Extract

            Extract is written and directed by Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-head, Idiocracy, Office Space) and stars Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons, and Ben Affleck. That’s a pretty solid group of talent and/or box office draw so why did I walk away feeling less than impressed? Billed as “the funniest comedy of the year”, this movie offered only a few laughs both in situations and one-liners and as the credits rolled I wondered what the hell I had just watched.

           

            The Plot: Joel is a chemistry guru who has mastered the art of food extracts and is on the verge of selling his plant to General Mills for a lot of money. He boasts about driving a 7-series BMW and lives in a phat house with a long driveway. Life at home is less than great, however. His wife won’t have sex with him and on the verge of the buy-out of his company an act of carelessness costs a factory worker a testicle and throws the thought of retirement into the furnace. Joel’s buddy Dean, (Affleck) thinks he can solve a few of his problems by offering him drugs and a Gigolo to seduce his wife so he doesn’t feel guilty about cheating on her with the newly hired (and unbearably sexy) Cindy (Kunis).

            The Good: Mila Kunis is not too hard to look at. Jason Batemen is solid in his role, although the story doesn’t do much to support him. David Koechner as Nathan, the annoying neighbor is always fun to watch and Extract is no exception.

            The Bad: I wasn’t turned on by the story or the way things unfolded. To bill this as a comedy is a stretch. "Black comedy" may have suited it better given the situations involved but undecided is where it seems to fall in my mind

            The Ugly: Ben Affleck kinda sucks…. again. I really don’t want to hate on anyone but he makes it pretty easy. His character is pretty unoriginal (not his fault, although he chooses his roles so I guess it is) but his take on the character is beyond unoriginal. He goes for a younger, dumber, less interesting Labowski and just made my eyes roll into the back of my head when he was on screen.

            I usually don’t like to comment on specific scenes but one comes to mind towards the end of the film that just stuck with me. Suzie, (Wigg) Joel’s cheating wife goes on a good 60 second rant telling Nathan, the annoying neighbor, how she really feels about him. The only problem is that the entire film it's Joel who has to fend off Nathan. The scene didn’t make much sense and like the rest of the movie it left me with a puzzled and unsatisfied feeling.

            My Vote: Office Space, Office Space, Office Space

"9" on 9.9.09 .....that's a whole lotta nine's.....

"9" was an Academy Award winning short (see below) turned feature with

Tim Burton's name attached...may have to check this out.

Click on any of the 9's in the title to view the official trailer.

LMAO at The Final Destination 3-D

Let’s be honest. The Final Destination is in no way a good movie. From the plot, to the dialog, to the amateur camera movement, it is the most basic movie I have seen in a long time. There were times when it was so completely obvious that someone was on the other side of the camera yelling “action” all I could do was LOL.

But no one expected anything new or interesting in terms of plot or characters. You expected to see fun, campy, outlandish deaths and you expected them to jump of the screen and in to your lap, and I must say, The Final Destination exceeded my expectation in that area. 

The original Final Destination (2000) was a fun look at a student who has unexplained premonitions about deaths before they occur. She experiences her and her friends deaths, along with dozens of others, just moments before they take place, prompting her to change her course of action and therefore altering Death’s pattern. As the story goes, you can’t escape death, and one by one, in order, everyone who was supposed to die, does. The fun part is these deaths are all gory and completely ridiculous. This story has been exhausted throughout the 3 sequels that have spawned.

I would not recommend this movie for DVD by any means. The appeal here is the 3-D. While other movies that I have recently seen in 3-D (My Bloody Valentine, Coraline) could have done with out the gimmicks (My Bloody Valentine could have just gone un-made) The Final Destination shows us the entire film in HD 3-D. This means that it’s not just the gross out death scenes that are popping out at you…it’s every painstaking moment, which made things unexpectedly more bearable.  Even the scenes that are filled only with expository dialog that take place in a living room, where I was bored out of my mind, gives you something to look at. It is a different kind of movie experience; one that I will hopefully be able to experience again with a better story. They have not perfected the 3-D technology and their will always be critics, but I think they have taken a step in the right direction. 

MY VOTE: If you have already seen Inglorious Basterds and want to head out this week and have a little fun at the movies go see this flick. If you see this at home your just a sucker.

Shakira is in the closet....

The movies have been put on hold until I can figure out which new release I am going to review this week. In the meantime I decided to take a second look at Shakira’s new video “She-Wolf”.

I am totally qualified to comment on this video.

To prove this to you I will qualify myself by telling you what I know about Shakira.

Shakira is a 32-year-old animal charmer. She is on loan to us from a galaxy far far away. She seems to be musically inclined but recent reports have considered that she may just simply be trying to communicate with her loved ones in said galaxy.  

The first 2-1/2 minutes kind of make my head spin. I got tired because I think she projected all of her hard work on me during the viewing…it’s one of her powers.

The final 60 seconds has now raised a few questions in my mind about what this galaxy is like.

I hated this song so much I bought it on iTunes today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aEW_Z5Va5s&feature=channel

Aloha, Mr. Hand......Dark City (1998)

Dark City is a 1998 film written, directed and produced by Alex Proyas (The Crow, I, Robot and Knowing) that has a substantial cult following and was hailed as The best film of 98’ by Roger Ebert, whom I admire and respect. 

So, dare I use the acronym, WTF? 

I dare. Like Tom Hanks in Big, I don’t get it.

Dark City opens with John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), passed out in an old hotel bathtub, with no recollection where or who he is. During a phone call from his psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Schreber (KieferSutherland) claiming to want to help him, he realizes there is a dead woman in the room. He flees and the party starts. 

The dark city in which this movie takes place is an obvious rip off of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis (1927). “The Strangers”, led by Mr. Hand are group of soul sucking albino’s from another planet that reconstruct human’s memories and expand the dark city at midnight every night in an attempt to understand the human soul in order to save their race.

Like any Sci-Fi flick there are a set of contrived rules in order to make everything tick and a single person, John Murdoch, who posses the ability to over come these rules. Now, I don’t really have a problem with Sci-Fi films, nor dark/noir films. I do, however, have a problem with bad acting and terrible editing. Sutherland is a bumbling nerd and Dark City holds the title for movie with the shortest amount of screen time before a cut (did I say that right?) There is a cut every 1.8 seconds, on average. Yikes. This movie tries to deal with the complexities of the human mind, who we are, what makes us who we are, etc. etc. In any case, I think it sailed past its mark.

As a film student I had the pleasure of watching this in class with 40 other film students. When 20 + students are laughing hysterically during the entire climax sequence, you know you have something, errrr, special on your hands. While others seem to LOVE this movie, I found it rather boring and pretty unoriginal in plot with nothing too exciting to keep it afloat.

My Vote: If you are into poorly drawn film-noir/sci-fi/horror flicks, this is right up your ally. If you’re like me you’ll want to go re-watch a much better and very similar blockbuster from the following year, The Matrix.

Inglorious Basterds.....That's a Bingo!

You love him or you hate him. You get him or you don’t care to get him. Either way, when Quentin Tarantino gets to work he gives you something you have never seen before and everything you have seen before all at once. He accomplishes what others only dream of doing. He takes you to the movies.

Randall E. Auxier wrote; “ Tarintino is like a boy in a tree house. And you are invited to join the club. Yes, it’s his tree house, but all you need is the password, and he’ll give you the clues you need to get in. He doesn’t want to control you, or toy with you, he just wants to play. You already know the game. It’s just good (not so clean) fun, and time flies when your having it”.

Inglourious Basterds written and directed by Quentin Tarantino is like several other QT flicks as it is about revenge and more specifically, a woman’s revenge, a QT staple.  Emmanuelle Mimieux, the alias for the young Jewish girl who escaped Colonel Hans Landa, (Christoph Waltz), “The Jew Hunter”, after her family was massacred is out for blood…or crispy dead Nazi’s, I guess. 4 years later she is now operating a cinema in France and falls into the perfect situation to exact her revenge.

Aldo Raine, A.K.A. “Aldo the Apache” (Brad Pitt) is the leader of the Inglorious Basterds and assembles his crew of 8 Jewish American soldiers to help him in gaining 800 Nazi scalps, and that’s not just in expression, he’s taking scalps. Neither his motivation nor the scar on is neck is spoken of. We expected not to get that privileged information (see the Auxier quote above), all we need to know is Aldo is in the Nazi killin’ business….and cousin….well, you know what.

If not for “The Jew Hunter”, "Aldo the Apache" would have stolen the show. Instead, we are treated with two amazing performances and oddly enough, they both left me with a busted gut. I wasn’t prepared for how funny they would be, together, as well as on their own. Tarantino has once again created characters that are bigger than life in Aldo and Colonel Hans and once again his actors have delivered.

Two and a half hours is a long time to endure anything, so be prepared. A few scenes run a little bit too long for my taste, but don’t get discouraged. You get a lot of dialog (but you were expecting that, right? ) with a good portion of it in subtitles so rest assured you will miss something and more likely than not these little things will help IB to grow on you in subsequent visits. Aside from that, the only other down side to things is Eli Roth, “The Bear Jew”. “The Bear Jew” is definitely a bigger than life character, wielding a Louisville Slugger and beating the brains out of Nazis. Eli Roth, well, he directed Cabin Fever . It just wasn’t fair to any of us. 

Those two very small issues aside, Inglourious Basterds might turn out to be QT’s most famous film. In the middle of a summer filled with remakes and flops it will hold its place in people’s minds for the excitement surrounding it and the product it delivered. And who better to re-write history and get the ultimate revenge on “The Fuhrer” than QT.

My Vote: Even if you don’t think you like Tarantino, go see this film. The performances given and the final two scenes are enough to satisfy anyone.

Strange things are afoot in DISTRICT 9

From the opening moments of District 9 it seemed that the hype just might be true. The docu-style footage is well crafted and set up the story extremely well. Like the energizer bunny though, it keeps going and going and…. Finally, after what seemed like at least 20 minutes the story takes off in a pretty big way. The configuring of the plot aside, District 9 has a strong and interesting premise that will suck you in.

District 9 is the ghetto the South African government has provided for the aliens of a broken down space ship resting above Johannesburg. D-9 is a horrible place to make your home, even to creatures from another planet. The government has constructed a newer, better (smaller) concentration type camp 200 miles out-side of the city and plan to relocate the 1.8 million aliens to District 10 in an effort to calm the tensions between humans and non-humans. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is in charge if the relocation process and is assigned to evict the aliens from their current home. Once inside D-9 amongst the life sized lobsters the tensions build between both sides as Wikus laughs as he aborts alien babies and torments the inferior race of aliens. Bad mistake.

Again, it seemed like all the hoopla surrounded this Peter Jackson produced Sci-Fi thriller was deserved. Then it dawned on me…the allegory that this film has been so obviously geared towards loses its direction and becomes what I had hopped it wouldn’t; a straight up action flick. Die Hard meets The Fly. I love me some action, don’t get it twisted, but this was an opportunity to say something about our society as a whole and they set us up for it. Unfortunately they forgot about what was really going on as soon as the shit hit the fan between the humans and the non-human. The story gets weaker and weaker and even manages to deliver some extremely cliché action-movie lines.

In the end, despite it’s meandering plot this is a movie worthy of the big screen. If you are into action flicks and the familiar story lines that they deliver this movie is for you. Don’t anticipate any huge emotional moments or revelations even though at times they try. 

My Vote: Buckle up and settle in for a lot of exploding body parts. Go see it on the big screen.

District 9....The Backstory

District 9 has an interesting story that is worth being explored. Niell Blomkamp, the writer/director of one of this summers most anticipated films is 29 years old. The fact that he has been tinkering with computer generated graphics for 15 years should strike you as surprising. With several commercials and advertisements under his belt, Blomkamp directed Alive in Joburg, a six-minute short film that would later become the feature District 9. 

Based mainly on the ideas and execution of Alive in Joburg, and with a little help and guidance from Lord of the Rings Director Peter Jackson, Blomkamp found himself at the helm of the motion picture adaptation of the widely popular video game HALO. With months of work already completed and over 200 workers already employed HALO, sputtered, stalled, and went back up on the self over copyright disputes.

With out skipping a beat, Jackson proposed that the budding filmmaker take his short film to the next level. District 9 was born. Blomkamp spent his first 18 years in Johanisberg South Africa and witnessed first hand the effects of Apartheid. It is no secret that District 9 was made as an allegory of sorts and has many paralleling story lines to the sad tales that have come out of South Africa in years past. 

Check out Alive in Joburg below

A Perfect Getaway

You must have seen the trailer for this movie (click the title if you haven't), I think it just runs in 2 minutes increments on every major network. Excessive marketing usually means, as far as I can tell, that the movie aint so great so they need a big opening weekend before the word of mouth gets around that it’s a bomb. Fortunately, in A Perfect Getaway, this isn’t completely true.

The story goes like this: Two newly weds, Steve Zahn (Management, Rescue Dawn) and Milli Jovovich (Resident Evil 1,2,3) are setting off on a camping expo through Hawaii to a secluded beach accessible only by foot or kayak. Coincidentally, two newly weds have just been murdered on the big island and the suspects have not been apprehended. 

Should they push on or go home and avoid the worst honeymoon ever? Well there wouldn’t be much a movie if they went home. 

They meet up with Timothy Olyphant (Hitman, Live Free or Die Hard) a former military special ops agent and Kiele Sanchez (Lost), a southern girl not afraid of....well, anything.  There is also a mysterious 3^rd couple that we need to keep our eye on.

This movie is billed as a thriller and mildly delivers at times. Some people have dared to utter the name Hitchcock in the same breath as director David Twohy (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick), not necessarily as a compliment, but as a measuring stick. 

That just isn’t fair. 

Hitchcock is the Don of suspense. While this flick will pale in comparison to anything Hitchcock, Steve Zahn turns out a performance that was extremely fun to watch and helps to keep the movie interesting.

The fun thing about thrillers is trying to figure out what is going to happen next, to whom and why. One commercial I saw said something to the effect of “the best thriller in years” and “one of the biggest twist to an ending you will see this year”. Well, neither is true but I was engaged the whole time. You can see “the big twist” coming from pretty far away but I was still interested in how it was going to be delivered. I couple of scenes ran a little long (I hate when directors think the audience is too stupid to pick up on the obvious clues) but in the end this is a very fun and watchable flick.

My Vote: Might not need to see this in the theatre but you won’t be totally disappointed if you do. Don't hesitate to check out anything Hitchcock.

Coming Soon....

Life has been busy but the Funny People review is ready to go and a newly released movie will be reviewed shortly....

The Collector

The Collector, written and directed by Marcus Dunstun is about a handyman, Arkin, on the verge of having the unthinkable happen to his wife and young daughter at the hands of a loan shark. He can solve all of his problems if he steals a presumably expensive and/or rare stone from the house he has been working at. While the family of said house is scheduled to be on vacation he attempts to execute his plan. Unfortunately (for us) “The Collector” beat him to it, only not to steal the stone but to (cue scary music) torture the family. 

I accept this as the premise, therefore;

I will be manipulated!

I will laugh if you want me to laugh!

I will jump out of my seat if you will just let me!

Give me a reason!

I’m begging you Marcus Dunstan!

But no, you give me The Collector. 

I’m a pretty excitable guy. It’s a blessing and a curse alike. My excitable nature allows for me to be taken advantage of and I welcome that. This is part of the reason I love movies and more specifically, scary movies. To me there is nothing better than watching a movie while my whole body tenses up in fear. I have been making a conscience effort, however, to avoid most recent “scary movies” releases.  I use quotations here to emphasize the irony. I am not afraid of being scared I just rarely find my self scared or horrified at a recent motion picture aiming to do just that.

This movie, which I will not name again, has no suspenseful moments, poor direction, and offered nothing in the way of a story or a well played out plot. I am searching for something positive to mention but I have nothing. Sometimes a scary movie will succeed in capturing an audience because it is awesomely bad.

This movie is just bad.

My Vote: Appropriately bad enough for 15-year-old girls slumber party. Are you a 15-year-old girl? Don't bother. Rent the ORIGINAL Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This Week: Funny People

Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, and Eric Bana all in a Judd Apatow flick...tell me you're not excited! This is the 3rd movie coming from the Apatow camp and while it stays away from a lot of the juvenile gross out moments you have come to love it will still make you laugh and make you think....look for the review in the next few days and check out the trailer by clicking on the title.

Humpday…It’s beyond gay!

Gay porn doesn’t usually spark my interest (insert joke) but when I saw the trailer for the high concept 2009 Sundance Special Jury Prize winner for Spirit of Independence appropriately titled Humpday I have to admit, I got a little aroused. 

The thing that attracted me to this film initially was the honesty that seemed to be permeating into my bones as I watched the trailer. The same holds true for the actual movie; the first scene pulled me in and the story didn’t let up until the final frame. The premise of the story is a unique approach to the “buddy film”, and it’s no surprise to me that a female, Lynn Shelton (We go way back, 2006) who wrote and directed the movie, conceived it.

Humpday stars Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, 2006) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project, 1999) as two old friends who have lost touch while traveling down two very different paths. Ben (Duplass) is doing the married thing while Andrew (Leonard) is doing the vagabond artist thing. When Andrew stops into Ben’s small Seattle town for the weekend the two both take stock of what’s become of their lives.

During a drunken party with Andrew’s new Bohemian friends the discussion of an upcoming film festival presents itself; of course this isn’t your run-of-the-mill film fest. “Hump-Fest” is an amateur porn contest that anyone is eligible to enter. An innocent conversation turns into a pissing contest of sorts and the two decide to make a gay porn film with two totally straight dudes, themselves, which will become art while it reaches to be “beyond gay”. Brilliant? Maybe, maybe not.

Humpday is free from gimmicks even though the title may suggest otherwise. There is no porn, only minor nudity, and the jokes are much more circumstantial and personal as opposed to the manufactured variety. Shot in 10 days with a crew of only 12 and an almost totally improvised script this is what Independent filmmaking is all about.

My Vote: This is the most interesting 95 minutes I spent at the theatre in a long time.

(500) Days of Summer is almost as good as an actual 500 day summer.

I am going to apologize in advance here. I’ve been having my mind BLOWN by Paul Thomas Anderson for the past week and he is quickly becoming my new favorite director so everything else now seems inferior.

Lets get to it.

(500) Days of Summer is a romantic comedy with a little bit of a twist. Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has been in a slew of small and interesting movies including Brick and Mysterious skin and who will also be in the new G.I. Joe flick coming out August 7^th) is a lover of epic proportion. Growing up listening too closely to British pop rock with inexperienced ears, Tom believes whole-heartedly in true love, fate, and destiny. I feel for Tom. I am Tom. Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel, who I have had a pretty sizable crush on since her performance in 2002’s Elf, is the exact opposite. Here lies the conflict. They meet, she’s wonderful, and he falls hopelessly in love while she remains unwilling to let go of her bitter beliefs about love. I know that girl. This movie had me at hello.

An appropriate tagline sums it up in a few words. This is not a love story. It is a story about love. Unconventional would sum it up in a word. I was tickled by the little vignettes sprinkled throughout this film, especially the nod to Fellini (or was it Bergman?)… either way, spot on. The story unfolds in a non-linear fashion, and to be honest, it felt like a gimmick. I really didn’t feel like it added anything to the plot and was just put to use in order to give the feeling of disorientation, which was unnecessary. Critics will dispute this and I understand why this choice was made, I just feel it would have felt like a fuller, more complete film if it had been told following a linear story line.

While I will applaud the climax of the movie for being unconventional, I really felt like the dénouement was in opposition to what they were trying to accomplish in the first place and therefore took away from the overall experience. The opening 10 minutes and closing 10 minutes of a film are important, not as important as I used to think, but important none-the-less. I suspect, however, that this was something imposed by the studio, at least that will be my excuse to help me sleep tonight.

I will certainly revisit this film on DVD and maybe my sentiments will change but as of right now I feel like the director Marc Webb was on the verge of a brilliant movie that fell a little short. With that being said, falling just a little short of brilliant isn’t too bad a place to be.

My Vote: A touching Rom-Com that breaks the mold. Check it out. 

Kyle Retter - i hate movie reviews

Copy and paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsD0NpFSADM to view the trailer.

GOSSIP is iTunes single of the week!

I know it's not movie related but I had to put it out there. My roommate turned me onto the band GOSSIP and they are pretty great. I was searching iTunes today and lo-and-behold their song HEAVY CROSS is the "single of the week"....which means it's FREE Check it out!

P.T.A. Marathon

Look out for my Paul Thomas Anderson marathon reviews. P.T.A. is one of my favorite directors working today. From his debut in 1996 with Hard Eight starring John C. Rielly  he has gone on to make a small but strong catalog of memorable films that include Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and his latest achievement There will be blood (2007). If you haven't seen any of these flicks you need to check them out...and I will tell you exactly why in the days to come!

Copy and paste this link ---->   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD7i3hWM6FU

"Looking at all the stars in the sky makes me think of all the hot guys in the world". -Bruno

Bruno has it all…moments of genius along with moments of penis. Yes, I said penis. And if you go see Bruno get ready for some penis. Not to say the entire 82 minutes revolves around penis…. sometimes the penis just revolves. 

For those of you who aren’t up to speed on the highbrow/lowbrow humor of Bruno, he is super gay. And if you don’t believe me go look at the official Bruno Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_(character).  Bruno is the fictional character invented by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. The Austrian fashion guru Bruno is on a mission to be famous. He will do anything to make his mark in Hollywood. It’s no surprise that he exposes others who have a similar agenda while reaching for his goal. God help those children.

 I didn’t find this movie as engaging as his previous ‘mockumentary” Borat but it’s definitely something we should all experience. While the flimsy story line causes it to feel more like an MTV sketch comedy show than a movie it shouldn’t matter too much given the material, no one was setting out to make Citizen Kane. 

I was shocked and horrified at almost all the situations that Bruno managed to cook up with some moments that really make you down right uncomfortable. Moments that present Bruno in Boot camp and on daytime television talk shows are funny but you know they are spoofs, put on’s, and the people involved are feeding off each others energy.  It’s the moments when it’s just him and an unsuspecting interviewee that are the best. These people can do or say anything. They can decline to comment or take the high road but never do and that’s when things become interesting. After a long speech from an Alabamian “gay converter” Bruno casually asks, “Are you coming on to me”? I lost it. 

Some will get it and take it for what it is while others will hate it and reject it as lowbrow bathroom humor, but Bruno, for what it’s worth is funny, thought provoking, eye opening, and racy. What more can you ask for?

My Vote: See this with some friends who like to talk about a movie afterwards and aren’t afraid of stationary bikes with dildos fixed to them. : \

Here is a funny link http://www.thebrunomovie.com/bruno-movie/bruno-dictionary-discover-brunoisms/

And be sure to check out The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1996) below.

The Birdcage

While thinking about Bruno and the controversy revolving around it I started to think about other mainstream movies that revolve around gay characters. If you haven’t seen The Birdcage you are missing out. The plot revolves around the son of homosexual Dad’s who own a South Beach drag club marrying the daughter of a conservative Republican Senator from Ohio. Let the hilarity begin. This movie has an all-star cast of Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Calista Flockhart and Hank Azaria that comes together to turn in fun and memorable performances and hey, Mike Nichols isn’t too bad behind a camera. Check this flick out!

Bruno...where the bitches at?

Just got back from a midnight showing of Bruno. I have to process...and sleep...but my side and face hurts from laughing...not for the faint at heart by any means at all. Go see it tonight!! More to come!!

I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars... and you. What else you need to know? -Public Enemies

There are some very good things and some not so great things about Public Enemies. Keeping in line with some of the simple thinking that took place in this picture I will assign Public Enemies a letter grade. 

C+. 

I was hoping for more.

Johnny Depp turns in a solid performance as the notorious bank robber John Dillinger. Dillinger is a captivating character and Depp is one of the best actors of our generation. When the camera is on Depp, you're paying attention.  Score one for Public Enemies.

Michael Mann’s (Heat, The insider) direction was solid and his attention to detail was above and beyond the call of duty. Mann was insistent upon shooting in many of the actual locations where the events of Dillingers last few years on earth unfolded covering an array of cities in the mid-west. This act of love gave the movie a sense of authenticity that is essential to any period piece. Score. There where several surprisingly funny moments and Depp delivers some lines that will go down in history along side some of the greatest (“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”). Always good.

But as I said, the movie had its weak points too. While Depp gives us a stellar performance and Mann shows his expertise with the camera (some will argue that point but I am a big fan of the handheld camera) I felt like something was really lacking in the story. At 2-1/2 hours I expected this movie to have a little more depth to it. It seemed to drag and I never felt like I cared about anyone. There was no real tension building. Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) the FBI agent hot on Dillingers trail didn’t seem to have enough motivation to catch Dillinger and Dillinger really didn’t seem to care if he got caught. I thought their relationship should have been heightened a little more-that their game of cat and mouse could have been more playful, more meaningful. 

This story started off on the right foot but in the end the shootouts and one-liners aren’t enough to make a completely satisfying picture. In a movie where you know the ending on your way into the theatre you  have to-have to-have-to be invested in the characters and I just never totally got there. 

And the music. Son-of-a, don't get me started on the music. 

My Vote: Catch it on the big screen if you got an afternoon to kill. Rent Bonnie and Clyde, 1967.

Tetro

Francis Ford Coppola is an amazing director. There are few people that can be linked to such magnificent movies as Coppola. The Godfathers, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, and Dracula are just a few of the popular standout pictures he has under his belt. He holds 15 Academy awards and a countless number of nominations. This guys daughter is a legit director. He produced George Lucas’s first 2 films. Respect. Everyone needs to see at least one of these classic Coppola movies start to finish.

While Tetro may not go down as a “classic” it is an interesting movie worth a view. Tetro is the story of a family torn apart. It stars Vincent Gallo (Singer, painter, writer, director, actor…Buffalo 66 and Brown Bunny) as Tetro and the combination of Gallo and Coppola together was enough to get my butt in a seat. The family saga unfolds as Bennie, Tetro’s younger brother arrives in Buenos Aires while the cruise ship he works on gets repaired. Tetro, not himself because of a broken leg is not happy to see his brother.

Bennie is curious about his family and heartbroken by Tetro not returning from his writing sabbatical as promised. Beenie longs to be just like his older brother and finds an outlet to do so. The plot has a fair share of twist and turns and it’s fairly entertaining.

The film is shot in beautiful black and white mostly set in Buenos Aires and Patagonia. The writing and the performances are very theatrical in a way that makes some of the situations a little more believable than if it would have been executed on a more dramatic and realistic stage. 

My vote: There are moments that drag and the black and white will keep a lot of people away but this is Coppola. Take it for what it is and watch a master filmmaker try some new stuff on ya’ll.

You've seen it before but you'll like seeing it again...

Horror flicks, coming of age flicks, and the romantic comedy are my favorite genres in cinema. They are predictable, cheesy, campy, and sometimes really poorly made but when done right they are always fun. 

The Proposal stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds as a couple that was never meant to fall in love but do, a very predictable premise indeed. Margaret (Bullock) is an uptight “witch” of a boss at a huge publishing company in New York. Andrew, (Reynolds) her hard working and under appreciated assistant is looking to move up in the publishing world. As luck would have it, Margaret is Canadian with an expired Visa who is going to lose her job and citizenship until she comes up with a proposal, one that forces this "odd couple" into an unusual situation, a fake marriage. To one extent or another this movie has been made before so I wasn’t expecting to be very entertained.

I was surprised, however, to find myself engaged in the movie right off the bat. I have seen more romantic comedies than any other genre and while there was nothing new or original about this one Bullock and Reynolds made a great pair and saved this movie from its lackluster plot. Kudos also goes to Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses), the director, for not shoving the romance down our throats but for letting it develop subtly and more organically than I have seen in the past (singing Rob Bases’ “it takes two” is a well played out scene).

I got some good laughs and walked out of the theatre with a smile on my face. While the final showdown is certainly one of the most over used and unoriginal final scene in movie history I can look past it because of the work that lead up to it. The beautiful Alaskan landscape and Betty Whites’ fun performance help make this movie better than average.

My Vote: A great date movie. Also, check out It happened one night and my review below.

It Happened one night.....a long, long time ago.

It happened one night is a classic American movie. Starring Clark Gable (Gone with the wind) and Claudette Colbert (the actress of 1934) it won five academy awards including best picture and best director (Frank Capra).

Filmed during the height of the Great Depression this movie holds up very well today. It offers us a very captivating look into what life may have been like a half a century ago while showing us where the romantic comedy really started to take shape. 

During such classic scenes as the hitchhiking scene and the donut-dunking scene I can’t help but appreciate the simple situations that make this movie great. Yes, it’s filmed in black and white and its style of humor is very toned down, (hey, it was 1934) it is well worth the watch. This movie paved the way for many of the movies we see today and hopefully you will appreciate a well played out scene a little bit more after watching It happened one night.

Baby Mama Bomba

Baby Mama stars Tina Fay and Amy Poehler both funny gals, so I loaded it up on my Netflix queue cause why not, I can handle a movie all about women. I know I am pretty late on viewing this; the movie was released on DVD last fall but better late than never, right?

Well, in this case, never would have been just fine with me. This flick was pretty horrible. I got a few chuckles from each member of the cast but it really felt like work getting through this hour and half of horror. The laughs were totally random, the plot was overly predictable and I was left trying to figure out where the $30,000,000 budget was spent.

I expected a lot more from Tina Fay, Steve Martin, Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear (that’s a long list of very successful actors) but I guess that was just wishful thinking. The two best performances in this movie were Dax Shepard and Romany Malco, which just isn’t right.

My Vote: Don’t watch this movie, even if it is just to support your fellow women.

Strollers have ruined the world in Away We Go.

Away we go stars John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday night live) as a thirty-something couple that are pregnant (yes, “they” are pregnant) and are searching for a new home. They set off 6 months into her term to visit old friends and family members in Phoenix, Madison, Montreal, and Miami in an effort to find a place that’s right for them and their new baby.

Right off the bat this movie had it’s issues and 15 minutes in I was starting to check out…. not a good way to start things off. The constant guitar and voice of Alexi Murdoch gets painfully annoying. Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, Jarhead) seems to think you don’t know what this movie is about and he has to tell you through music over and over again. Then there is the dialog (“are we fuck ups”? “We’re fuck up’s!”) being shoved down your throat; the themes and emotion and the importance of this journey they are about to take. I get it. Then we get all of the trailer scenes. Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into?

But just as my thoughts were trailing off a funny thing happened…I laughed. Then, all of the sudden, I laughed again. I become interested in what was going to happen next. The movie started to build some momentum and do away with the sobbing guitar strings. I was kind of hooked (took long enough). Phoenix, Madison, and most of Montreal really have some great moments.

After some soul searching and a couple of necessary (but totally unnecessary) monologues we reached our ending, which like the beginning was a little over the top with emotion and guitars and everyone telling you how to feel. Whenever I see a movie like this I can’t help but wonder what could have been. Mendes put a little too much trust in what was probably an easy and enjoyable screenplay to read when he should have let the camera do a little more work. If you liked Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004…which is a MUCH, MUCH, better movie) you might like Away we go. A somewhat unique “road trip movie”, I think this would be a good warm up for someone who wants to understand the structure of stories in films a little bit better without getting confused or having to think about your feelings.

My Vote: A good DVD for a night on the couch with your steady…yes, I just said steady.

The roof? Very creative.

My roommate always jokes that I hate every movie I see. Maybe he’s right. 

I went to see The Hangover on its opening day at noon. The theatre was half full. It was myself and about 50 young businessmen dressed casual on their extended Friday lunch break. The were excited. You would have thought they were about to go to Vegas. In an odd sort of a way they were.

So I’ve been thinking about that now for a while, how these guys were all amped up like a bunch of college kids getting ready for their first big beer pong tournament. And I have been listening to what people have been saying and reading what I’ve been reading and I can’t figure out if I’m just a cynic, like my roommate says or if this movie was just really mediocre at best.

I feel confident in saying it’s mediocre at best. 

I feel like everyone has gotten caught up in the nostalgia of Vegas through this movie. They see the strip and guys struggling to remember the wild night they just had and they can’t help but remember the trip they had to Vegas and in their minds it was just as crazy as The Hangover, save a tiger or two. This movie shows all its cards in the previews and there isn’t too much for it to stand on past that. After seeing it I want to go to Vegas again, I’m just not going to go drop $20 on the DVD anytime soon.

I didn’t hate The Hangover; hate is such a harsh word. I thought The Hangover had its moments (have you ever seen a baby masturbate…pretty funny). Suffice it to say; in the end I was not too impressed. There was a real lack of creativity in the picture and although I got my laughs in I think there are too many well-made comedies to consider The Hangover one of the best.

My Vote: Don’t believe the hype. I’m sure the right crowd could make this movie a lot better than it is. Please, I beg you, please don’t go around quoting this movie cause it just didn’t earn it

UP

The better a movie is the harder I find it to write about with out gushing and sounding like I’m trying to sell something. I have no problem doing that here. Go see this movie. Do anything you can to see it on the big screen and then reserve a copy at Wal-Mart before it’s released. This is by far Pixars biggest accomplishment to date, putting together a masterful work of art on so many levels. I laughed, I almost cried, and I forgot about everything in life beside what was going on in the theatre. That’s what great movies do to you.

The scenario could not have been more perfect. A few seats next to me I had a 5 or 6 year old girl accompanied by her father while in front of me I had an elderly couple holding hands. The little girl didn’t stop asking her father questions, adorable questions, which I could hardly ignore. The elderly couple in front of me must have exchanged a hundred or more loving glances at each other. It really set the mood.

Up is about Carl, an elderly man who sets out on an amazing journing he’s been waiting his whole life to take. After his wife Ellie passes away and on the verge of being condemned to an old folks home he anchors thousands of helium filled balloons to his house and takes flight. 

Carl really loved Ellie, the kind of love that can’t be described with words. Fortunately Pixar didn’t try to describe their love with words but with a montage sequence that knocked my socks off. It was as loving and heartfelt as any live action montage I have ever seen. When the little girl next to me turned to her father and whispered “Daddy, what happened” as Carl stood alone in a funeral home I had a hard time keeping it together. 

Up, well, it was almost….real. I usually have a hard time suspending my disbelief for a cartoon but this wasn’t just any old cartoon. Up will stand the test of time and become a classic, I'm sure of it. A great story, wonderful animation, and talking dogs...how could you go wrong?

My Vote: Go see it now, but not in 3-D.

A different experience than you may be used to. The Girlfriend Experience.

 I won’t make you wait till the end to figure me out here. I really enjoyed this movie. While there is always a concern when seeing a movie featuring non-actors it fell by the wayside quickly here. Sasha Grey, who happens to be a very young and active adult film star, is phenomenal. I am sure that if I saw her in any other film errr, mainstream theatrical movie I would have a much different opinion but she nailed this role, no pun intended. I have never seen any of her other “movies” but I have to think that her experiences in the adult film industry was the perfect precursor to playing the role of Chelsea. Her live in boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos) a personal trainer in the film and in real life is another non-actor. He is good looking, but the kind of good looking that is kind of hard to look at, his face seems to be carved from a piece of misshaped geological artifact. He is just as believable as Grey in his role.

Soderbergh uses a non-linear storyline to explore the life of a call girl and the relationships that make up her life. This area has been treaded on before, many times, most notably to me in one of my favorite movies of all time “Leaving Las Vegas”.

There is a lot of talking in this movie as in any movie about feelings and relationships. The plot revolves around Chelsea being interviewed by a journalist who wants the inside scoop on what its like to be a high priced call girl in New York who is also in a monogamous relationship.

Chelsea is a high priced hooker but that seems to be a front for the 21-year-old girl who essentially turns into a therapist for middle-aged men. She is professional, but not cold, she has sweetness about her with the men that make them comfortable and let them believe, if only for the night, that she is there for them. There is nothing amazingly clever about this film, surprisingly if only for the mere fact that it deals with a dirty business that often involves low-life scum bag type characters, drugs, police, and so on and so forth. For those who are curious, there are no drugs only drinks. No sex, only nudity. In the end, there are real emotions from real people in real relationships, no matter how out of the ordinary they may seem.

My Vote:  This film is in limited release so you may have to rent it, but its well worth the wait.

Who's in on it? Who really cares?

I was excited to see The Brothers Bloom. Rian Johnson directed this picture and also directed 2005’s Brick, a film noir set in a present day high school. His understanding of the genre shined and he really pulled off a believable flick in Brick. His much anticipated follow up fits neatly into an identifiable genre so the outlook was promising and with a budget 40 times greater than that of Brick it seemed as if everything was going his way.

The Brothers Bloom is a Con-comedy staring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz. I am not a big fan of Brody but I didn’t mind him here. I thought Ruffalo and Weisz were extremely enjoyable throughout the film. Visually Rian Johnson can be compared to Wes Anderson. His establishing shots are panoramic and colorful and he uses a lot of visual gags that will keep the artsy side of you engaged. He really employs the term Mise en scene in this film and asks you to try and think about it too.

However, while Brick took and old genre and applied it to modern times there wasn’t any fancy twist to this one. We are all aware that in a con movie nothing is as it seems. We know that we will think we have it figured it out at least three or four times and then BLAM! We get the big twist we didn’t see coming and we walk out of the movie theatre with a big smile. So knowing that we are really hanging on these relationships. Brothers and friends and women and enemies and money, its all very romantic but in the end it doesn’t deliver. The movie is enjoyable at times but the payoff isn’t there. I laughed and pondered life and what I would do in thier shoes but I also had the same reaction to Die Hard.

My Vote: If you’ve seen one Con-movie you’ve seen them all. Rent Brick