MAX PAYNE: "WTF??" (LEAVES HOUSE OBVIOUSLY CONFUSED)

MAX PAYNE pumps the OLDER EX-COP for information, as we find out that his DEAD WIFE worked at the same EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY that the OLDER EX-COP does.

MAX PAYNE: "What can you tell me about the people who worked with my DEAD WIFE?"
OLDER EX-COP: "Don't you have a habit of beating the shit out of people while asking questions?"
MAX PAYNE: "Maaaaybe."
OLDER EX-COP: "Doesn't that often create large problems?"
MAX PAYNE: "Maaaaybe."
OLDER EX-COP: "OK, good to know. Here's how to find your DEAD WIFE'S FORMER MANAGER."

INTERIOR, OFFICE OF MAX PAYNE'S DEAD WIFE'S FORMER MANAGER:
MAX PAYNE: "Hi there."
MANAGER: "Oh. Hey. What are you doing in my office?"
MAX PAYNE: (LOCKING OFFICE DOOR FROM THE INSIDE): "Just had a few questions."
MANAGER: "Oh. I almost didn't recognize you without your DEAD WIFE."
MAX PAYNE: "So what was my DEAD WIFE working on at this EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY?"
MANAGER: "Um.... Er... Nothing special?"
MANAGER: "Don't you have a reputation for beating the shit out of people when asking them questions?"
MAX PAYNE: "Oh, right." (PROCEEDS TO BEAT SHIT OUT OF MANAGER)
MANAGER: "Ow. Ok. Those blows to the face with the butt of your gun seem to have jogged my memory. Your DEAD WIFE was working on a drug to turn soldiers into SUPER SOLDIERS, but unfortunately it was HIGHLY ADDICTIVE and had EVIL SIDE EFFECTS, like seeing WINGED DEMONS. Go figure."
MANAGER: "Here, take this folder full of information about our EVIL PROJECT."
MANAGER: "Actually, instead of beating the shit out of me, can you protect me from the EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY I work for? I think they might be after me for squealing to you."
MAX PAYNE: "Already?"
MANAGER: "Well, they are EVIL and have EVERY PHONE LINE tapped."
MAX PAYNE: "But you weren't talking to me over the phone!"
MANAGER: "Didn't you read the script?! The EVIL SWAT TEAM is only moments away! Get me outta here!"

MAX PAYNE proceeds to walk his DEAD WIFE'S FORMER MANAGER out of the office at gunpoint and out onto a floor full of INNOCENT EMPLOYEES.

INNOCENT EMPLOYEES: "SCREAM!!"
INNOCENT EMPLOYEE ONE: "It's a pity none of us are criminals, then we might have guns we could defend ourselves with!"
INNOCENT EMPLOYEE TWO: "I'm sure the police will help!"

The EVIL SWAT TEAM bursts through the outer doorway, full auto machine guns drawn. One of them SHOOTS MAX PAYNE'S DEAD WIFE'S FORMER MANAGER right in the chest with NO PROVOCATION. MAX PAYNE SHOOTS BACK. The EVIL SWAT TEAM sees MAX PAYNE behind a crowd of INNOCENT EMPLOYEES. They SHRUG and fire at full auto right THROUGH the crowd of INNOCENT EMPLOYEES at MAX PAYNE. A GIANT GUN BATTLE ENSUES, THOUSANDS OF ROUNDS are FIRED and NO ONE ever has to RELOAD. MAX PAYNE escapes unscathed.

EVIL SWAT TEAM MEMBER ONE: "Damn, all those rounds and we didn't hit him once! Just all these stupid INNOCENT EMPLOYEES. These are the most useless bullets EVER!"
EVIL SWAT TEAM MEMBER TWO: "We should find out what sort of bullets MAX PAYNE uses. He killed half of our entire team!"
EVIL SWAT TEAM MEMBER THREE: "They're probably hard-boiled in some fashion."
EVIL SWAT TEAM MEMBER ONE: "Wouldn't boiling bullets in water ruin them?"
EVIL SWAT TEAM MEMBER THREE: (SLAPS FOREHEAD)

MAX PAYNE looks over the folder of information on the EVIL PROJECT and finds out that one of the soldiers used as test subjects SURVIVED the process and became a TOTAL BAD-ASS and went on to turn the EVIL DRUG into an EVIL STREET DRUG and sell it to INCREASE the BOTTOM LINE of the EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY. MAX PAYNE tracks him down to his EVIL DEN OF DRUGS, and he proceeds to SHOOT EVIL SOLDIERS / DRUG DEALERS dead LEFT and RIGHT. Finally, he makes his way to the end of the level... Er... Top of the building and meets the BOSS... Er... TOTAL BAD-ASS. They STRUGGLE and it looks like the TOTAL BAD-ASS might be winning. SUDDENLY the OLDER EX-COP bursts in the door and SHOOTS the TOTAL BAD-ASS dead with a single round.

MAX PAYNE: "How did you get here? WTF is going on?"
OLDER EX-COP: "I'll explain outside."
MAX PAYNE: "Why is your partner trailing behind me with a blackjack?"
EVIL PARTNER: "THWACK."
OLDER EX-COP (LOOKING AT MAX PAYNE KNOCKED OUT ON THE FLOOR): "Because we're actually evil, duh. Do you actually thing *good* people work for EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES?"
EVIL PARTNER: "Shoot him in the head now?"
OLDER EX-COP: "No, that's too hard to escape from."
EVIL PARTNER: "What?"
OLDER EX-COP: "I said, 'Let's take him to the frozen lake, throw some drugs in his pockets and toss him in, making it look like a suicide'."
EVIL PARTNER: "Ah, just like when we did honest police work."

They show up at the mostly frozen lake. SNOW is blowing EVERYWHERE.

OLDER EX-COP: "Ah, now that you're awake, we can toss you in."
EVIL PARTNER: "Why did we wait for him to wake up?!"
OLDER EX-COP: "So I can monologue, duh."
EVIL PARTNER: "Ohhh, right."
OLDER EX-COP: "Max, BTW, I was the third killer in the house. I strangled your wife. It was FUN. How do you feel about that?"
MAX PAYNE: "I think you're forgetting one thing."
OLDER EX-COP: "What? We both have guns pointed at you and you're hand-cuffed."
EVIL PARTNER: "Yeah. Guns."
MAX PAYNE: "I've got BULLET TIME though."
OLDER EX-COP: "What?"
EVIL PARTNER: "What?"

MAX PAYNE moves with AMAZING SPEED and KNOCKS the OLDER EX-COP over and eludes them by diving into the FREEZING LAKE.

OLDER EX-COP: "Eh, I'm sure that'll kill him."
EVIL PARTNER: "Couldn't he get away with just a mild case of hypothermia?"
EVIL PARTNER: "And didn't you just confess to strangling his wife and loving every moment of it?"
EVIL PARTNER: "Are you *sure* that won't give him a large incentive to stay alive exact his revenge on you?"
OLDER EX-COP: "I'm sure it'll kill him."
EVIL PARTNER: "Good enough for me!"

MAX PAYNE swims through the FROZEN LAKE and makes his way ashore, only to find himself with a MILD CASE OF HYPOTHERMIA. SHIVERING, he notices the drugs in his pocket.

MAX PAYNE: "Maybe this will warm me up."

MAX PAYNE swallows the liquid BLUE DRUG from the vials and LEVELS UP, er... Becomes a TOTAL BAD-ASS. He ALSO starts to see WINGED DEMONS everywhere. It's PRETTY FUCKING COOL. He makes his way to the EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY and SHOOTS the FUCK out of EVERYTHING as he chases after the OLDER EX-COP and his EVIL PARTNER. The EVIL PARTNER rigs the building with C4 EXPLOSIVES to keep MAX PAYNE from following them to the HELICOPTER PAD. He DETONATES the EXPLOSIVES and the resulting EXPLOSION looks like a FIERY VISION OF ARMAGEDDON to MAX PAYNE. It ALSO looks PRETTY FUCKING COOL. MAX PAYNE manages to make it to the end of the level, er... HELICOPTER PAD.

OLDER EX-COP: "Er... Max... Ummm..."
MAX PAYNE: "BLAM!!"

The movie ENDS. Credits SCROLL with lots of COOL gun animations. There is a LARGE amount of stunt people listed. After the credits, there is a SHORT SCENE that I won't SPOIL.

Babylon A.D.

2008-08-30T02:07:00.005-05:00

I went to see Babylon A.D. tonight, and while intrigued, I didn't expect much out of it. I mean, it *does* star Vin Diesel. Sir Anthony Hopkins he ain't. I was pleasantly surprised though. It's a very good sci-fi movie that feels much like Blade Runner with a breath of fresh air. While it has the potential to be the next Blade Runner, it reaches, but never quite gets there. A better director, a larger budget, who knows what could have been?

However, 'not quite Blade Runner' is still pretty damn good. Far better than Terminator 3 by a long shot. In the end, I liked it more than 'Children of Men', which might be a more professionally done movie, but in some ways this film felt like a far more real version of the future, if that makes any sense. Aside from a few things that pulled you out of the immersion of the moment, like the use of vehicles in the movie that would be as dated as a 1970's Cutlass Supreme is today. I'm not sure what the future will be like, but there aren't going to be shinny 1990's Humvees running around like they do in the film. The SUV's are a bit suspicious in that light also.

To the only question that matters to you though - "Is it worth seeing?" Yes.

I'm somewhat surprised by the negative reviews I see online, and the level of vehemence behind them. When Spielberg's "A.I" came out, I didn't see people this pissy about that movie, even though "A.I." is a far worse movie than "Babylon A.D." WTF internet people? What *are* you smoking? Ignore my deluded cohorts and go see this movie. Go in as a blank slate, neither expecting to be disappointed nor amazed to the point of being overwhelmed. However, you should expect to come out having enjoyed this film.

The Golden Compass

2008-05-22T17:13:00.006-05:00

I finally got around to watching "The Golden Compass" and it was indeed interesting.

I have this thing where I'm Catholic. It's kinda weird and cultish, but it works for me. Anyway, along with being Catholic and all, you have friends that are Catholic. Some of them hysterically denounced this film as anti-Catholic propaganda and said, in essence, that no good Catholic should go see it. Of course, this made me want to see it even more, as I'm a sucker for controversy (that and I like to show that you don't have to be a walking, talking stereotype to be a good Catholic).

I'd read the first book when it came out a little over a decade ago. I was a bit younger then, and I didn't recall it having any particularly anti-Catholic agenda / propaganda, but looking at it now, a bit older and a bit wiser, heh, yeah, there's just a *bit* of it.

It's a good film, maybe a 7/10 or so, so don't get me wrong, I rather liked this movie. That said, it is frustrating being a Catholic and having your beliefs mocked and mis-represented. Much like being an Atheist in a Christian society, I suppose.

It was kinda funny in a way - the allusions were transparent - anyone who claims not to notice them is either ignorant of the matters the author is alluding to, or just a bit thick in the head. Much like the people who claim that the Lord of the Rings series isn't allegorical *at all* (*cough*, even you, Mr. Tolkien, *cough*).

So more or less, the Papist Church of the New World Order is out to stop Dakota ~~Fanning~~ Blue Richards from discovering the Atheist Molecule (aka, 'Dust'). The Atheist Molecule is highly dangerous, as it allows people to think for themselves, rather than pay heed to the virulent lies of ~~Big Brother~~ the Papist Church of the New World Order, and we can't be having that, now can we?

*note: this is all intended to be said in a joking tone, and the metaphors aren't perfect, I know - they're not meant to be*

Dakota lives at a liberal arts college and has what must be the most awesome life (metaphysics for breakfast!), though no doubt highly boring to a young girl. Her uncle, James Bond, er Daniel Craig is an adventurer and researcher, studying the highly controversial Atheist Molecule, er, Dust in the cold Northern wastes. He's short on funding and asks the college to help him out of the pinch he's in. The Papist Church of the New World order tells the college that it'd better not if it knows where its bread is buttered, but as a liberal arts college, it has a history of supporting freethinkers, Protestants, heretics and even Atheists, so it jumps at the chance to fund James Bond's expedition.

Dakota Blue Richards wants to go too, but she's just a kid and so is therefore ignored, until a most slinky and a 'gosh, I'm sure she's perfectly trustworthy!' Nicole Kidman comes along, and sweeps her up, playing her role as a tool of the Papist Church of the New World Order to the hilt, taking her in her wonderfully steampunk airship to the North, but during a quick stop at ~~the Vatican~~ the heart of the Papist Church of the New World Order, Dakota Blue Richards escapes and meets up with some gypsy analogues and travels north on her own, teaming up with an armored polar bear With A Past on the way.

And in all of this, there's a conspiracy of 'Gobblers' who have been kidnapping small children for some nasty purpose, and you'll never guess who's behind it all. Oh, wait, this is Philip Pullman we're talking about here, right. You *will* guess who's behind it - the Papist Church of the New World Order, duh!

I don't want to give away the entire plot, so I'll leave off by saying that Dakota Blue Richards has more wonderful adventures trying to help her friends escape the Papist Church of the New World Order and its sinister plans for them, meets up with more armored polar bears and does all sorts of wonderful things that leave plenty of room open for the sequels.

In the final tally, there's armored polar bears, steam punk galore, and when the film isn't hating on Catholicism, it's pretty darn awesome from a geek's perspective. And any movie with Sam Elliot in it is a good movie.

As the novel was intended for the younger reader, it can be a bit 'meh' for us older sorts at times, as it's all about a little kid having amazing adventures and becomes very hard to suspend disbelief at times when one is no longer a little kid, but hey, not that bad.

At the end, the movie is inseparable from the ax the author has to grind when it comes to organized religion and Papist scum, but despite that, it's still a damn good movie.

And speaking as Papist scum, I rather liked it.

There Will Be Blood

2008-05-22T17:11:00.002-05:00

So after months of failed attempts to see this movie, I finally got around to it. I'd seen No Country for Old Men and it amazed me beyond words. Hearing some of the same sort of talk about There Will Be Blood, I figured it'd be worth seeing. It's an... Interesting movie. Let's put it that way.

One sentence review: "Did you know that this was based on an Upton Sinclair novel? We'll remind you! Again! And Again! (oh, and we've got the totally kick-ass Daniel Day-Lewis in here too, btw)"

For anyone who hasn't been forced to read an Upton Sinclair novel in high school, I'll sum up his style in short: "Did you know that there are horrible things going on in otherwise innocuous areas? How horrible you ask? Let me tell you! In graphic detail, at length! If you don't feel the urge to vomit by the first chapter, then I've failed as a writer! (oh yeah, and that phrase about 'beating a dead horse'? They were thinking of me when they coined it)"

The fact that it's based on an Upton Sinclair novel is brought up first because the entire existence of the movie is oriented around his style of writing - a graphic and brutal exploration of an area previously viewed by the common folk as fairly hum-drum. The meat packing industry is just food right? Wrong! *People* get ground up at meat packing plants and put into your food! And I'm not talking about that fictional Charlton Heston flick either!

The plot more or less goes like this: "Daniel Plainview is a complete and utter asshole and misanthrope. He's also a talented oil man. If Ayn Rand had a personal hero, he would be it. He goes to ~~Texas~~.. er, California to find oil, bilk the locals, gets rich doing so, becomes the poster boy for 'creative child neglect', 'shooting your brother from another mother' and finds that once he has it all, he isn't any happier than he was before. Which was 'very much not at all'. Oh yeah, and there's crazy fundamentalists around these here parts. Did we mention that Daniel Plainview absolutely hates religion? This will be funny! Oh wait, Upton Sinclair novel, right. No, it won't be funny in the least."

If I haven't scared you away yet, it's actually a darn good movie. Not for the squeamish, the easily bored or people that think that Shakespeare is crap, to be certain, but a darn good movie all the same. A friend mentioned that it wasn't quite as good as "No Country for Old Men". That movie, at the end, was *more* than just the sum of its parts. This movie? It's somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

Still, 'not *quite* as good as the best movie in the last five years' is impressive. It's worth seeing to be sure.

"Darjeeling Limited" or "Rich White Boys Get Loaded and Go To India; The Movie"

2008-05-22T17:09:00.002-05:00

Recently saw The Darjeeling Limited. It seems that the director, Wes Anderson, is turning into a bit of a one-trick pony. The cinematography is to die for, as always, but once you get past that... You realize that the story is a rehash of any other movie he's done. Some say 'Ah, an auter has strong recognizable style!' and others counter this by saying 'But there's a difference between having a recognizable style and being formulaic.' This film put me squarely in the latter group.

It's like we've seen it all before. White people with family problems (but certainly not money problems) go through some semi-metaphorical journey and heal their broken relationships. The end. That's pretty much every Wes Anderson film to date. And what is it with non-white people always being used as foils for the main characters? I mean, I'm about as white as it gets, and if I'm noticing it, it's problematic to say the least. It gives the feeling "Oh hey, Man Friday is here to help you solve all your problems, and conveniently has none of his own to bother your film." Some might say that I'm only noticing it because I'm white and have White Guilt (TM), but I'd say that this goes beyond that to put it mildly.

In many ways, you feel like all of India is being trivialized as 'a nice place to go and see the funny natives and their strange ways'. I mean, one of the main characters sums up his experience about the country towards the end by saying "I love the way this country smells - kinda spicy." On some level, Wes Anderson makes fun of his characters not realizing that they're trivializing such things, but once you get past that, it's just trite. And still pretty damn offensive. One scene involves the three main characters attending an Indian funeral, and you get the sense that they're just attending a tourist attraction. They're here today and gone tomorrow, and none of this will really have any impact on them or how they live. Just some rich white folks breezing through, stopping by to gape at your quaint and curious customs. In the end, India is nothing more than an elaborate set piece, an excuse for a location rather than a reason for it, as the film could be set in any other quaint-to-Wes-Anderson country and not be a whit different.

Aside from controversial racial stereotyping, there's the nagging feeling of "Obviously none of these people have had to work a day in their life". At some level, it's nice to have characters that don't have to worry about money - I mean, a significant portion of film and literature is escapism from such things - but when it gets formulaic to the point where a Wes Anderson Plot (TM) can be described in a single phrase like the following; "Rich white people make some sort of semi-metaphorical journey to fix their screwed up relationships", it's noticeable and not in a good way.

This movie is nice enough to watch over some pizza and a few beers, but other than that? It has the depth of a goldfish bowl, borders on being pretentious and the even the best cinematography in the world can't hide the fact that the story is weak excuse for such. To sum it up in a single sentence? "Watchable, but a failure as a critical work."

Azumi

2008-05-22T17:08:00.001-05:00

Recently watched Azumi.

My one word review: "Blows."

My review involving a few more words:

"Imagine a Japan peopled by walking cardboard-cutout stereotypes. Imagine a Japan where the same people that brought you the Backstreet Boys, N Sync and Brittney Spears bring you a fresh new act of young faces, singing... Er, assassinating their way to the top.

An old priest tells a scarred warrior that to end violence, it'd be best if he'd go out into the wilderness, choose ten orphans, and make them into the next Backstreet Boys, er, assassins and have them kill off warlords that want to plunge the land into chaos.

It's hackneyed. It's just bad. It's like watching Seven Samurai filtered through the eyes of Lou Pearlman.

The acting is wooden. There is no characterization beyond the stereotypes the characters represent. Even the fight choreography is dreck - all the fancy editing in the world can't conceal the fact that the pop-stars, er, assassins are probably better at swinging a baseball bat than they are at swinging a sword. If you edited a baseball bat into their hands, what you see on the screen would actually make a lot more sense at times, come to think of it...

Worst of all, it was boring.

I turned the movie off halfway though. Reading other reviews on IMDB, it apparently only got worse, so I count myself lucky.

No Country for Old Men

2008-05-22T17:06:00.002-05:00

Chigurh's gonna getcha!

"No Country for Old Men" is easily the best film to come out this year and quite possibly the Coen brother's finest film to date. Yes, even better than "The Big Lebowski" (though indeed a very different sort of film).

Some reviews may appeal to ethos, pathos and logos to get you into the theaters to see this film. I'll simply appeal to your sense of enjoyment. If you like seeing films and truly appreciate an excellent, intelligent and gripping movie, this one is for you.

The plot is more or less this: A lone hunter (Moss) stumbles upon a drug deal gone horribly wrong in the outback of west Texas, finding a lot of dead bodies and two million in cash. Between the two, he wisely decides to take the cash. Unfortunately, two million dollars isn't the kind of money that gets chalked up by those who own it and so Moss finds himself pursued by a psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (pictured above), who in turn is pursued by sheriff Ed Bell. A significant portion of the sheriff's screen time is spent reflecting on variations of "I'm too old for this" and "I'm not cut out for this", both of which are true. Ed Bell is outclassed, out-gunned and sheer out-eviled by Chigurh. Moss does his best to stay one step ahead of Chigurh and does a very good job of it, all things considered.

Much of the film is very 'non-Hollywood'. The protagonist (Moss) is no shinning hero, nor a over the hilt anti-hero. No pithy sayings, no epic battles, yet in the end, you wind up appreciating the film far more for it.

Sheriff Bell isn't your usual type-cast law man either. He actively fights between giving into cowardice or sticking to his sense of duty while being constantly reminded that he's not cut out for what he's up against.

Chigurh easily wins 'scariest bad guy of the decade' award, playing an eerily psychotic killer. It's a performance that defies the few words I have time left to type.

Words simply don't do this film justice. For all I could say, it'd take a book to come close to giving a fair impression. It's definitely a film where you come back after seeing it and upon re-reading a review, think to yourself "Wow, that was so much more than what I had expected after reading this.", corny as it may sound.

In closing, if you see only one movie this year, this would be the one to see.

Treasure Raiders

2008-05-22T17:05:00.001-05:00

I recently saw "Treasure Raiders". Think "Fast and the Furious" meets "Indiana Jones". I can sum up the entire review in three words:

Don't see it.

It's... Amazingly bad. *Amazingly*. The director of photography should get some sort of award, and the rest of the people that made this movie? Don't let any of them near a camera. They'll end up going on trial for crimes against humanity, because I'm fairly sure that a film this bad counts as torture in most countries.

Plot: American Professor / Conspiracy Theorist / Street Racer searches for un-named treasures in Moscow, while trying to balance grading undergraduate papers and street racing with his Porsche 911 Carrera. Along the way, he meets a "Conan the Barbarian" era clone of Schwarzenegger (it's rather uncanny, right down to the Austrian accent) named 'Wolf'. Wolf is a Very Large Man^TM who tries to balance vigilante justice and street racing.

Wolf drives a Camaro with a built-in James Bond style missile launcher that can blow up cars in front of him, rocketing them so high into the air that he can drive right under them before they fall back down, and that's one of the more believable parts of the movie.

I mean, if a Camaro Z28 can beat a Porsche 911 Carrera three times in a row, anything is possible!

Professor meets Wolf, loses race against Wolf. Wolf pauses mid-race to take out Evil Bad Drug Dealers^TM, dump the cocaine in the river, donates the money to several drug rehab clinics and goes back to win the race, a spare driver in a duplicate car keeping all the other racers unaware of the events transpiring right under their very noses.

Professor notices Wolf wearing Sekrit Templar Treasure Locater Amulet and enlists him to aid in his crazy adventures through Moscow tracking down the Unnamed And Rather Vague Sekrit Treasure of the Templars^TM. But David Carradine is Evil and will Have None of That.

David Carradine pays for his interference by dying at the hands (or should it be detonators?) of Wolf's rocket launchers in a rather anti-climatic showdown. The police come in and arrest all the bad guys, but leave Wolf alone, because (and I shit you not) in the words of one of the policemen "We can't arrest him - he's done more than us to fight crime!".

Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.

Hard Candy

2008-05-22T17:00:00.001-05:00

"Hard Candy" is a movie that starts out fascinating but two-thirds of the way in, runs the plot straight into the gutter. Led by two top-notch actors, Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page, playing Jeff and Haley respectively.

Jeff is a photographer that likes to chat up young girls on the internet. Young as in '14 years old'. Jeff is thirty something. And when you come to find that the largest portion of his photographic portfolio is pictures that as he say 'legally skirt the boundaries' of child porn (so, yeah, this is the guy that made that infamous ADIDAS ad apparently), you start to feel icky. But he seems like a nice guy despite it.

Haley is an innocent young girl that like to chat up men twice her age and flirt with them. A lot. She invites herself into their homes and grabs the dudes alcohol and starts pouring for the both of them. There's back and forth flirtation, and then Jeff passes out. The little girl drugged him.

It's sooooo ironic!

Supposedly, this little girl is a brilliant 14 year old psychopath. She proceeds to set up a mini-surgery ward (all out of a messenger bag, mind you), complete with doctor's smocks and scalpels. She then proceeds to castrate Jeff, believing that he's a pedophile. While there's some evidence of it, it's not that strong. And if he is, it's perhaps a 1 on a scale of 1-10.

Haley believes that he killed another girl and does all sorts of evil things and that she's going to torture him for it. She does do this indeed - she throws him around like a rag doll, tasers him multiple times, and hangs him a from a noose. *This* is where it gets really hard to suspend disbelief - she's a 14 year old girl, she's not going to be beating the shit out of 183 pound fit guy and then hauling his dead weight body all *over* the place (including vertically into a high noose). Jeff may be a little bitch, but the girl, no matter how hardcore, is not The Terminator, which she'd have to be for the scenes I sat through to become plausible.

Lo and behold, the castration she performs on Jeff turns out to be an elaborate fake. He frees himself, only to get taken down *again* by a 14 year old girl half his size. With a taser. In a bathtub (yes, it would fry them *both*) and she more or less kicks his ass around like 'it weren't no thang'. At some point, you just go "Yeahhhh right."

And then, she manages to guilt himself into hanging himself from the roof, on the threat that his ex-gf that he's still hardcore not over will find the evidence that's been left out. So deciding to hang himself rather than ruin his reputation, he throws himself off the building.

From what I know of child molesters, they are canny and instinctive devious fucks. They are terrible, horrible people inside, and hardly the type to commit suicide. Any one that's ever been arrested would have (going through the various opportunities in the movie) a.) stabbed the girl, b.) shot the girl, c.) thrown the girl off the roof. Jeff isn't very good at child molesting, ok, but he can only defend himself as well as a 14 year old girl... Come on.

Haley isn't believable as The Terminator character she's made out to be.

Or as the brilliant med school student twice her age.

Or any of the 'honor school' abilities she shows - maybe one is plausible, but past that... No.

The characters just doesn't make any fucking sense.

Very prettily shot movie, first third is impressive, but it rapidly spirals down into a farce. Don't bother watching this one unless you have some burning desire to see it for some reason.

3:10 to Yuma

2008-05-22T16:56:00.002-05:00

I went to see 3:10 to Yuma the other day with Louis, mostly due to the rave reviews it had been getting. Were they correct? Well... Yes and no.

3:10 to Yuma is an excellent film - of that, there's no doubt. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale do flawless jobs as the villain and hero of the movie. The cinematography is beautiful and actually makes Arizona look like a place you'd want to move to (don't). And as the Western genre goes, it's the finest example I've seen since the likes of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". So when someone goes on and on about the various bits that the movie excels at, you know that it means that there's something it doesn't quite excel at.

The ending of the film makes No Bloody Sense.

The story is Russell Crowe is a Bad, Bad Man^TM. Christian Bale, is of course the Good Man^TM. This is why we see his barn getting burnt down in the beginning of the film and not Mr. Crowe's. Bale lost a third of his leg in the service of his nation. Crowe stabs people to death with a fork. Bale sets a good example for his children by his honorable actions. Crowe slits the throats of Indians. You get the idea. Think Goofus and Galant, with a bit of the old ultra-violence thrown in for good measure.

Mr. Crowe has a gang that worships the ground he walks on. When Crowe gets captured, his gang rides to save them, with his right hand ambiguously-gay man, Charlie Prince at the helm. So for the last third of the the film, they chase Bale as he escorts Mr. Crowe to Yuma in order to put him on the 3:10 train to the prison. Lots of guns are fired and bullets fly about in such number you'd swear that their revolvers were automatic weapons.

After a long and torturous route, they make it to Yuma and at the last moment, to the train itself. Mr. Crowe's behavior gets a bit strange towards the end. He makes a few attempts at escaping near the middle of the film, but towards the end, he throws in with Bale and works at eluding his own gang. So he can go to prison.

Wait, what?

Yes, Mr. Crowe is veritably insane. And not the 'crazy bad guy' insane, but rather a 'your motivations as a character don't make any rational sense' insane. Upon reaching the train, Mr. Crowe boards it, only to see his gang catch up and shoot Bale silly. Enraged, he takes the lives of his own gang members with vehemence. And then he gets back onto the prison train.

The End.

It doesn't add up. Unless there's more coke waiting in that prison for Mr. Crowe than in all of Australia, he's committing one of the cardinal sins of cinema - acting contrary to the previously established motivations of his character.

Mr. Crowe is a Bad, Bad Man^TM remember? He robs stage coaches with with the air of long practice. He kills men, seduces women, and threatens children, all while quoting the bible. Yet he boards the train and wordlessly hands his guns to the guard and rolls off into the metaphorical sunset.

If a character is going to have a conversion in a movie, it has to A.) be foreshadowed or done for reasons previously established and B.) be believable. This one is neither. And so I'd give this movie an 8/10, right up to the last few minutes, where it snatches "WTF??" from the jaws of victory and earns a solid 7/10.

Pan's Labyrinth / El Laberinto del Fauno

2008-05-22T16:50:00.003-05:00

Tonight, Jenny, Christine, Andrew and I went to see "El Laberinto del Fauno". The experience can be easily summed up in one word:

"Wow."

It is an incredible film, and I have not seen its kind since... Well, ever! When I was a child, I read "The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales"¹ - a collection of two hundred and nine fairy tales by easily the most impressive names in all of academia when it comes to German folklore. It is full of the kind of fairy tales you don't hear any more. The kind that Disney does not make. The kind that, if Disney made them, would still get an 'R' rating in the theaters.

For an excellent case in point, check out the original version of Rapunzel:

"On the same day, however, that she cast out Rapunzel, the enchantress in the evening fastened the braids of hair which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the King's son came and cried,

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down thy hair,"

she let the hair down. The King's son ascended, but he did not find his dearest Rapunzel above, but the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. "Aha!" she cried mockingly, "Thou wouldst fetch thy dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out thy eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to thee; thou wilt never see her more." The King's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell, pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did nothing but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery.<"

Slight difference, eh? I often imagine the Brothers Grimm being the Quentin Tarantino of their time. But back to the movie itself.

In short, it is the tale of a young girl who lives in a very, very brutal world with a bit of magic in it. Really fucking creepy magic, to be precise. Guillermo del Toro's vision is... Magnificent. We see the aftermath of Franco's victory in the Spain of 1944 as Ofelia's pregnant mother travels to a rural area in the north to rejoin 'The Captain' - a brutal fuck if there ever was one.

Ofelia's mother, Carmen, must have the worst luck in men. The first man she married had the luck to be a poor tailor and get killed in the war to boot, while the second was a dashing young captain by the name of Vidal who has a penchant for sadism; namely torturing people to death. Why Carmen hooked up with this dude, we will never know. His Tarantino-style of brutality fits his personality to a T, and while he manages to look sharp twenty-four seven, I somehow get the feeling that a woman might fall in love with ovarian cancer before him, to put it mildly. Apparently, not only is love blind, it also happens to suffer from dementia.

As Carmen journeys north to hook up with Captain Psycho, we watch as Ofelia performs small acts of kindness that get her noticed by some *seriously* creepy fairies. Far more towards the demonic rather than the angelic, these are the old-school fairies of yore. The kind that eat small children with sharp pointy teeth at the slightest mistake, where a single mis-step is the heroine's last one and fauns are not happy cute little men with hairy legs but rather highly disturbing looking goat / tree creatures that look like they belong more on a sexual predator poster somewhere than in a Disney movie.

While Ofelia's mother spends half the movie suffering from morning sickness [she somehow manages to make being pregnant seem like contracting the Black Plague], Ofelia herself is following a chittering, buzzing "OMG, WTF, KILL IT NOW!" sized praying mantis / fairy around without a thought in the world as to her own safety - "Ohhh look! A GIANT KREEPY BUGABOO! I wonder if it will be my FRIEND?!" *runs off chasing freaky-ass giant skeery bug*

Well, as it turns out, it actually does become her friend rather than sucking her brains out through a straw or anything like that. She follows it into the heart of an almost Celtic-looking labyrinth, full of dark and disturbing pagan imagery. It is most certainly not a happy little labyrinth made of shrubbery. No, this is the kind that feeds on human blood rather than fresh topsoil. At the center of the labyrinth, she meets Pan the faun. Pan is... Really, really creepy. I wouldn't turn my back around him. Hell, I wouldn't even *be* around him to begin with. As we all begin to doubt the existence of Ofelia's instinct for self-preservation, we find that in reality, she is the re-incarnated princess of a dark underground kingdom. To get home though, she must perform three tasks before the moon is full.

I would write more, but I don't wish to ruin it for you. Needless to say, it's worth seeing. It is not often that I think "Wow. That movie was actually worth what I paid for it!" and I do not say it lightly. If this is the kind of movie that would interest you, go see it. You'll like it :)

¹You can read all 209 of them here - yay for public domain!

The Fountain

2008-05-22T16:43:00.001-05:00

Went to see The Fountain tonight.

All I have to say is that a.), I have a very, very strong urge to shake Rachel Weisz to death, and b.), the movie was not worth paying to see.

The fact that I even wrote the latter is extraordinarily depressing. From the man that made Pi and Requiem for A Dream, I expect heaven and earth to move when I see his next film. Even if it didn't, I would still be fairly happy, I think.

Now, when the film I saw had the potential to move heaven and earth, metaphorically speaking, and failed time and time again... Man.

I'm a huge Darren Aronofsky fan. Pi and Requiem for A Dream were works of art. As is this film. However, the first two had a plot that made the movie worth watching, even if they had not been works of art.

This one doesn't. It's magnificently shot, directed, acted, everything - except when it comes to the plot. It has *potential* and it has it in spades. It has no end of *potential*.

But when you get down to it, at the end of the movie, what are you left with? A beautifully shot movie, with a haunting look and sound, some feelings about some of the most weighty themes in existence and... That's it.

Just feelings. Not even fully-formed ones. The movie can't even get that far. It raises great questions, but I can raise the same ones by holding a blade of grass before my eyes and contemplating lots of fascinating philosophical ideas by very old dead people.

However, no one pays me for such things, nor would I pay Darren Aronofsky for the same. It's like someone with all the talent in the world creating a movie, but at the last second noticing that he had only written 1/3rd of the script and stretched what he had to fit what he had shot.

It might be worth watching when they release the director's cut version, where they add the plot back in.

Silent Hill

2008-05-22T16:35:00.000-05:00

I play a fair amount of video games, but never played Silent Hill, so I really had no idea what to expect going into the movie.

It's creepy, it's incredibly gory and incredibly violent, and it looks very good the whole time.

After that, however, there isn't much. It's like a video game was directly adapted to the screen. In this case though, that's a bad thing. Faithful adaption of the video game it may be, but good film it's not. 90% of the time, I got the feeling that this would make a *lot* more sense had I played the game.

In many cases, things happened for no obvious reason (falling somewhere, ending up somewhere) that didn't do well for it as a film. It wasn't the good kind of 'that made no sense' but rather the bad kind - just a character falling from one situation into the next, very much akin to going through different levels in a video game.

That doesn't make a good movie though. Characters run around doing things you would do in a video game that don't come across as believable on screen - 'run around the town gathering clues' - 'solve this brain teaser' - fine for someone *playing* a *game* but for *viewing* a *movie*, it just wastes time and you're like "Ah. That's nice. Plot please?"

We don't expect Joe Dirt to be Shakespeare, so we don't hold it to those standards. Silent Hill, on the other hand, set the bar high in many ways, only to fail miserably in others. Joe Dirt can never be Shakespeare material. Silent Hill could have.

More or less, you get a very creepy and gory video game translated directly to the screen. As a video game translation, it seems to succeed extremely well. As a movie, you end up just not caring about it, and that is perhaps the worst thing that can ever be said about a movie.