34 posts tagged “movie reviews”

Disney-pixar-up-movie-poster-2

There is a 5 to 10 minute span at the beginning of this movie where the brilliance of Pixar and the filmmakers really shine through. They show us the life of the main character, Carl Fredricksen, from a child to an elderly man. The filmmakers show us how he became the man he is--his loves, his fears, and the tragedies he lived through. This segment is both funny and sad, heart warming and heart breaking. You could give other artists 3 hours of film time and you wouldn't get the same kind of character portrait you get here. And the boys at Pixar did it all in 10 minutes--with no dialogue and no narration. That was just brilliant.

It's bravura film making. That scene alone should qualify UP for an Oscar. And not an animation Oscar, a real, honest to god, given out at the end of the show Best Picture Oscar.

The story is about dreams and the pursuit of them. This plays out in many forms. About how you shouldn't delay in chasing after the dream. That no dream in impossible or unattainable. But, also, the difference between showing determination and obssession in the pursuit.

This being said, the filmmaker create a world of magic and wonder. It is a world where the implausible becomes the reality.Where imagination is key. Yes, you could go through the entire movie and pinpoint all the things that can conceivably happen, but you won't want to. You'll want to be swept up in the fantasy.

The script and plot is intelligent and engaging. There is a lot going on in this story, and where it goes is imaginative and unlike anything else you'll see this year.

UP is a great movie. I saw it almost 12 hours ago and I still smile when I remember seeing it. It's just perfect.  

Copy of SecondWatchmenteaser

I've decided to give this review a couple days to let myself think about the movie. I saw the film on Friday, but I needed to get my thoughts in order. And I have decided I am totally bipolar about this movie.

As a comic fan, how can I not be impressed by the faithfulness of the film? Yet, as a movie fan, I found it lacking. It's a movie that what it got right, it got so perfectly right, that I can never hate it. But it's flaws are so damning that I can't love it.

Let's start with the good. The movie is not 100% faithful to the book. There's stuff added, stuff left out, and things changed. But this is as close to an exact copy we are going to get outside of the motion comic. Lines of dialog are taken directly from Alan Moore script, and scenes look like they stepped out of Dave Gibbons artwork.

You can see love and care in these moments. They almost glorify the original work, and the film does well capturing the mood of the graphic novel at these times.

The acting, with one major exception, is amazing, especially Jackie Earle Haley. He does an excellent job acting, both inside and out of the mask. He captures Rorschach perfectly.

Also great are Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson as Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan and Dan Dreiberg respectively. They have a tough job, as they are the most subdued roles in the film, but they bring humanity and consistency to the portrayals. They might not get as much attention as the showier parts, but the excelled in what they did.

It should come as a surprise to no one that the ending was changed. However, and I might be going out on a limb here, I think the film ending works better than the comic version. It's the same style of Deus Ex Machina, but it makes more sense from a plot perspective. It is more tied into the narrative and makes more sense. The only qualm I have in it is who they use as a scapegoat, but even that makes a certain amount of sense.

Of course, since the ending is changed,, there needed to be scenes added to set up this new ending. This is where my criticisms come in. While they took such great care in transferring Moore's words to the screen, they didn't take as much care in making sure the new scenes matched in style, tone or timbre. The result is a jarring break from the action, it's like someone putting product placement in Hamlet.

HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He...

HORATIO: Yo, Hamslice, you gonna be long? I gots me a hankerin to make a run for the border!

HAMLET: Yo quiero Taco Bell?

HORATIO: Yo definitely quiero Taco Bell. You up for it?

HAMLET: Mos def!

Cut to interior if the Elsinore Taco Bell.

HAMLET: These Cheesy Gorditas are off the hook!. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, Yorick. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times...

The only way they could have made the fact it was added more glaringly obvious is if they used a siren and a red flashing light to alert us.

But the difference in tone isn't the only thing that is jarring. You can see the hands of studio executives. who, after reading the graphic novel, were disappointed in the minimal level of sex and violence. They got  a hold of Snyder and made him amp both up.

The result is what was a scuffle in the book became an all-out fight scene in the movie. And what was a fight scene became a festival of bloody, slow motion bone-breaking where even the non-powered cast members had the ability to atomize bricks by just punching them.

And the gore quotient is raised considerably. This is not a film for the squemish. Dr. Manhattan, who's comic book move was exploding people's heads, just wasn't gross enough, I guess. Now he explodes the entire body, leaving the people next to the victim, and the walls, and the ceiling, covered in blood and offal.

And then there's the sex scene, where the movie exchanges reels with its soft core porn ripoff, "Crotchmen". The scene goes on too long, and is an uncomfortably awkward break in the narrative. I'm no prude, but the scene just didn't work from a character perspective. And a note to Snyder, the scene in the comic when the couple accidentally hits the flame thrower is meant to be a metaphor for the orgasm. It becomes pointless when you show Malik Ackerman going through the throws of the orgasm right before it.

These breaks make the Watchmen, purely as a film, kind of bad. Add to that the only back story Ozymandias gets is a 20 minute monologue (which, we all know, if exposition or a character motivation is delivered in a 20 minute monologue, that's bad writing) and that Malin Ackerman is woefully miscast and completely one note throughout the movie (meaning her acting stays the same whether she is angry, sad, happy, flirtatious, or bored), and you have some seriously negative strikes against it as a movie.

But the good part were so good, it acted as a balance to the bad. It could have been much better, great even, but as it is, it is only good--and lucky to be considered that.

The-spirit-poster

How bad was the The Spirit?

You could compare it to a bad community theater performance, but I had my share of those in the past and the people in it usually know they're in a stinker. So that really doesn't apply.

You could compare it to a high school performance, but the creators of that performance at least realize that they have a lot to learn about the craft and strive to better themselves.

The closest comparison I can come to for this movie would be kids playing in the backyard. The storylines are made up from whole cloth, and veer from one style to another based on what the kids think are cool. The players find the fantasy they create greatly entertaining, but everyone else would be bored.

Not only is The Spirit the worst comic book movie of all time (Howard the Duck, Batman and Robin, you may stop fighting for that title) but ranks as one of the worst movies of all time.

One of the major complements of Frank Miller's comic book storytelling was that it was "cinematic". I guess Miller took this to mean that he could put anything on the screen and it would be brilliant. He was wrong.

This film is more a collection of scene connected by a flimsy plot. The style goes from high camp, to Looney Tunes;like action, to Douglas Sirk-like melodrama to typical comic book fare. Each style shift is jarring and slaps the audience in the face.

There is no dramatic flow to the film. Miller gives us nothing to make us feel for the characters or care whether they live or die. He paints them in only the broadest of terms, and we never for once gain enough for us to become emotionally invested in them as people.

And, you get the feeling that Miller really wanted to make a Batman film, had no shot at doing that, and decided to shoehorn The Spirit into that. It really didn't work.

Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, and Eva Mendes gave some of the worst performances of their careers. Jackson was hamming up constantly and chewing up scenery everywhere he went. You'd think that Johansson would be able to do a femme fatale role in her sleep, but her take was just trying to talk lower. It was like a five year-old trying to talk like a big girl. And Mendes lacked the emotional depth her role called for.

No that the acting was all bad. Gabriel Macht did well in the lead role and Dan Lauria did well as Commissioner Dolan. You get the impression that since these guys were "smaller names," Miller was able to guide their performances more but was too star struck to do the same for Jackson, Johansson, and Mendes.

There are some shots of visual brilliance here and there, but most of them are inserted where they really don't belong which ruins their effectiveness.

I could complain about this movie all day. Heck, I can devote an entire blog post to Miller's using a photocopy of a woman's ass as a plot point. But it won't change the overall result. This movie is a failure on just about all levels, and should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully, this film ends Miller's career and serves as a wake up call for the creator.

Indiana1

The wife and I just came back from seeing the latest Indy. And this is what we had to say about it.

This is one fun movie.

Of course, it is updated. Harrison Ford isn't in his 40s anymore. And the movie doesn't pretend he is. And once they get that out of the way, the ball really starts rolling.

This movie is packed with fun moments. The sword fight on the moving vehicles. The fistfight in field full of ants. The swing from the vines like a bunch of monkeys.

There are a lot of, well, I guess you'd call them Easter Eggs in the film. Tips of the hat for long time fans of the franchise. Also a shout out or two to Star Wars.

The acting was great all around, but Cate Blanchett is superb. Really. Just by looking at her, you can tell what she's feeling at all times. She didn't even need dialogue.

As to problems people have with the update of the enemy and the logic behind the "MacGuffin", well, I look at it this way. The first three Indy movies reflected the serials of the time they were set in--the 30s or the 40s. This reflects the B-grade Sci-Fi films of the era it was set in--the 50s.

As for the CGI, well, that didn't bother me. Because it is pretty good CGI.

So, I had a blast. Indy 4 was a lot of fun.

Now, the trailers before Indy:

• The Dark Knight: The voice Heath Ledger does reminds me a little of Dustin Hoffman. I don't know why.
• Australia: Baz Luhrmann's (SIC) ode to his home country. It seems like a parody of all those cheesy "For Your Consideration" movie you get at the end of the year. I don't really know what its about, something about Hugh Jackman having to save Australia.
• Wall-E: Man, this looks absolutely cute and charming. Can't wait to see it.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: The weird thing about this is that Hellboy doesn't make an appearance until halfway through the trailer. It seem more like a sequel to Pan's Labrynth tham Hellboy. Maybe they thought they had to fool people to be interested.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: It is a "Serious drama" about a man who ages backwards and all I can think of is Jonathan Winters character fron Mork and Mindy.
• Kung Fu Panda: It seems fun for what it is. Maybe if we see two movies this weekend, we catch it.
• Eagle Eye: This Shia trailer sneaked in on us. It has a Matrix like vibe, but in a good way.  

Definitely maybe

So, the wife and I decided to take advantage of us both being off today and go to movies. After a little bit of a late lunch, our only options were this Definitely,Maybe and Jumper (we were too late for There Will Be Blood. So I guess my milkshake is safe). My wife won out, and we saw this one.

This movie is not recommended for people with a low tolerance for "cute". People act cute, meet cute, talk cute and are cute.

I have a low cute tolerance, but the actors, for me, dampened the treacle to tolerable levels.

Ryan Reynolds is charming, but restrained. He is not his usual, wise cracking, smarmy self. Isla Fisher is even more charming.

The movie is billed as a mystery romantic comedy, as Reynolds relates "how he met your mother" to his 10 year old daughter. The mother's identity is kept secret until almost to the very end. Who is it? The least likely suspect. This is not a spoiler, becuase anyone familiar with movie conventions will be able to figure this out.

All in all, I think it is a good time in spite of it's foibles. It does hold a bit of emotional impact, and you'll be feeling for the characters by the end.

Now, the trailers:

• Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns: Wow. Angela Basset is in a Tyler Perry movie. This means something. I just don't care to find out what.
• The Other Boleyn Girl: Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman? In the same movie? And Scarlett shows just a bit of skin? I am so there, dude!
• Leatherheads: You know what? Hollywood should do some more screwball comedies. This looks good, but I'm not sure I buy the love triangle. The ages are just too disparate for me.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The wife and me "Oohed" when this came one. Yeah, I had doubts that Harrison Ford might be too old for this part, but they are gone. We are so going to see it.
• Baby Mama: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler? In the same movie? I am so there dude! Even if it is a chick flick comedy. 

Sweeney todd 2

If the sign of a good musical is the fact you want to sing everything you say after you see it, then Sweeney Todd is a good musical.

I can't really say that I am a fan of musicals. But I am a fan of disturbing and dark stories. And it doesn't get any darker than a barber who slits his customer's throats and then has his downstairs neighbor bake them into pies.

If you are not a fan of the musical, then this movie probably isn't for you. Only about 15 minutes of it was not sung. All the plot points are put to music, so you'll be getting all your information in song.

As singers, Johnny Depp and Helena Bohnam Carter are adequate. Depp comes off better when he loses his character's British accent when singing. Bonham Carter keeps her accent (which is different from her normal speaking voice) and some clarity is lost.

The acting is good. Especially Alan Rickman, who can play a bad guy in his sleep. And the story is interesting and harrowing.

The film is majorly bloody. If you don't like blood, stay away.

The Trailers:

• Vantage Point: Again, Roshomon spiraling out into a conspiracy. Could be good, but it depends how goofy the twists and turns are.
• 27 Dresses: Katherine Heigl tries to translate her Knocked Up success into chick flick stardom. But has anyone actually been to 27 weddings, let alone be in 27? I know I haven't.
• Step Up 2:The Streets: Let's count how many movies this rips of. 1. Step Up 1, 2. Flashdance, 3. Fame, 4. You've Been Served, 5. every other dance movie of the last 10 years. I know I'm not the target audience, but still.
• Mamma Mia: Quite a different movie musical from Sweeney Todd. Great cast though.
• Stop/Loss: I've noticed how this trailer seems to go to show every possible opinion about the topic at hand. Like its bending over backwards to be fair and balanced.
• The Ruins: Horror movie. I'm not a fan of the genre, but this movie lost me when the trailer showed the shot of the snakes wriggling underneath the skin on the girl's hip. It really lost me later when they showed them wriggling under her forehead. Yeah, that was enough to keep me away from this flick.

Juno

I'll have to admit that when this movie first started, I thought it was going to be one of those prototypical indie films. You know, the ones with the oh-so quirky characters, a bouncy indie rock soundtrack, and dialogue that require a gold medal in verbal gymnastics from the actors wrapped around a pedestrian plot. It stared out that way.

But as the movie went on, it grew out of that and on  me. Most of it has to do with the acting. The cast is pitch perfect. Every actor is absolutely right for their role, especially Ellen Page. Watching this, I made a note to remember her performance. When she breaks Meryl Streep's record for Oscar nominations, I could say I remembered her when.

Marks also go to Diablo Cody, who has become a media darling from this movie, for taking the plot in well-set up yet unconventional turns.

The characters are complex and believable. Yes, they are quirky, but realistically so.

I really liked the movie and could identify with the characters. I'm glad I didn't dismiss it outright after the first several scenes. Highly recommended.

Trailers:

• Mad Money: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes star as what appear to be cleaning women who slowly steal money from a bank. Kinda like a female Goodfellas with forced humor. Katie Holmes gave up the Batman franchise for this? Wow. Marrying Tom Cruise wasn't the craziest thing she did.
• Made of Honor: My Best Friend's Wedding with a dash of role-reversal. Seems funny. It appears that Patrick Dempsey's career arc has brought him back to romantic comedies, with some success. I bet Christian Slater is jealous.
• Stop-Loss: Ah, another movie about the Iraq War. This one's about the troops who are forced back into service after their time is supposedly up. If teh lack of success experienced by Lions for Lambs and Rendition tells us anything, it's that people would rather know nothing about the war in Iraq, and stay away from those kind of movies in droves.
• Under The Same Moon: The story of an Mexican boy who must cross over to the US and find his mother after his grandmother dies. Inspiring story, or putting a cute face on a hot button topic? You decide. 

Fred-claus-788062

So, the wife and I, on our way back from visiting friends and relatives of the X-mas holiday, decided to stop at a NEPA theater and see a movie. When we got their, there were only a few movies starting close enough to the time we were there. We had out choice of The Golden Compass, Fred Claus, and I Am Legend.  

Since we have already seen I Am Legend, and I have enough check marks in my personal "going to Hell" checklist that I didn't want another one next to "saw Golden Compass", we decided on Fred Claus.

Fred Claus is piffle. That might seem like an insult, but it's not. Piffle has its place. Not every movie should be thought provoking, emotion wrenching or an allegory. We need movies that are disposable fun. Which Fred Claus essentially is.

This is a Vince Vaughn vehicle. Which means, to a certain extent, the movie is build around opportunities for Vaughn to bring out the most used weapons in his arsenal--the smartass complaining, the encouraging a less cool and suave person, the stubborn arrogance that he is right and his right is the the only right. These tricks still work, but I would like to see something new.

There are some good laughs all the way through. Great acting as well. Kevin Spacey is born to play the bad guy. He is slimy and evil here, and is a different villain than he was in Superman Returns or Se7en.

Good support was given by Miranda Richardson, Rachel Weisz and Kathy Bates, although each actress was wasted. They helped make the slightly less than well defined characters they played--the overprotective wife, the put upon girlfriend, and the nagging mother--be more than just one note or charicatures. But these are some of the best actresses working today. You'd think they'd give them more to do.

The movie is predictable (Spacey's bad guy has a beef with Santa. Care to guess why?) but if you go in just expecting mindless entertainment, some simple fun, you will not be disappointed.

Trailers:

• Get Smart: I am so psyched for this movie, perhaps even more than what I am for Iron Man or The Dark Knight. I believe Steve Carell will make a great Maxwell Smart. He is different from Don Adams but still true to the spirit of the character. But this one has more potential for disappointment than the other two, in my eyes. I mean, the TV series is a classic.
• 10,000 B.C.: Yeah, I don't know about this. I really don't find this interesting. And it seems like the movie will be anachronistic. I catch some very ornate robes on certain priests in the trailer. Kind of above what I know that the people of that time were capable of. And how will they communicate?
• Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins:  Seen this trailer a number of times. There are some funny scenes in the trailer, but this has the look of a movie where the funniest scenes are in the trailer.
• The Spiderwick Chronicles:  The fantasy movie does seem to have an interesting concept, but I think the lack of success of The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising and The Golden Compass means that not all kid lit transfers to the screen all that well.

Walkhardposter

We went to see Walk Hard tonight. It was relatively sparse all things considered. Not a full house in the least. But Charlie Wilson's War was sold out. Maybe I will have to change the way I predicted the Top 5 here.

Oh, and I almost knocked over Linda McMahon, wife of WWE head honco Vince McMahon, on the way to bathroom. Apologies!

So how was the movie? Good. I liked it a lot. I thought it was slightly hampered by having to adhere to the fact it was a parody of a music biopic. It felt like it they had a checklist they were running down. Parody of artists battle with drugs? Check. Parody of how they treat their wife like dirt? Check. Parody of their creative genius being misunderstood? Check.

But this doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of laughs. There are a lot of throw away jokes and sight gags that were funny. And they get good marks for even parodying the look of these kinds of movies.

The acting was great, especially, John C. Reilly. And, I'm announcing this to the world for no apparent reason, but Jenna Fischer is now officially in my "Top 5". My wife has been informed, and she has cleared the addition.

One of the best parts of the movie had to be the cameos. I'd list them here, but, really, there were too many. You'll probably recognize most of the cast, including many from other Apatow films--The Apatow Repertory Players as I like to call them. Seriously, I might have to see the film again just so I can catch what I missed when I said "Look who that is!"

Trailers:

• Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: This is a documentary/concert film about Vaughn's Stand-up tour. It might be worthy to see just for the section with Jon Favreau and Justin Long.
• Charlie Bartlett: The future Chekov. I remember seeing this trailer ages ago. Was this movie delayed for some reason?
• Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: Yes, the ripped from today's headlines sequel. Do we really need political commentary from these guys?
• Wanted: The comic book adaptation that is not a comic book adaptation. Wasn't the Millar series about supervillains. The movie is about assassins. Telekinetic assassins, it appears, but assassins nonetheless.
• Vantage Point: Speaking of Star Trek, the new Uhura is in this movie. It appears to be a Roshomon take on a presidential assassination. Seems interesting.
• 21: A movie based on the true story of the MIT students who discovered a way to count cards in Vegas and developed a system around it. I heard of the story, but the movie seems to have taken some liberties. Like, I don't recall the part where the self-destructive rebel causes the plan to almost fail, or the tales of sex against the window overlooking the strip. Or the teacher threatening their lives. 

I am Legend

The wife and I braved the weather to see this film. And overall we liked it.

This is not, as you might think, Will Smith versus the zombies. At least, not for the whole movie. This is more a movie about him dealing with the loneliness and isolation as being the last person on Earth.

This also is not a direct adaptaion of the novel. It is quite a bit different, not only in location but also with Smith's character's motivation.

Will Smith does an excellent job in a very demanding role. The fact that he is a likeable actor helps us feel even more for his plight. And the moving of local to NYC helps. As a person who has been in NYC numerous times, it being a barren city really makes an impact.

There are scares aplenty, but not much gore. Most of the graphic violence takes place of screen, but there are plenty of well-rung "jumping out of shadows" kind of frights throughout.

There is also a whole lot of sadness and heartbreak as well. Several times it crosses over into tearjerker territory.

All in all, it is a good movie. A few hiccups here and there, especially the awkward religious discussion that comes in towards the end.

Oh, there is a treat for the comic movie fan within the first half hour (look at the billboard in the grown over Times Square). And an unbilled cameo hits within the first few minutes.

Trailers:

• Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins: Martin Lawrence plays a Dr. Phil type who brings his bride to be back to meet his disfuctional family. Not really my type of movie, but then it's not trying to be.
• Rambo: Yeah, Rambo. More of the same, if you like it.
• 10, 000 BC: When I first saw adds for this movie, I thought nobody would be at all interested in seeing it. However, this version of the trailer seems to be recut to maximize its 300-like appeal. Good luck.
• The Poughkeepsie Tapes: It's a "documentary" about a stash of tapes taken by a serial killer of all the people he's killed over the last 10 years. Released to the public after he's been caught. Since I have never even heard of this killer before, and, lets face it, we would have, I smell Blair Witch Project. Glad to see they are stealing the most innovative gimmick from that moivie and using it over for this one.
• The Dark Knight: I hesitate to say this, but I wasn't that impressed. I'm not saying that it won't be good or that I won't see it. It's just that it showed nothing of the Joker's motivation, nothing of the storyline, and nothing about the movie. And my wife, wise woman that she is, says that the make-up job on Heath Ledger reminders her of the Crow. Doubt that was what they were going for.