Get Smart

If you go back to my pre-summer movie blast, you will see that this movie made my top 10 list of movies I was really anticipating. The teaser was super hilarious and as more trailers rolled out, I was hooked. It looks super funny and super action packed. I thought Steve Carrell was perfect casting for Maxwell Smart and I love Dwayne Johnson. Get Smart was my dad's favorite show and I have seen enough of them to know how it is funny and seen it enough to want to see this movie.

Maxwell Smart(Carrell) is the best analyst at CONTROL. He passes the field agent exam, but the chief (Alan Arkin) needs him to be the best analyst. CONTROL is a top secret Government agency that keeps tabs on terrorist threats, mostly from a group called CHAOS. CONTROL is hit hard and all of their field agents are found out and killed. Thus, Smart is promoted and he will be teamed up with Agent 99(Anne Hathaway), a veteran agent who recently had undergone plastic surgery. Smart and agent 99 head off to Russia to track down some possible nuclear threats. Back stateside, agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) is having trouble adjusting to being a desk agent but is trying to be as helpful as possible.

The movie is not heavy on plot, but it is heavy on silly jokes and gags that hit much more often than they miss. Carrell is the absolute perfect bumbling straight man and the scene of him in the airplane bathroom left me in stitches. His line delivery is pitch perfect and he really has the qualities to carry a Get Smart franchise, if that should happen. The jokes work, the action is almost nonstop as we get a fight in mid-air and then an awesome climax involving an airplane, a train, a few cars and a bomb. Hathaway is sexy as hell and while I am not sure I bought the chemistry between Carrell and Hathaway on the romantic side, they work well on screen together. Johnson, (dropping "The Rock" moniker) gets a lot of great laughs as the newly flustered agent and some of the more supporting characters gets their laughs as well. Get Smart is the kind of movie that just look like it was fun to make; it looks like every day on the set was a blast and it carries over to the audience.

It is not flawless though, as in the middle section it does bog down a bit and the dance off scene does not work as well as it thinks it does. That whole section threatens to derail the movie, but luckily it is replaced by a fight scene with the sexy Hathaway, Carrell and a giant ogre of a man. That fight is thrilling and funny, but the end of the fight when Carrell brilliantly delivers the line "He left us up here; what a douche" really brings the movie back from the tailspin. As an added bonus we get Bill Murray and James Caan in cameos, with Caan playing The President of the United States in hilarious fashion.

As an homage- the shoe phone, the cone of silence, the car, "Missed it by that much"- Get Smart works. However, it also works as new spy comedy. It is slick, expensive looking, high tech and funny, but it packs a lot of punch as well. I am sure it will do enough to maybe get a sequel and I for one, am totally for it. It may have its flaws, but the silly comedy works more than it doesn't and I had a really good time watching it.

Final Grade: B-

The Love Guru

Mike Myers has not been seen on screen since the Cat in the Hat debacle. In his time away he has been searching for inner peace and created a character. He wrote a movie featuring that character and this summer that movie got released. Audiences everywhere wished it hadn't.

The Guru Pitka (Myers) is the second best self-help guru but thinks if he can get on Oprah he will be first. Jessica Alba is inexplicably the owner of a hockey team who needs his help. The team's Tiger Woods character has started to suck because his wife has shacked up with the goalie of the other team. It is believed she did so because the goalie has a penis the size of an elephant trunk. The Guru sets off to help the black athlete conquer his fears of the giant white penis. Of course, none of that matters. What matters is the string of poop, urine, fart, booger and penis jokes that come at you for 90 minutes. Apparently Mike Myers spent his time off turning into a 6 year old child with bad taste. I don't know how old I was when farting and nose picking stopped being funny, but I am pretty sure it was before I was nearly 40. Never mind that I am not 40.

The Love Guru is so unbearably unfunny that it makes you question everything you ever thought you knew in life. You start to wonder if Mike Myers was ever really funny. It makes you think maybe Wayne's world is terrible. It is not possible for the person behind Wayne's World to also be this perpetrator of crimes against funny. I refuse to believe it. My hope is that Mike Myers has been abducted and the alien that now uses his body is only 5 years old. If that were the case it would maybe be acceptable for a movie to feature a scene where elephants have sex while Myers is riding on the back of the male elephant. Mike Myers has committed one of the worst crimes I have ever seen on film. I left the theater in a daze. It ruined my week and made me physically ill. At one point, I thought all of the joy I had ever felt in life was going to be sucked out. The Love Guru wants to rob us of joy and it wants to demolish our sense of humor and drown it in urine, because apparently soaking things in urine is funny to Myers.

You are categorically wrong if you believe the Love Guru is funny. If you even try to defend it I will know you are not human, but a clone from the Mike Myers factory from the depths of Hell. Justin Timberlake singing Celine Dion should not be the funniest thing in your movie. Cameo after Cameo The Love Guru gets worse. Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer, Marikta Harkshay, Kanye West and oh yes, Mike Myers cameoing as himself cannot rescue this dreck from drowning in its own feces.

Jessica Alba, who is no actress, cannot be faulted for this one because all her character does is laugh at the Guru, but the forced laughter is not her fault; no one can be expected to actually laugh here. In one scene, the Myers character is ordering something to eat and it is a pair of nuts inside a doughy wrapping (like testicles) and then those balls are smashed repeatedly before being placed under a pickle (Yes that is supposedly a joke). Well as I watched the nuts being smashed I could not help but wonder if having my own testicles smashed would be as painful as ever having to watch The Love Guru ever again. My guess is that having my testicles smashed would feel like a walk in the park compared to watching it again.

In case I have not been straight forward enough for you: The only movie I hate more than this is Pirates 2-3. This is the second worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Only this movie could make Steven Colbert unfunny.

Final Grade: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

27 Dresses

I can't imagine what it was like for someone to read the character breakdown after Katherine Heigl had already signed on. How does someone react when they see the following- Tess Nichols: The hotter sister of Jane Nichols(Heigl). Seriously how does one cast someone hotter than Katherine Heigl? The answer is, you don't. You tone down Heigl's hotness with browner hair and less flattering clothes and hire Malin Ackerman, the new and improved(younger and less obnoxious) Cameron Diaz. And in doing so you create like the hottest sister pair ever. Now that entire thing is not important in the grand scale of 27 dresses, but it was something that struck me during watching it.

Jane loves weddings. She loves them so much she is a bridesmaid for 2 weddings on the same night. She hires a cab driver for the night and changes in the car, going back and forth between weddings. At the end of the night she meets the ridiculously handsome and charming Kevin Doyle(James Marsden). She leaves her planner in the cab and Doyle finds it seeing a story. See, Doyle is a writer for a fictional New York paper that places a premium on wedding stories. At work, Jane is in love with her boss, George(Ed Burns), but George loves her as an employee and friend. (Yes, you have to believe that Katherine Heigl could not get any man ever.) She has a slutty, always horny best friend (Judy Greer, the queen of slutty and horny best friends) who believes she needs to make her move or get over it. Her sister, Tess (Ackerman) breezes into town and is quickly engaged to George. Jane says it is all okay, but is bubbling with anger underneath. The wedding is 3 weeks away and Jane is now planning the wedding of her sister and the man of her dreams. Re-enter Kevin. After weeks of dismissing Kevin's come-ons Jane finally accepts. Singing on the top of a bar ensues and the story gets complicated as Jane decides to stand up for herself and as she realizes she is the object of a story by Kevin, but this is a romantic comedy, after all.

As far as romantic comedies go, I would put 27 Dresses in the second tier. It is not memorable or original enough to be mentioned with When Harry met Sally or My Best Friend's Wedding, but it is better than 80% of the bad romantic comedies that get released every year. It runs about 15 minutes too long and the typical romantic comedy awkward turning point is probably meaner in this movie than the norm, but that actually works in its favor. All jokes about Heigl's disgustingly gorgeous looks aside, she proves a very capable romantic comedy actress. She handles the bubbling beneath the surface anger well and it is easy to see why a guy would fall in love with her. She is peppy and has a very winning charm in her line delivery. She has good comedic timing to deliver lines like "I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich." However, she can be taken serious enough to deliver this blow "That was yesterday. Today you're just the bitch who broke my heart and cut up my mother's wedding dress." Heigl has serious star potential, but needs to remember that romantic comedy actresses tend to have relatively short shelf lives.

The story is basic yes, but the dialog is actually pretty strong, in my opinion. There are enough funny lines and good banter to help compensate for the fact that the story could have been solved if the characters had just sat down and talked to each other. Marsden is effortless in his character because well, he oozes likability. Plus, he actually gets the girl here. As Jane's hotter sister, Malin Ackerman reminded me of Cameron Diaz from My Best Friend's Wedding, until the end. Up until she commits an unforgivable sin, she is a very likable other girl. She is not terribly annoying and she is not a shrew. She is also super hot with blonde hair that practically jumps off of the screen. If I seem to be focusing almost exclusively on performances it is because I am. I found that the performances helped raise this movie higher. I found myself actually invested in Jane's plight, even though I knew how it would end. In a romantic comedy, that is all you can ask for.

27 Dresses doesn't break any barriers, but it satisfies and entertains which is what it was hoping to do. It has swoon worthy moments for the girls as Kevin confesses he weeps like a girl at gorgeous weddings and it has Katherine Heigl for the guys. It is kind of a win-win. Once you get passed the absolutely atrocious contrived opening sequences, 27 Dresses settles in and fits like your favorite well worn sweatshirt- you know what you are getting but it still makes you feel warm inside.

Final Grade: B-

Son of Rambow

As a way of dealing with being a very sheltered, fatherless young boy, Will Proudfoot(Bill Minler) draws incredibly elaborate and fascinating pictures. His religion forbids him watching t.v and in school when his class watches a movie he has to sit outside the class. One day as he is sitting outside, he sees Lee Carter, a trouble making classmate, getting kicked out of class. Carter and Proudfoot soon start up a very unlikely friendship. Carter manipulates Proudfoot into helping him do some screen tests for a young directors competition, but as soon as Proudfoot sees First Blood, he wants to make a real movie. Soon, Carter and Proudfoot are making The Son of Rambow; it is an epic tale of a young boy trying to save his father from an evil scarecrow. Proudfoot is the star and Carter the director. When Carter is suspended for a week, Proudfoot enlists the help of most of the students at school and when Carter comes back, everything has changed. It is no longer a little fun movie. Friendships are formed and tested and the social norms combated as young Will Proudfoot tries to reconcile his new found popularity in the secular world with the faith of his family.

With the exception of some short cut away scenes involving a french foreign exchange student, I found The Son of Rambow to be a funny, charming and heart warming tale of growing up. I also revere it as a nice homage to anyone who loves movies. Anytime you have children as the leads in a movie that is not directly aimed at children you run a risk of misfiring in casting, but I thought both the young male leads did an excellent job. I was really taken in by Will Poulter(Lee Carter). He managed to find layers in the character of the misunderstood youth and was charming beyond his years. I have read about the comparison between him and a young River Phoenix in Stand by Me, which I think is warranted.

The things that most struck me in this movie were the scenes of filming the movie and the scenes featuring Will when he was upset or excited. I thought the director really handled the scenes of shooting the movie in a very reverent, but exhilarating way. The whole time we watch Will and Lee shoot The Son of Rambow they have so much giddy energy that it makes me remember what it was like being that young and coming out of a movie. When we would come out of Three Ninjas we were jumping all over practicing kicks and punches and after the Goonies we wanted to search for treasure. This movie brings all of those childlike feelings back. It makes us want to go out and make a movie. It makes us appreciate movies that were made with love and creativity because they didn't have the money for CGI.

What struck me about the scenes of Will's excitement or anger is that they were shot in this hand drawn looking animation. It gives the impression that all of Will's thoughts happen in animation. Everything he thinks, feels and desires happen from the pages and walls of drawings he creates. It is a very cool concept to think that our thoughts appear in pictures. His pictures also act as storyboards for the movie they are making. Watching the flying dog or the creepy scarecrow come to life later in the movie is a fun and thrilling ride, just like the majority of the movie.

Be warned though, it is not all happy and charming. The Son of Rambow is not afraid of tackling tough issues and it is a better movie for it. Mixing joyous film making with a tale of growing up without a father or without parents relying on your best friend for laughter, joy and love combine to make a very heart warming tale that is never heavy handed.

Final Grade: B+

Kung Fu Panda

If you have spent any amount of time talking to me about movies it will inevitably come up that Jack Black annoys the crap out of me. I think Tenacious D sucks and typically Jack Black being in a movie spells trouble. He has this obnoxious hipster mentality that grates on my frontal lobes like a fingernails on a chalkboard. His act in School of Rock was tolerable, though and I actually liked him in Be Kind Rewind. I also have a soft spot for animated movies. Well, animated movies that look as if adults can enjoy them as well, not that Shrek nonsense. I was not impressed by any of the trailers and it looked too silly for me, but I had the chance to see it and as you all know, I rarely pass up a chance to watch a movie.

Po the Panda(Black) dreams of being a Kung-Fu master, but he is fat and lazy with no skill inside of him. He longs to fight beside the furious five- Tigress(Angelina Jolie), Monkey(Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen) and Viper(Lucy Lui). The day has come when the dragon fighter is to be chosen because it has been reported that Tai Lung(Ian McShane) will brake out of prison. Po wants to go watch the ceremony, but his father wants him to sell noodles at the event and climbing the stairs is impossible and Po misses the event, almost. Right before the dragon fighter is chosen, Po ends up on the main stage and is picked to be the dragon fighter. Shifu(Dustin Hoffman), the kung fu teacher thinks it is a mistake and the furious five treat Po terribly. Is Po the kung-fu master? Can Shifu teach him to fight in time? How many jokes will be made out of Po climbing the stairs?

When Kung Fu Panda is in the midst of an action sequence it is a pretty dazzling movie, unfortunately it is not a 90 minute action sequence. Jack Black does do a pretty good job of replacing his obnoxious hipster attitude with an obnoxious innocence, but it actually worked for the most part. He shines most in the opening sequence when he gets to say the word "awesome" in a few different ways. The opening sequence is a weird anime sequence that reminded me of Horton Hears a Who from earlier this year. Ian McShane, doing his third voiced villain in 4 years, is an excellent villain. However, he should be glad Jeremy Irons decided not to do such things anymore. The scene with Tai Lung breaking out of prison is exhilarating, but the scene where Tai Lung fights the furious 5 on a bridge is the best scene in the movie. The action moves and the fights are gorgeously choreographed.

Yet, the comedy falls short. The overuse of jokes based on Po being a fat panda get tired after the first 5 minutes, but the continue for at least an hour. We get it, Po is fat and nonathletic, move on. Of course, Po overcoming such things is the point of the movie. The morality tale here is that if you put your mind to it, you can be as great as you hope you can be. You can take on giant animated tigers if you use your weight as a strength. Your fat lazy ass can actually be a weapon in battle, that will show those people who mocked you! The animation is amazing, but all movies seem to have that now; the problem is that there is too much stop or slow motion. This movie suffers from Matrixitis and it just doesn't work in this movie.

Final Grade: C

The Happening (Spoilers!)

M. Night Shyamalan is one incredibly polarizing figure in the world of movies. He burst onto the scene and has been making enemies ever since. It is nearly impossible for a director who hits a home run his first time out to ever recapture that (Yes, I know The Sixth Sense was not technically his first movie). What he created with that ghost tale was mesmerizing. The big reveal at the end was shocking, but not from out of nowhere if you go back and watch it. It is obvious it did not come from left field. I am going to now compare N. Night to Quinten Tarantino, but let me finish before you call me crazy. Both of these men hit a home run in their first movie. They both followed it up with very good second films and both had underrated third movies. Then they both went very very wrong. The Village and Lady in the Water gave M. Nigh two strikes; Kill Bill and Kill Bill part 2 gave Tarantino two strikes. When I see a director's career in a steady decline, I give them three strikes in a row. Once they get three in a row, I am done. Tarantino revived himself big time in my eyes with Death Proof and this was M. Night's shot.

Two Women are sitting on a park bench reading. One woman turns to the other and says she cannot remember where she was in the book. The two women laugh about it, but seconds later, there are screams in the distance; people start walking backwards and that same woman says again that she cannot remember where she was. She takes something out of her hair and punctures her neck with it, bleeding out. People throw themselves off of the roofs of buildings and a cop shoots himself, then others do the same with his gun. Cut to a science classroom in Philadelphia. Elliot Moore (Marky Mark) is curious as to why bees are disappearing but his class seems not to care at all. Moore is called out of his class and the teachers are all told "There is an event happening." Elliot gets his wife, Alma (Zooey "I have the bluest eyes, ever" Deschanal) his best friend, Julian (John Leguizamo) and Julian's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) and they all get on a train. On the train they see news footage claiming a terrorist attack is happening in the North East; the train stops because they have lost contact. There they see footage of a guy in a lion's den in a zoo goading the lions to tear him to shreds. Julian has to go to Princeton to find his wife. Jess is left with Elliot and Alma. They meet a crazy couple who will give them a ride. The crazy man has a half cocked theory that the plants are the cause. Plants have been known to create toxins to kill enemies. More people kill themselves; people are killed by others; paranoia captures everyone. What is the cause? We never actually know nor do we ever really care.

There is a saying that goes "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times and I hope you die." M. Night Shymalan has struck out in a big way. The Happening is so preposterous, so stupid and so unintentionally funny, I thought I was back watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The Tone is incredibly wonky as it switches from hokey, to funny, to B-movie, to deadly serious and sometimes within the same scene. M. Night is totally unsure of what kind of movie he is making. Don't let the commercials fool you about this being M. Night's "First R rating" that does not make this a better movie. Inf act, this hinders him because when he actually shows what happens he always fails. Think about it, Signs was a very good, creepy movie until he actually showed the aliens. He works better in shadows, in hinting at things. The only hing hinted at here is a good movie. I think this could have been done well. There are flashes that reminded me why I like M. Night in the first place. I like the silence of the movie and the gorgeously haunting score, but it needed a better movie because there is nothing gorgeous or haunting here.

The minute the crazy guy starts talking about how the plants, grass and trees communicate with each other through wind, the entire audience was laughing. If M. Night wanted us to take it seriously, do not have the character with crazy eyes say that. DO not have the character who earlier said "Hot Dogs are underrated" tell us something that may be important. When Elliot realizes the man might be right, what happens? Yes, that is right, Marky Mark runs away from wind. Luckily the grass is so high we can see exactly where the wind is and just how fast it is blowing. Now, I am all for major movie stars running away from weather, hell Jake Gyllenhall runs away from cold like a freaking pro, but M. Night does not allow Marky Mark to win in this scene (don't worry it doesn't kill them because they are in a small group of people, therefore tricking the wind!) However, I refuse to believe wind is tougher to run away from than cold. Cold is all encompassing and wind needs speed to be fast. There is a lack of logic between The Happening and The Day after Tomorrow. These disaster directors need to get together on this! The green of the world is fighting back in a big way. Go green or end up turning a tractor on and laying under it as it tears you to pieces! I haven't even gotten to the crazy lady who lives alone in a house with nothing from the outside world. She invites the 3 travelers in, but smacks the little girl for trying to steal a cookie and accuses Marky Mark of trying to steal her creepy doll looking thing.

Movies do not get much worse than this. M. Night has created 3 god awful movies in a row and I wonder when the day comes where people argue over which one is worse. I still say The Village is worse mostly because I felt it telegraphed its twist; The Happening has no twist ending and no unexpected turn; it just continues to suck and suck and suck. There is one good scare and a few intentional laughs, like Marky Mark talking to a plant he realizes is plastic, but it does not redeem the sheer stupidity involved here.

Final Grade: F

The Incredible Hulk

Much has been made of Marvel's odd decision to reboot the Hulk franchise after the 2003 film tanked critically and at the box office (It experienced a 75% drop from weekend 1 to weekend 2, which is unheard of). When Marvel started its own studio, "Hulk was something they really wanted to do and when they cast Edward Norton, it seemed like they were heading in the right direction. A supporting cast including William Hurt and Tim Roth also made it seem like they were doing it right this time. In trying to erase the 2003 version out of the minds of viewers, they went with a much more action oriented director, Louis Leterrier (Transporter 1 & 2), but things went badly. Norton wanted to rewrite and reedit the movie like crazy and eventually the studio won with a shorter more action packed version leaving Norton's cut on the cutting room floor. However, an action packed movie is what we wanted, right?

The opening credits of The Incredible Hulk accomplish what it took the 2003 version to do in over an hour. With a frenetic editing pace and crazy music, we see The Hulk's origin in a few minutes and then pick up the story with Bruce Banner(Norton) hiding in Brazil working some hourly job in a soda factory. We get a visual cue on screen that lets us know it has been over 100 days without "incident." Banner is working hard at keeping his heart rate under 200, because, well getting Banner angry has serious ramifications. General Ross (Hurt) of the United States Army is still searching for Banner whom he believes is a weapon and is property of the U.S.A. After a freak accident in the plant and the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, the Army finds Banner and the chase is on. Banner is trying to find a cure and is in communication with a Mr. Blue, but in order for Mr. Blue to help, he needs more data; Banner has to go back to the scene of the crime. Meanwhile, Ross has found a super soldier, essentially in Emil Blonsky(Roth), whom he injects with a super serum. In a dazzling, loud and violent scene, the Army "traps" Banner on a college campus, and Hulk is unleashed. Sonic Cannons are unleashed and fanboys go crazy! When Banner does his Hyde thing, he has no control, but the one person who can help him control, who can bring him back to reality is Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Betty is trying to help Banner find the cure. All the while, Blonsky needs more power, craves more. He needs to be stronger, faster and meaner. The trailer let us know that an epic battle between Hulk and "The Abomination" was going to take place and with Harlem as a background, they fight. Boy do they ever fight.

The Incredible Hulk is often too loud, but it never fails to entertain. I am sure with some of the missing 70 minutes there would be more character story and maybe even an arc, but this is an action movie and it is not short on the thrills. The first action sequence with The Hulk captured in only the edges of the camera frame, hiding in steam and ducking behind corners reminded me of many monster movies and really sets a nice tone for the movie. Hulk is shorter this time around, but he is a lot meaner. The look of Hulk is rough and jagged. His green is darker and his yell is gnarly. He uses the thunderclap and he is not above tearing a car in half and destroying tanks. Leterrier knows exactly how to pace the action scenes and he doesn't edit them too crazy so we can't see what is going on. The final showdown is amazing and worth the price of admission on its own. The little references to Captain America, The Leader and of course the Tony Stark cameo really help to make Marvel Studios a studio to be reckoned with. They want to achieve in movies what they have done with comics- create an entire world that is interconnected. Norton does a very good job as Banner, but his scenes with Tyler seem to be missing something. I don't know if they lack chemistry really, but something is missing, maybe I just needed more time with them together.

This Hulk did not have the highest of expectations as it only had to be better than the 2003 version and it is better than that. Whereas the 2003 version tried too hard to be a serious film and almost philosophize the character of Hulk, the 2008 version does exactly what I needed it to do; it just wrecks shit. Whenever Hulk is on screen, I knew I was going to be satisfied. Tim Roth makes a seriously excellent Emil Blonsky. He is cocksure and mean and believable as a super soldier. We believe Blonsky really will go as far as possible to win. He simply will not lose. The effects of The Abomination are out of this world good and detailed beyond belief. I was not sure about any of this in the teaser trailer, but my fears were put to rest when actually watching the movie. I enjoyed the chase aspect and the Lou Ferrigno cameo was perfectly placed. It does get a bit boring in places and the script is lacking in terms of punch. It lacks a light touch. Most comic book movies should have a somewhat lighthearted tone in places and Hulk lacks it until Mr. Blue A.K.A Samuel Sterns A.K.A The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson) is on screen. Nelson's manic energy really adds the comic touch to the movie as well as sets up the possible sequel nicely.

What I needed Hulk to do, he did. I cannot complain too much. This is certainly not in the truly upper echelon of comic book movies, but it is highest among the second tier. The Hulk is an awesome force and the movie goes along way to show that. It is a loud, action packed two hours featuring a few dazzling sequences and in the middle of summer when I desire to be entertained first, The Incredible Hulk certainly delivers. By the time the green monster gets around to saying "Hulk Smash" I just sat there and said, "Yes you certainly do." Awesome.

Final Grade: B

The Fall

I don't have a paragraph of backstory or anything for this movie, so I am just going to jump right in here.

Alexandria(Catinka Untaru) is a little girl in the hospital with a broken arm in the 1930s; the beginning of cinema. Roy Walker(Lee Pace)is a Hollywood Stuntman in the hospital with a broken spine. One day fate chances them to meet. Alexandria is a precocious little girl with chubby cheeks, a deep desire to hear stories, a dark past and the wit of a girl above her years and she is drawn to Roy's stories. Roy is a very depressed young man who desperately wants to kill himself, but he has a vivid imagination. Together they team up to pass the time with a wild story. Roy tells Alexandria the story of 5 men out to kill an evil ruler. They all have their own reasons for wanting the ruler dead, but the main hero, a masked hero, finds love along the way. Back in real life, Roy is manipulating Alexandria to get her to get him drugs. Alexandria wants to hear the end of the story, so she does his bidding, wondering all the while if it is a good thing she is doing.

Directed by Tarsem (yes he goes by one name) The Fall is a luscious bore. To be fair, calling it luscious may be giving it too much credit. The fantasy world Roy weaves features a few stunning visuals that look jacked from M.C Esher artwork, but little else pops. The colors are rich to be sure, the richness of colors does not a movie make. The story in the fantasy takes forever to really get going and the real world is far more interesting, but it keeps getting interupted by the fantasy story. Pace is excellent in the role, but when he starts to double as the masked hero, I lost interest. Pace is not a super suave guy, and that role demands it. In the real world, Pace does an excellent job with Roy. In her first and to this date only movie role, the little romanian Untaru is perfect. We believe her when she is scared and revel in her small joys and brief happiness. The friendship they form is the heart of the movie, but it keeps getting bogged down in fantasy land.

Also, The Fall is relentlessly depressing right up until the very end. I am all for movies that challenge the ideals of the happy ending, but this was almost joyful in its depression. I understood the point of making the fantasy story get so depressing, because it makes the swift change in tone that much more emphatic in the end, but there was no let up throughout. Watching Alexandria get manipulated by Roy is tough to stomach at first, but it just goes downhill from there. Tarsem also directed The Cell which in itself was pretty relentlessly depressing, but at least the visuals in that one made the whole thing look pretty. Here, the depressing story doesn't get to hide behind those stunning visuals. Tarsem is trying to be incredibly visual here, but he fails. he fails badly and he fails often. It would have ben a better movie if he had pointed the camera at the oddly paired friends and let them talk through the movie.

Final Grade: D

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Every summer brings with it a few surprises, but for the most part we know what we are getting in every summer movie season- Superheroes, Sequels and Sandler. The 3 S's of summer are like clockwork. This summer, we have Ironman and Hulk; The Mummy 3, Indiana Jones 4 and "Zohan." There was a time when I was the key demographic for Adam Sandler flicks but that day has long since passed. Yet, I still find myself sitting through his movies, almost out of duty than enjoyment. This movie had that all important seal of approval from Judd Apatow, but further digging seemed to show that his involvement ended a few years ago when the script was first written, so who knows. Well, I saw Ironman and I saw Indy 4, so now it was time to get my fill of the third summer S.

The Zohan(Sandler) is an Isreali counter terrorist on vacation. he loves to hackey sack it up and cook in the nude. He is dancing with some very sexy bikini clad girls until his services are needed. Palestinian terrorist "The Phantom"(A depressingly unfunny John Turturro) is on the loose and The Zohan has to capture him again. The problem is The Zohan is sick and tired of war. He is dying to cut and style hair. He even has a 1980s Paul Mitchell hair design book. He wants to leave the army and go to America to cut the hair. He fakes his own death and reemerges in New York with an 80s hair cut, cut off jeans and bad shirts, ready to cut hair. He finds it difficult to get a job, but he is extra confident and sticks with it until he finds work at a Palestinian hair salon. The owner, though, Dalia(Emmanuelle Chriqui) will not let him cut hair until one of her stylists quits and he is the only one left. The next 35 to 40 minutes is one bad montage after another. Zohan takes an older woman, cuts her hair in a very sexual way and then takes her in back and nails her. Oh and The Zohan has a giant cod piece. You won't miss it because it is the punchline to no less than 50 jokes in the near 2 hours of this movie. What follows is a story about Israeli's and Palestinians trying to get along, a big business man trying to put the little hair salon out of business and a lot of shirtless Adam Sandler gyrating in front of, on top of, and behind old women.

Somewhere in You Don't Mess with The Zohan is a funny movie. Somewhere inside the nearly 2 hours are sprinkled laughs. Somewhere between the old person sex stuff and the overuse of hummus are funny scenes involving hackey sacking a cat or some zany over the top action. In the first 25 minutes there are actually a lot of laughs. The laughs are due to the audacity of the action, the balls to the wall nonsense of Adam Sandler as a superhuman soldier. When the story moves to New York and we get bombarded with old person sex, the movie loses that. Instead we get Nick Swardson and Rob Schneider doing the same thing they always do- sucking. There are cameos galore- Chris Rock, Henry Winkler, Kevin James, John McEnroe and Mariah Carey- but the movie loses the funny. Sure there is still this over the top zaniness, but it isn't fun zaniness, it is repulsive. The Zohan is a parody movie of a movie that doesn't exist. Instead of a movie it is a string of sight gags strung together loosely by hair cuts. With the amount of time Sandler spends shirtless and with all his talk of being good at sex, this comes off as a vanity project. This is Sandler's version of Kevin Costner's The Postman. I can't say I hated it, but I can't say I loved it either.

However, I could spend an entire paragraph on Emmanuelle Chriqui. I won't but I will say that this girl may be flawlessly beautiful. The face, the body, the clothes, all of it is perfect. The accent, well, she is hot, what more do you want? Of course there is an inherent problem with the romance in the movie. Why would Dalia, a gorgeous and intelligent woman, ever give The Zohan a shot after the hundreds of 60-90 year old women he nailed in her back room? Is it because eventually he stops being able to get a hard on for anyone else? No, the script demands it so it happens. It is as simple as that. John Turturro on the other hand, could get a whole paragraph of negativity. John John John, what happened? What is it with really talented actors slumming in these crappy comedies? But not only is he slumming, he isn't even doing a good job of it here. He can be manic, crazy and hilarious (see Transformers) but here he is just sad.

Last summer Sandler tried his hand at tacking on a big social message on the end of the horrendous I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry, and it failed miserably, but when he does it here, he nearly succeeds. Denis Dugan, the director of both movies, gets away with it here, because this movie isn't mean spirited. There are stereotypes to be sure, but it isn't one constant stream of terrorist jokes. The moral being we are all the same. We all want the same things- the freedom to do what we love. Whether it is to cut hair, sell shoes, sell electronics, we deserve the ability to do it. The moral is wrapped up in a pretty nice climax involving some pretty funny jokes from Israelis and Palestinians, both and one more silly over the top action sequence to book end the movie nicely. Sandler is a talented actor and he proves that in the very few serious scenes, but he is without a challenge. he could do these kinds of movies forever it seems, but he needs another Punch Drunk Love. "Zohan" has laughs to be sure and actually it made me laugh more than I thought I would, but somewhere there is a better movie and not just extended SNL sketches.

Final Grade: C-

The Strangers

The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, I was sitting in a movie theater and girls all over the auditorium were screaming in fear. I knew I had to see this movie. Then rumors were swirling that it was going to be a tame pg-13 movie and then I heard it has been sitting on a shelf for over a year and I was worried I didn't want to see it. It came out rated R and it opened to a very impressive 20 million dollar opening, when studios were predicting 7 million. There must have been something in this small movie people wanted to see. Were they right?

Before we see anything, a dark voice opens the movie talking about how most of the violent acts committed to people are done by people they know, but some aren't. We are also told this is based on a true story, but it is more like a story based on many instances that may or may not be true. The movie opens on two little boys walking by a house that has been thrashed and we hear a 911 call. They see blood and a knife and then the movie goes back to the beginning of the story. James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay(Live Tyler) are driving silently in a car going to a summer home. They are clearly a couple in a fight. It is eerily quiet in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the movie as the couple get to the house, walk in, sit down and continue their lives. It is almost voyeuristic how mundane it all seems. James sits down looks at the engagement ring in his pocket and it is easy to see why the couple is at odds. James leaves a message to a friend that he will need a ride in the morning. The house is littered with roses, as James expected He and Kristen to be engaged by the time they reached the house. There is a knock at the door just after 2am. It is a loud, jarring knock and at the door is a teenage girl looking for her friend. We never see the face of the girl but there is something not right here. James leaves the house to go get Kristen cigarettes and then the proverbial shit hits the fan. There is another knock at the door; the girl is back, but then it is more than knocking. There is tapping at the window, Kristen's phone goes missing. Someone is in the house. James comes back, doesn't believe her, but soon the couple is in a living nightmare.

This is about the most simple story of a movie, ever. Stretching it to 90 minutes seemed like an impossible task and minus 2 hiccups, The Strangers offers some pretty serious scared and builds enough tension to make me forget I had a box of popcorn at my side. The quiet feel of the beginning really enhances just how loud the movie gets. There are 3 crazy people attacking the couple and they have everything planned out. This is not a chase movie as much as it is a movie where we watch and wait for the inevitable. Knowing the outcome at the start does not diminish the scares and does not make the agonizing situation any less intense. The masked vandals are extremely creepy, not only because they are masked, but because they revel in their brand of torture. They are not concerned with a quick kill, no they are going to enjoy it for 4 hours. 4 hours of breaking windows, writing on windows, banging on doors and walls. 4 hours of controlling the situation. The suspense left me with white knuckles and tension built up in my shoulders. The quiet moments were spent on edge wondering when the potato bag masked man would creep back into the picture and strike. Every inch of the screen is used and the camera angles and tight shots lend themselves to this overall creepy feeling.

The scares come from those nights you are alone and hear something off in the distance. Usually it is nothing but the wind, but what if it was a group of psychopaths who have no motive other than "you were home." The Strangers is a small, cabin fever inducing movie. When it is over you just want to run into a wide open space because being confined is no good. That being said, it is not without a few faults. First off, the minor flashback Kristen experiences is not at all needed for us to know anything about this couple. The mood set by the beginning, then the mood when the couple starts to get intimate (it is hot) tell us everything we need to know. Also, everything that happens after the climax seemed off to the mood of the rest of the movie. The last shot went for a cheap scare, when the rest of the movie avoided them. It does put a sour taste in your mouth for the end, but it doesn't diminish what the rest of the movie accomplished- scaring the crap out of me.

Diary of the Dead

There was a time in my life when I included George A. Romero on my list of heroes. I was 12 years old and had just been introduced to zombie movies. In that world, Romero is God. In 1968 he directed Night of the Living Dead, which is the zombie movie all other zombie movies wish to be. Since then he has directed a bevy of zombie movies included in what could be called a "dead" franchise- Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and now Diary of the Dead. His movies have been known to be analogies like Dawn of the Dead is set in a mall because humans believe that everything we need to survive exists in a mall and of course, Romero deconstructs that ideal. Does the analogy in Diary of the Dead work? Is it an entertaining movie?

The first thing we see is a sly news report with a woman reporter talking about a man who killed his family and himself. In the background the bodies are brought out on stretchers, but suddenly without warning, the bodies reanimate and bite everyone around. We get a voice over of a young woman who says the news didn't show that: the cameraman uploaded it to youtube himself. It is the only way to get the truth out there. This is after all, a movie about the truth. This faceless woman tells us more information than is needed about how the movie she made and is showing us is brutal and unflinching in its search for the truth. Any edits made and all the music she added were only there to enhance what really happened. So what did really happen? A group of young college students are out in the woods making a horror movie. A mummy movie to be exact. I am not going to list names or actors here because it doesn't matter one bit. The director normally does documentaries but he wanted to make a horror movie. It turns out all of the kids are directors and this is for college credit. 95% of the footage for the rest of the movie will have been shot through his camera. Taking a break from shooting they catch news footage of an outbreak of something. They panic and drive back to college to pick up a girl. Once they are all strapped in, it is just them against the zombies. Along the way they run into a deaf Amish man with wicked scythe skills; a black ops Military group that is all black people and one random white guy; and many many zombies.

Like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead is all shot first person, handheld style. However, unlike those two movies, the handheld movement of the camera is not very shaky at all. The people holding the cameras are film students after all; they know how to work a camera. The work is actually pretty engrossing as our view switches from the handheld, to a cell phone video, to surveillance and of course news footage. The main POV camera operator becomes obsessed with documenting the truth. Romero is adamant about this guy documenting life, not living life. He is detached, cool under pressure, unfeeling and obnoxious prying. The script fails him and his friends as he has to ask benign questions because Romero doesn't trust us to follow him. Everything has to be spelled out at every juncture. There are interesting things said and interesting things filmed, but at times, the entire project can be grating. With Dawn of the Dead, Romero was being more subtle about his disdain for malls; for that faux security the malls provide. We were zombies to the mall. With Diary of the Dead, subtly has gone away and replaced with a stark bluntness. Romero hates where the world is going. He is deconstructing our reliance on technology, but at the same time showing its uses. He is operating on a slippery slope.

As the friends start to get picked off by the zombies, the POV character gets colder, choosing documentation over life. He rationalizes it by saying the world has to see the truth. His movie is needed by the world. He even takes time to edit it and upload it onto Myspace and gets some 40,000 hits in 10 minutes. It sets itself up to jokes, but this stuff does happen. Videos are taken of tragedies every day and nothing is done about it. People do not help, they document. Romero is commenting on the absurdity of it, but defends it when a character says that when people see the zombies can be killed by shooting them in the head that can travel the world in seconds. It can save lives. What is more important- saving the lives of your friends, or documenting their downfall to maybe save thousands?

However, this is a zombie movie. It philosophizes, uses camera trickery and everything else, but at its core it is a movie about dead people who come back to life to bite human flesh. As a zombie movie it offers little int he way of gore, well little in comparison to most zombie movies. What gore there is is nice. It is gooey, oozes out and is satisfying, but Romero is economic with it. He doesn't want the gore to interfere with the story he is telling. The acting ranges from pretty good to flat out awful and you could spend hours pointing out flaws, but I respect an old dog learning and trying new tricks. Romero made his name in zombie movies and he remembers that, yet, he wants more and Diary of the Dead is a nice combination of the two. It isn't perfect to be sure, but it is a nice experiment.

Final Grade: C+