I love movies, and love to critique, gush and generally discuss them. This gives me the opportunity to do so. I will also review books, and possibly television shows.
Cinema Verite is a style of film making that appears here to stay. It is the term for movies shot like a documentary but that are not documentaries. You know the style. The handheld, shaky cameras, the lack of too much score, weird focusing techniques, sometimes excruciating zooms in and out. Dialog that often sounds like it was made up on the spot and the use of mostly natural light. The idea is to put the audience directly into the action. In television it is being used for comic effect in The Office or Modern Family. But in film, it is almost always used for horror movies. Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Quarantine, Diary of the Dead and last year's runaway smash hit Paranormal Activity are all films that have used this style to varying degrees of success. Along comes the latest entry into the human possession sub-genre of horror. I follow Eli Roth on The Twitter and he has been plugging this thing like crazy and the buzz on it was actually pretty good, so I thought I would be worth checking out. Plus, when done well, I really enjoy Cinema Verite.
Cotton Marcus(Patrick Fabian) is a man who was born to be a preacher. He is the son of a preacher first of all, but he is also a man of infinite poise and charm. He knows how to work a room and he understands the "show" of it all. He is also a man who has performed countless exorcisms. The problem is, he does not believe in possession and he understands it is a scam. He was okay with it until he read an article where a kid was choked to death during an exorcism. Now, he wants to shine a light on the ugly fakery the church has perpetrated for financial game. So, he is going to do one last exorcism and let cameras film him so they can see how fake it really is. Marcus picks a letter at random and they set off to find a teeenage girl possessed by the demon Abalam. Cotton does a convincing, but fake exorcism and all appears to be well until Nell(Ashley Bell), the possessed teen, shows up at his hotel room that night. From there, all kinds of crazy shit starts to happen. Nell slaughters animals, speaks Latin, lashes out at the camera crew, puts her body is crazy positions and draws pictures she does not remember drawing. Cotton does not believe she is possessed, but traumatized by her pregnancy. She has been shamed into pretending to be possessed to lash out at a father who keeps her chained up, who may have raped her. Or maybe her brother did? Perhaps it was the local pastor?
It is really tough to figure out how I feel about this movie. It is unsettling for sure. It never really made me jump, but it did get me on edge quite a few times. I enjoyed how the movie played up the satirical opening 40 minutes by splicing the exorcism footage with footage of Cotton showing how he makes the magic. Fabian is a very charismatic actor and he does a great job in the opening when we see Cotton preaching and there is a great bit involving banana bread that gets great laughs. When the movie switches from kind of comic into this weird is-she-or-isn't-she possessed movie, it loses a little bit of steam, but it still kept my interest because of intensity of the story and the great, intimidating score. The performances work better during this section of the film, but the Cinema Verite starts to lose steam a bit. The film is too dark, and we lose too much with the camera man running and I get that is the idea, but it just started to bother me.
Of course, the big thing with this movie is the ending. And it is not just the final scene, it is roughly the final 10 or 15 minutes. When Cotton confronts the girl and she asks if he wants a "blowing job" instead of a "blow job" he assumes she is not possessed and she spins a story. Movie ends, or does it? Cotton, for some weird reason checks out the story, it is not true. Cotton and film crew go back and then shit just gets weird. I am all for weird, random and rushed endings, when they seem to have a reason. I do not need everything in a movie spelled out for me, nor do I need to have a firm grasp on the ending. Plenty of great stories have indeterminate endings and that is wonderful. I like to feel like the stories are not finished. However, when a movie throws a bunch of seemingly unconnected shit at you in the span of a few minutes just for the fuck of it, I lose interest. It is possible to piece these incongruous images together to form some sort of ending narrative. People have been explaining it all weekend The Interwebs. But the movie works so hard to be small and intimate that ending just blows that all to shit. And in a way it ruins the entire movie going experience.
The Last exorcism builds up a lot of good will and I can tell that people will have different opinions on the end and when a movie sparks conversation/debate I consider that to be a great thing, but this just rubbed me the wrong way towards the end. Along with the usual problems of Cinema Verite, which involves there being a point where the person with the camera would just drop the camera and run for the hills. But that is one of those things you just have to accept in movies. I liked the idea and most of the execution of the film, so it is enough to recommend, but that ending will really determine what you think of the film as a whole.
I cannot say this movie was high on my priority list. It was, at one time. There was a time when the working title was The baster and I heard Jason bateman was attached that I was excited. Just from the title it seemed like an interesting, different kind of movie. It sounded like a take no prisoners take on the "desperate woman" genre that kind of disgusts me. I get that life is supposed to include a family, but there are so many movies out there featuring women who are just desperate for it, for no real reason. These characters, played by people like Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Adams and Katherine Heigl, have great jobs, great friends and every reason to be happy, but movies dictate that women are whiny, needy creatures who need a man to be validated/end rant/. However, when the title was changed and the movie "softened" get that pg-13, I became a lot less interested. On a day where it is 110 degrees outside and you have a few hours to kill, The Switch starts to look more appealing though.
Kassie Larsen(Aniston) is a successful woman, working in broadcast television, thought her specific job is never mentioned. She lives in New York city, has great friends, loves her job and is gorgeous and normal enough that she could probably find a good man. The problem is she is desperate for a kid and does not want to wait for a man. She is almost 40 years old and she needs a baby inside of her. She tells her best friend, Wally(Bateman) about it and he, of course, thinks she is crazy. She goes through with it, but because it is a movie, they have to have a party before hand. The donor, Roland(Patrick Wilson) is a great looking athletic, smart guy, who happens to be married, but they need the money. At the party Wally gets hammered and ends up replacing Roland's sperm with his own. 7 years later the story picks up with Kassie moving back to New York and reconnecting with both Wally and Roland. Wally has no recollection of what he did 7 years ago, but as he spends more time with Sebastian(Thomas Robinson), he thinks the kid might be his because they have a lot more in common than Sebastian and Roland. Wally also starts to realize he is in love with Kassie, but his neurotic, always worried mind stops him from doing anything about it.
It is hard to get too worked up over a movie like The Switch. It is a harmless movie. it has an absolutely adorable kid, likable leads, funny work from Bateman and it is not so long that it gets annoying. It will never get a ringing endorsement, but I have seen worse movies that are trying to do the same sort of thing. Aniston does fine work. She looks great, plays the desperate mother well and handles the romantic stuff with Bateman well enough. She has nice comic timing, but I have been watching Friends a lot lately and she is so much funnier there. Watching her play these desperate type women just kind of gets me angry. The script has some genuinely funny moments, especially the opening scene, but that is what made me think this script had a lot more bite to it once upon a time.
Jeff Goldblum is definitely the standout in this movie. He gets the best lines and has the strongest performance as Wally's best friend/boss. I forget just how much I like him until I see him again on screen. he is always so great in the supporting roles and hope he continues to find work in this realm of his career. He can be the new Alec Baldwin. He can be the go-to guy to play bosses in comedies for a while.
The voice over work is distracting and too cheesy for my taste, and I cannot really think of any memorable scenes except the first scene we meet Sebastian in all his cute weirdness. I like that they did not make Roland a total asshole. In fact, they made him a very nice guy, which made the eventual outcome something sweeter, because confessing your love to a girl who is with a jerk is a lot easier than confessing your love to someone who is with a good guy. Bateman deserves better, but he is really great with the kid and the scene of them getting rid of lice was totally adorable.
One of the things I love in the summer movie season is to find the smaller indie pictures that are being released. Last year 2 of my favorite movies of the year, (500) Days of Summer and The Hurt Locker, were indie films released in the summer. This year, The Kids are All Right was being praised left and right as one of the best movies of the year and it seemed like a no brainer that it would be the best of the indie offerings. With my love of all things Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore and lesbian, mixed with the wonderful reviews, I could not have been more excited about this. Plus, I love movies that are about family dynamics and have a good mix of comedy and tragedy. Of course, with my expectations up so high, there is always a chance of the film not meeting them and me leaving disappointed. Well, luckily for me, that did not happen here.
Nic(Annette Bening) and Jules(Moore) are a pretty typical couple raising a pretty typical family with two kids, Joni(Mia Wasikowska) and Laser(Josh Hutcherson). Well, as typical as a family can be when the father of both children was an anonymous sperm donor. As she turns 18, Joni is talked into finding out about her father by Lazer because he is not old enough yet and he wants to know. The kids to this behind the back of their mothers and they meet Paul(Ruffalo). Lazer is not sure he likes Paul, but Mia does and soon Paul becomes a part of their lives, much to the disdain of Nic. Nic, a severe type A personality worries that Paul is going to put a wedge between the family, but Jules wants to give Paul the benefit of the doubt. Jules is trying to get a landscaping business going and Paul offers her a job and soon the two are spending a lot of time together and eventually begin an affair. For Paul it might be love, but for Jules, she is just trying to feel attractive again, or just feel something again.
Told with just the right amounts of heart, humor and pain,The Kids are All Right is worthy of all the praise being thrown at it. The script is refreshingly sharp, balancing the sentimentality of a loving family with the biting sense that families are not perfect. The words as delivered by each actor jump off the screen and live your soul as you can relate so many of the things going on. Writer/Director Lisa Choloenko ushers in this wonderful family dynamic and while the lesbian family is not something she can just gloss over, she treats it not as a novelty, but as a regular family, which is nice. Maybe it is stupid to have to point that out, but it is important. I have not seen any of Cholodenko's other features, but she is a confident director, with a good eye for pacing and she knows how to get exactly the right shot and the right emotion from each character.
Nic and Jules are loving parents and a loving couple, but life gets in the way and people mess up. Moore completely nails Jules aloofness and her need to be desired. She is a character who lives by her emotions and she needs to feel to live. Bening has the toughest job because Nic is the most unlikable character. She has to balance the type A personality without going too far to that direction where you feel no sympathy for her in the third act and that sympathy is invaluable when the movie blows the door open on the affair. Ruffalo probably puts in his best performance to date. He is charming, but kind of creepy, but he also never lets himself just be the villain the movie could have portrayed him as. his Paul is definitely a douchebag, but he feels things and while Paul is ultimately vilified by the other characters, I still felt bad for him. The two kids hold their own against all of these fantastic actors as well. Hutcherson could have made Lazer nothing more than a typical teenage boy, and while there are elements of that, he gives Lazer something extra. His performance is subtle, but he does demand your attention. I expect big things from this kid. Wasikowska also gives a subtle performance, but it is definitely the more show-off youth performance. She gets the big dramatic screaming scene and she handles it perfectly.
The Kids are All Right is the kind of movie I bet gets better with each viewing because there is something new to get from the characters each time. The story is important, but how the characters react to the story is more important. There are some absolutely perfect scenes, like all of the dinner table scene, and I think they found the exact perfect ending. I was very curious about 20 minutes from the end about how it would end. It is exactly the kind of ending this movie needs. The bigger story is not over, so they could not give us a complete ending, but the story of their lives that we get to see is over and I think this section of their lives ended exactly the way it needed to end.
With wonderful writing, strong direction and excellent performances all around, I would not be surprised to see this movie up for some awards in a few months and hopefully, it gets put back in theaters so more people can check it out because it is definitely worth checking out. So many family ensemble movies go too far in one direction, but The Kids are All Right manages to find the perfect blend of every aspect of the family dynamic.
I have been trying to figure out how to best tackle reviewing this movie from the moment the movie ended. For the last 10 days this movie has swirling around in the brain and marinating in my brain folds letting me soak it all in. Part action movie, part coming of age story, part comedy, part geekgasm, it is difficult to figure out how to classify it and how to talk/write about it. The movie is turning out to be a commercial failure, which, while not shocking, is absolutely disheartening, but I am not sure it was meant to be a hit. Every so often a movie comes out that I think is ahead of the times in which it was created. Scott Pilgrim is that kind of movie. People are written it off as too hipster, or too knowing, but I think that is point. I think it is so hipster, because the only way to properly mock the hipster attitude is to embrace it fully and turn it on its head. Who better for the job than Michael Cera and Edgar Wright? Okay, maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself. Let me rewind/unwind a bit and go from the start.
Scott Pilgrim(Cera) is an underachieving 20-something that spends his days playing in a band called the Sex Bob-Ombs and he is dating a high school girl, Knives(Ellen Wong) much to the mockery of his band mates, roommate (Kieren Culkin) and sister(Anna Kendrick). That all changes when he meet Ramona(Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and instantly falls in love. He has a date with Romona and the two share a bed for the night, but Scott did not break up with Knives first. However, Knives is about to be the least of his problems. In order to date Romona, Scott is going to have to do battle with and defeat her 7 evil exes. Through his battles, Scott will learn a lot about himself, about his resolve and about the people around him. Will the young man who has spent his life doing as little as possible man up and defeat the evil exes, or will the whole thing just get to be too much?
If the story is very straight forward, the way it is told is not. The movie uses elements of musicals, serious action movies, sci-fi, anime, video games, sitcoms, and a host of other avenues to get the story to the audience. It is impossible to classify the narrative framework and I could spend hours analyzing why certain things were done the way they were. I have to admit, I am ignorant to the source material as I have never read the Graphic Novel on which this is based. However, I understand perfectly, the kind of movie this is. This is the ultimate in post-post-modern genre bending film making. Edgar Wright, the genius director behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has elevated his game and in doing so creating a movie I believe will come to be a defining film of a generation. The film is an mishmash of nerdiness, but also intrinsically cool. There are visual gags that callback to 8 bit Nintendo and each battle plays like a level of a video game, but intercut into the video game visuals is a stunningly vulnerable story.
This blending of visual with the story, make Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World play the kind of coming of Age tale high school students clamour for. Scott Pilgrim is a young man who is searching for more than just a girl, he is searching for meaning, he is searching for a way to feel something in a world that has grown cold and too ironic to understand how to feel anything. He fights a hipster Vegan with special powers(Brandon Routh), he does battle with an action star(Chris Evans) who is so detached from the world, his stunt doubles do most of his fighting. The music is also important, because in this iPod world in which we live, music is how people express themselves and this movie even uses music to be a battle, when a battle of the bands turns into a BATTLE of the bands.
Each fight is very different from the last which was welcome and the action is hard hitting, visually stunning, wonderfully choreographed and also absolutely hilarious in parts. To see Michael Cera as an action star is astonishing in its own right, but to see him do it well is just giggle inducing and I think that helps the movie. Cera is so...vanilla, that we become the character. He is so void of personality that he can become whoever we want him to be. We want him to succeed because he is us. The movie does a lot right, from all of the quick edits that can take us to 4 different locations in a matter of seconds, to the nonchalant way the movie deals with homosexuality. Scott actually shares a bed with his gay roommate and the boyfriends of his gay roommate and not a big deal is made of it.
The way relationships are dealt with is also very interesting. Romantic relationships are not treated with a great deal of respect, as these characters almost buy into the idea that we are in a post-relationship world. The gay roommate steals Scott's sister's boyfriend, Scott once had a fling with his drummer and now he treats her like it did not happen. He semi-cheated on Knives, and does not really pay the consequences at first. It is the stuff of classic Young Adult novels. It becomes a movie that could be paired with works of literature in a classroom setting, but it comes with all of these colorful bells and musical whistles that it becomes a study of both style and substance.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World might be the best movie I have seen at combining genres this side of a Tarantino flick. It has wit, heart, soul and flare, with great catchphrases to keep people reciting it, but it is so much more. I went in expecting a fun movie that would make me nostalgic for my old Nintendo and I was expecting a few cool action scenes enhanced by the video game bells and whistles, but I was not expecting for the movie to hit me the way it did. I did not expect the metaphors to be so fleshed out and the symbolism to be so effective. When the 1UP icon came up in the right hand corner, I thought it was clever, but I never expected it to be some meaningful. By the time Jason Schwartzman shows up, the movie is already amazing, but his performance and the scene in which he appears raises the movie even more.
I know I am missing things, and I know this review probably got a bit self indulgent, but it is my blog and I can write what I want. If this movie does not end up in my top 10 for the end of the year that will mean this was an insane final few months of the year.
There is something to be said for Stallone. The man is crazy over the hill, yet every few years he manages to make a movie the way he wants to make it and finds a way to make money doing. First we got a new Rocky, then came a new Rambo and now it is The Expendables. Stallone writes and directs these movies, finds a way to finance them for reasonably cheap and sits back and watches the money come in. He has found a way to remain relevant in the movie industry, like the male action version of Meryl Streep, he gets better with age. For The Expendables, he set out to make an action movie that would be more at place in the 1980s but with 2010 sensibilities. His dream was to gather a bunch of stars of action movies past and unleash them in the ultimate action movie. He was not fully able to get the cast he wanted, but he did gather quite an action ensemble. He loaded the movie with a wrestler, a UFC fighter, washed up action stars, action stars in their prime and his Planet Hollywood brethren, Bruce Willis and our Governor here in CA. All of this was enough to get me excited, but when the trailers were rolled out, it just made me that much more excited.
The Expendables are a group of 6 for-hire mercenaries who do the jobs no one else has the stomach for. They go into the dark corners of the world and do that dirt. They are excellent marksmen, hand to hand combat fighters, knife experts and they know how to plan to get in and out without making too big of a scene. On one mission however, one member, Gunner(Dolph Lundgren), loses his mind and he is no longer able to be on the team. So the team is down to five when they are offered another job by Tool(Mickey Rourke). Barney(Stallone) and Lee(Jason Statham) go down to scope out the new job, but the job looks impossible and they are not going to do it until Barney meets Sandra and is taken by her resolve. The job is to take out an evil dictator, and perhaps take out the man bankrolling the hostile takeover, James Munroe(Eric Roberts). With his 5 man team, Barney must find a way to get his team out alive, save the girl and kill the bad guys.
Serving up action of every variety and showing a surprising lack of vanity, Stallone manages to give every action fan everything he could want in one movie. Jason Statham beats the crap out of a group of guys, throws knives and wields a sword. Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren have this epic, kick ass fight, Stallone gets his ass kicked by Stone Cold Steve Austin, Randy Couture and Austin get this bloodied fight. There is this stunning boat dock explosion and the climatic castle explosion is totally sick. Stallone finds the perfect balance of action styles, while still maintaining that gruesome graphic violence that helped make him a star in the first place. You could call The Expendables, Rambo with a team. Body parts fly as bullets pierce them, heads roll from swords, we see bodies explode, hear blood curdling screams when Terry Crews takes a loud, testosterone birthed rifle and shoots people with bullets that seem to pierce all matter.
There is this side plot involving Statham's character that could probably have been done away with and saved about 10 minutes, but the idea was to humanize these characters, but I do not want them humanized. While I know at any moment these characters could meet their ultimate demise, I also know it could never happen. Stallone comes from the 1980s action movies where heroes were superheroes without masks and powers. He was a one man army bringing down entire empires and with a team of like minded individuals in this movie, I know deep down, the men are never really in any trouble. The car chase is cool, but it is made cooler by going directly from the car chase into a fight between Dolph and Jet. This is how these movies operate. We go from action scene to action scene and when the movie gets to climatic battle, we get an orgy of orgasmic action. A tank explodes at one point and a helicopter explodes after Terry Crews hurls a missile in the air while Stallone shoots at it exploding it in midair. More people are stabbed, shot, punched, kicked, thrown into brick walls and at one point a guy is shot and stabbed at the same time.
You know what you are in for when you go watch a movie that stars all of these people. You do not expect great acting, although Eric Roberts is the perfect villain and Mickey Rourke delivers a stirring monologue that sounded like it was from a completely different movie, but The Expendables works on every level. It works as a story about a group of men unsure of their place, which is a metaphor for Stallone and how he fits into Hollywood. He is a man left for dead years ago, but here he is with the number 1 movie two weekends in a row and this movie may save an entire studio, Lions Gate, from a hostile takeover. He has found a place doing the kind of movies he wants to do and it has to be respected. His movies will never be for everyone and to be honest, I could not stand most of the movies he made in the late 1990s, but this movie, along with Rambo, have made me appreciate the kind of man Stallone is and the kind of movies he makes. Make no mistake, The Expendables is a gory, gritty, borderline disgusting action movie, but thank god for it!
An Earthquake opens up a cavern under a lake and unleashes thousands of killer piranhas and it happens to be spring break. That one sentence is really all that is needed in terms of telling someone what this movie is about. You have killer fish and spring break. In order to make a successful movie, those two ingredients should be in your dish. When I say Spring Break, I mean the movie/MTV version of Spring Break. We have a sleazy Joe Francis type, Derrick(Jerry O'Connell), there is a wet T-shirt contest with Eli Roth as the Emcee, plenty of hot half naked (two fully naked) people and tons of alcohol. There is not any sex, really, but there are enough bare breasts on display to please any 14yr old boy. We have a few characters we are supposed to care about, including a family where the mother, Julie(Elizabeth Shue) is the sheriff, Jake(Steven R. McQueen), is the lovesick teenager and they also have two cute little kids. Jessica Szohr from television's Gossip Girl provides the love interest and looks great in a bikini and finally Kelly Brook as the sex object.
Of course, if you are coming to watch this movie for the story/plot/characters well you are kind of an idiot. Piranha is about watching piranhas eat and kill unsuspecting people. The first half of the movie we get glimpses of the carnage these underwater killers are capable of, but when the movie really lets loose, it is a full on bloodbath. Offering over the top gore, silly action, cheesy dialog, the aforementioned bare breasts and some classic B-movie style antics, Piranha 3D delivers on its promise in spades. It is the movie Snakes on a Plane was supposed to be. It is the movie B horror movie fans have been quietly clamouring for. It leaves the audience feeling giddy, disgusting and kind of in awe that the movie was able to get away with a lot of the stuff it gets away with.
There is a scene that can only be described as a naked underwater ballet between two gorgeous girls, there is topless windsurfing, a CGI penis being chewed up and spit out and enough CGI missing limbs to satisfy the entire audience of people looking for this type of movie. I know the appeal of such a movie is limited and if you are even hesitant about watching it, just stay away. There is no need for people who are even hesitating about this kind of movie. It is pure direct to DVD glory, but on the big screen and in 3D. To be honest, the 3D did not do anything for me. There are not any real "jumps" that come from the 3D and as a gimmick I have seen horror movies in 3D that were better, but it was not Avatar levels of distracting. The Piranhas look exactly the way I wanted them to look. They did not look too good where you can tell a lot of funny went into them, but they do not look too cheap where it is distracting how awful they look.
The pacing of the movie is nice and the references to other movies and to horror conventions is nice. The deaths get more and more outrageous and there are definitely enough just throw up your hands moments that you know no one is taking this undertaking seriously. Ving Rhames gets the "I'm tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane" line and he delivers it perfectly as he wields the motor from a motor boat as a weapon to tear through the piranhas. Adam Scott, in a role that makes me wonder who he owed a favor to, is kind of the bad ass in the movie as he saves lives and shoots piranhas like he is an old pro and Elizabeth Shue is there is give the movie a winking 1980s vibe. O'Connell's appearance as a douchetastic soft core porn director feels so close to real life, you wonder if O'Connell has experience.
I do not have much else to say except Christopher Lloyd's delivery of every single line as Mr. Exposition is dripped in B-movie awesomeness. and Richard Dreyfuss' cameo is a wonderful little bit of movie reference, but I wish it had been even less subtle than it was. I want my movies that feature CGI penis, naked underwater ballet, bloodied and missing limbs, and cheesy looking fish to be void of any sense of subtlety.
Final Grade: I cannot really grade this kind of movie
It seems like a Will Ferrell has become a summer staple, the way an Adam Sandler movie is. We can be guaranteed a movie from this guy to infest our summer movie season and normally I skip them. I have no need for Will Ferrell in a starring role in a movie and I certainly have no need for a Ferrell movie directed by Adam McKay. This pairing just does not work for me. Yet there were things in the trailer that appealed to me. First off, Mark Wahlberg doing a comic version of his persona is always funny. People say this is his first real comedy attempt, but I promise, his role as himself on Entourage is always hilarious. Next, you have The Rock and Sam Jackson playing very arrogant versions of their perceived personas. Next, the movie had the look of a throwback buddy cop action movie. It almost felt like The Beastie Boys video for "Sabotage" in a way. With all of those in the plus column I decided to waive my policy on seeing Will Ferrell movies. Was I fooled or would I be rewarded?
When New York city needs heroes who will take up the call? With a void in in the NYPD which team of cops will step up and fill the void left by the hero cops? That is the basic question asked by our narrator(Ice-T, yes Ice-T). After a shooting gone horribly wrong, Detective Terry Hoitz(Wahlberg) has been assigned to be partners with a paper pusher, Allen Gamble(Ferrell) and it is stifling his mojo. Hoitz was a detective on the rise and now he is stuck to a desk. He is looking for a way out and he will get it even if it means kidnapping his partner. Looking for any reason to do cop work, Hoitz humors Gamble on a quest to arrest David Ershon(Steve Coogan)for not having the right building permits. Ershon is a big shot finance guy but he has people after him and soon Hoitz and Gamble find themselves being shot at, beaten up and having buildings around them blown up. Hoitz is excited by this, but Gamble wants to play things safe. In college Gamble got out of hand as a pimp and now he tries to quell the demons inside of him. But New York needs to put a stop to a Ponzi scheme and needs people who are not afraid to stand up to evil forces that lurk around the shadows of the city.
Every so often The Other Guys veers into Will Ferrell insanity and it is in those moments where the movie fails, but otherwise, it is actually a pretty solid film. Wahlberg is excellent as the tightly wound, overly frustrated Terry Hoitz. His whiny, angry performance is the perfect balance to Ferrell's ridiculous antics. Wahlberg's reactions to Eva Mendes being Ferrell's wife are picture perfect, the ballet he does is wonderful and every time his voices gets to that high pitched whine, I could not help but laugh. There is no doubt Wahlberg can handle the action scenes in the movie, but he pulls off the comedy flawlessly. Ferrell has good chemistry with Wahlberg and there are times I found him to be quite funny, especially in the first 30 minutes or so when he is remaining calm to Wahlberg's threats. However, as the movie went on, Ferrell got more and more Ferrell and the movie indulges him too much. The back story of him being a pimp in college is totally distracting and obnoxious. The jokes between he and Eva Mendes just do not work, and it is not the fault of the delivery, it is just a horrible bit.
Having Ice-T narrate the movie is brilliant and The Rock and Sam Jackson, in what amount to glorified cameos, are wonderful and the way they exit the movie is totally ridiculous, hilarious and unexpected. Kudos to the two men for being willing to take these parts. It elevates the first 15 minutes greatly. Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans Jr. have supporting roles and Riggle is his usual half funny/half terrible self and Wayans Jr. lands enough of his jokes to think he could succeed in Hollywood, but probably on television. Michael Keaton continues his good year with a hilarious supporting turn as the captain of the precinct who has a part time job at Bed, Bath and Beyond. His constant unintentional references to TLC songs make for a great running bit, even though the movie squanders the opportunity to play "Waterfalls" at a better time than they actually do. Steve Coogan is an actor who plenty like, but I have yet to fully see his appeal. He does smarmy and weaselly pretty well in this movie, though. SO he does his job.
On the other side of this movie is the action and the commentary on the action. Ferrell's Gamble leads the duo through a few car chases and comments that he learned to drive that way via Grand Theft Auto. It is an old joke, but it actually lands pretty well because of the kind of chase that was choreographed. Also, the reactions from both cops when a building explodes near them is even funnier in the movie than it is in the trailer and it does offer a nice commentary about how ridiculous it is when characters in movies walk away unscathed from explosions. I absolutely loved the gun fights, the Heat like one in the street and the awesome slow motion one that we see glimpses of in the trailer. Wahlberg's presence really helps sell the action and the movie needs to have the action look good because the entire look of the movie is a throwback.
The Other Guys hits a lot more than it misses and I really did have a nostalgic sense throughout the entire movie. The way the film is almost washed out to look retro helps and the music has a very throwback feel most of the time and that really helps sell the film for me. Ice-T's narration also gives the movie the sense of an exploitation film that felt very organic. I hated the Will Ferrellness of chunks, but when he is reeled in, I enjoyed his buttoned up performance and I hope Wahlberg continues to explore this comic side of his tough guy persona. In a summer with pretty weak comedies, The Other Guys scores as a wonderful comic action piece and a total surprise for me.
David Slade is a director I am going to always check out. His first two movies, Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night are wonderful visions of terror, in completely different ways. He understands how to build tension, how to shoot scenes in horrifying ways and he gets the kind of performances he needs from his actors. I was more than a little surprised when I heard he was going to be taking on the third movie in this ridiculous Twilight series. He is better than that. His movies are dark and grisly, the way a movie about vampires and werewolves should be, but Twilight is not about the dark and grisly, it is about this weak ass love story that is not really about love. Why would Slade agree to this? Why would he do this to me? Now I had to go back and watch New Moon to prepare myself for this because I was not going to miss a David Slade movie. So, the movie became about "Can a good director save a weak story?" Read on to find out the answer.
At the end of New Moon, the Cullen family decides that Bella(Kristen Stewart) becoming a vampire would be a good thing. Well, most of them anyway. So, the race is on as to when that will happen. Edward(Robert Pattinson) is dead set against it and in this movie we get a glimpse into way because there is a vampire out there creating an army of new vampires and new vampires are CRAZY! That is when vampires are at their most inhumane. Luckily, Jasper knows how it goes because in one of the far too many flashbacks we see his previous life and how that went. Jacob(Taylor Lautner), the resident double-digit abdominal muscle having werewolf, is also madly in love with Bella and he is not willing to let it go. Bella refuses to admit she is in love with Jacob, but Jacob presses on anyway. Victoria(Now Bryce Dallas Howard) continues to run around aimlessly terrorizing the Cullens, the werewolves and Bella, all while not seeming to have any considerable talent. Is she behind the baby vampire army? Will Jacob and Bella finally kiss? Will Edward do anything but sulk?
This might just be the best possible movie one can get out of such a terrible story. David Slade must be a genius because he made a watchable Twilight movie. Do not get me wrong, it is far from a great movie and every damn time the movie turned its full attention to Edward and Bella I wanted to walk out of the theater in exasperated haste, but Slade makes everything else watchable. His opening scene reminded me of his work in 30 Days of Night, and the action sequences are all wonderfully shot, paced and actually have an element of surprise about them. I found myself getting a bit into the action stuff, the way the last two movies could not do. Slade is such a sure handed director that he knew he could find the good in the suckfest that is Twilight.
Taylor Lautner has a definite future in the genre of action movies. To say the guy looks good would be an understatement. The kid is great looking and he is ripped and built the way a 19 yr old kid should not be, but he also has presence. He is not a great actor by any means, but most action stars are not, but you are drawn to watching his stoic face. Granted it could be because he is acting opposite two disgustingly awful actors in Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. I am not sure where Lautner's career will take him, but I imagine it will take him very far into the realm of action movies and dramas where he kisses girls in the rain. Speaking of kisses, why is it that every time Bella and Edward kiss it is super awkward and not at all filled with heat, but when Bella and Jacob finally get their moment, it is an erotic wonderful kiss? I am not going to get into the debate of teams, or any of that nonsense, but on the screen, the chemistry between Stewart and Lautner is far more interesting.
Because it is Twilight there is a certain level of ridiculousness, especially any scene that forces Jacob, Bella and Edward to be int he same place, but this movie actually finds a bit of humor in what is my favorite non action scene, where Bella is freezing, but Edward cannot warm her up, so Jacob gets into bed with her to warm her up while Edward is there. It is the kind of throw-your-hands-in-the-air-ridiculous, but it is actually played for laughs. Lautner's swagger against Pattinson's bumbling scowl play well off each other and when the two guys are having a conversation, it is the only time Pattinson changes his facial expression. Perhaps Edward is not jealous that Bella wants Jacob, but that Jacob wants Bella. Just food for thought.
There are plenty of unintentional laugh out loud moments thanks to a horrible script, bad plot and somewhat awkward pacing at times, but overall Eclipse is actually semi-enjoyable. I like the idea of a human girl fighting her feelings between a werewolf and a vampire, but I would rather now have it covered in a Mormon gloss and not be aimed at the teenage girl demographic because I think there could be a lot more interesting and complex stories to tell about animals vs. human and life vs. death. Jacob makes these cases pretty well in the movies and to be honest, in the way the movies have played out, it seems Bella loves Jacob more, but that the stories dictate she must love Edward and so she does. Or maybe, there is no reason given as to why she loves Edward, other than that is the way the author wants it, which is just an awful way to go.
I have not attempted to review an album in quite some time and this is going to be different from all of the other ones because normally I review an album after 3-5 listens. Well, I have had this album for over a month, which means I have easily over 25-30 listens under my belt. Not sure if this will lend itself to a more comprehensive(read:longer) review, but here we go. I will be doing this track by track, just like always.
1. Cold Wind Blows- using wind as a metaphor for him is a nice image. The wind is unpredictable and Eminem himself is unpredictable. This opening track has a nice kick to it courtesy of a menacing beat that is a great contrast to Eminem's high pitched voice and his ridiculous delivery and rhyme patterns. Here he is still angry and dropping names and singing on the hook, so based on this song, it may be more of the same for the white rapper. he does sound a lot more hungry here than he has in a few albums, which is a really nice change of pace. If anyone was worried that being off the drugs would soften Eminem's tongue, this song puts you to rest pretty early on. There is nothing truly spectacular here, but there is something kind of nice about that. The beat, though, really holds this song together beautifully. I do love the last 2 bars of the final verse where he says, almost smiling "But I swear, you try to diss me, I'll slaughter you/I put that on everything, like everyone does with auto-tune/That last thing you wanna do is have me spit out a rhyme/And say I was writing this and I thought of you so." 4/5
2. Talkin' to myself- Eminem is finally talking about getting clean, about how much of a struggle his life has been with the drugs, the death surroudning him and everything else. Eminem has always been at his best when he puts his heart and pain into the music. Kobe sings a nice hook and the beat is a perfect Eminem beat because it is very off kilter, like the man rhyming. Eminem is rhyming about being jealous of Lil Wayne and Kanye because he felt he lost his touch. He says he cannot write a good punchline, his health is declining and all he had was those pills. The energy is raw, the lyrics are raw and the emotion is raw. I love when a musician is willing to be totally open and in rap music, you never doubt yourself. It is your job to always declare you are the best always, but in this song Eminem admits he lost touch with who he was as an artist. He is not afraid to admit his last two albums were lackluster and thanks his audience for being patient and begs for forgiveness for the bad albums. Damn, I wish I could bleed my soul like this! 5/5
3. On Fire- I do not have a proper tracklisting, but this beat is very Dr Dre. Eminem makes Dre better and Dre makes him better. I know people do not like this song much, but the verbal gymnastics are retarded good. His in and out rhyme patterns, his delivery, breath control, flow, tone of voice and the dark, yet hilarious imagery is fascinating. His ability to be morbid and hilarious is very evident here. The song may not really have a point, but when you rhyme this well, not every song needs to have a point. this song is just 2 32 bar verses of pure spitting. He just went into the booth and ripped apart a beat that lends itself to a ridiculous stream of verbal awesomeness. There is nothing subtle about it and in an album where Eminem will be spending a lot of time on his feeling and emotions, it is good to have a song where he is just ripping it up! 4.5/5
4. Won't back down- With a very rock style beat and Pink SOARING on the hook, Eminem finds a nice melding of commercial and edgy and he is not wasting anytime as he tears into the guitar and drum laced beat. He is rapping about that crazy Slim Shady stuff. The first verse is just nuts as he starts off rapping fast and hitting multi syllabic rhymes like crazy and then he slows down and kicks out this insane word play: I gave Bruce Wayne a Valium and said, "Settle your fuckin ass down, I'm ready for combat man!"/Get it? Calm Batman? Nah, ain't nobody who's as bomb and as nuts/ lines are like mom's CAT scans cause they fuckin go ba-na-nas/Honey I applaud that ass, swear to God man these broads can't dance/ Ma, show 'em how it's done, spaz like a goddamn Taz, yeah" And the second verse is more of the same. He is right on with every guitar lick. The way his voice becomes one with this mid tempo beat is insane. The third verse is probably one of his most vile of the album and it really is a nice closer for this song. 4.5/5
5. W.T.P- Easily the worst song on the album. The beat is too poppy for my tastes on this album and the sing-songy hook just does not work for me. The song, about a White Trash Party, feels like the Eminem from the Encore album. There is nothing interesting here except rhyming "die Santa" with " bystander." It is a total throwaway track that the album could have done without and been better for it. But, I guess that is part of what makes Eminem, Eminem. He has to have these songs on his albums just because he can. 2/5
6. Goin Through Changes- I love this song. The sample is perfectly dropped into the hook and this slow tempo beat really complements Eminem's more personal songs. It is like he looked into the mirror while he was detoxing and just started writing. The first verse ends with this insane revelation:
I'm hating my reflection I walk around the house trying to fight mirrors I can't stand what I look like, yeah I look fat, but what do I care I give a fuck, only thing that I fear is Hailey I'm afraid that if I close my eyes then I might see her...Shit
In this song he finally takes a bit about his feelings from when his best friend was shot and killed. He opens up about the drug problem and how much of a failure he felt like to his daughters. It is a heart on the table kind of song and while there are few of them on this album, it never gets old. Eminem has always talked about the trappings of fame, but this song goes beyond that, and talks about how fame allowed him to just do whatever he wanted. By the time he samples his daughter's voice as the driving force to helping him get sober, it is hard not to feel something for him. 5/5
7. Not Afraid- The anthem of the album. With the driving beat, the march like quality of the hook and Eminem's determined delivery, This is one of those songs that just gets me going. Much like "Lose Yourself" this song just fills one with hope, with determination and a drive to succeed. Eminem does not venture to this territory all that often, but he is always successful when he does. There is something to be said for the simplicity of it all. The repetitive drums, the chanting chorus and how Eminem is rhyming at a very normal tempo. He is not doing the gymnastics or playing with the speed or tone. He is just sitting in front of a mic and exercising his demons and telling everyone that if he can come back from his best friend dying, a drug addiction and all kinds of other nonsense, we can all take our lives back and be not afraid of our demons. I absolutely love the third verse and I rap along with it with the same determination. It will definitely be a song that makes it onto my opening night playlist. 5/5
8. Seduction- Oh man this is my song! Eminem takes a girl away from a guy because of his ability to be verbally seductive. Because of his rhyming ability he gets this girl away from some kind of loser. He gloats " There's a 7 disc CD changer in the car And I'm in every single slot, and you're not." The beat is sexy, but in a dark kind of haunting way, like it was created in a smokey, dark strip club. Eminem follows suit with his delivery and the overall tone of the song. The singing on the hook is full of this erotic tension and with each verse he gets a bit more darkly playful, and more seductive. he is toying with his competition and by the time he gets to the third verse he is spouting stuff like: Prick you really feel'n that bullshit, you think you kill'n them syllables Quit play'n, these beats ain't nothing to fool with They call me Fire Marshall, I shut the shit down Your entire arsenal is not enough to fuck with one round (Woo!) I am also the opposite of what you are like You're a microcosm of what the fuck I am on the mic I am awesome, and you are just awe-struck
It is no contest, Eminem cannot be defeated with words. 5/5
9. No Love- This might be the single most ridiculous sample for a rap song. The way it is chopped up and dropped in the hook and how the sample fits with this song, kind of work, but it is tough to get passed that. On top of that, you have to deal with a Lil Wayne verse. Granted, it might be one of his best verses ever, which is not saying much, but Eminem brings out the best in people. Wayne's voice fits the syrupy flavor of the beat and it is a stark contrast to Eminem's much more aggresive delivery, but somehow those contrasts all fit together pretty well. Eminem sings the hook and the song is kind of about brushing off the people who turned their backs whent he chips were low. I love the opening to Eminem's verse: "I'm alive again, more alive than I have been in my whole entire life" and from there he is goes into this whirlwind of in and out rhymes, where he dares you to follow where his words are going to go next. It is like an ABAABCBCC rhyme pattern or some crazy shit like that. His breath control is CRAZy considering just how many words he is spitting into each bar. It requires multiple listens just to catch where he is going with the verse. It might be his most unique verse on the album. 5/5
10. Space Bound- If I had done this review after 3 or 4 listens, this song would be rated much differently. it has grown on me so much. At first the space theme did nothing for me and I did not quite grasp what he was going for because it sounds like it wants to be a love song, but it is more a song about obsession, about how love can be an addiction and an unhealthy all consuming one. Eminem has a lot of experience in this. I love how the end of the first verse he says she takes his breath away right at the end of a line where he is clearly losing his breath. It is an insanely precise moment. The hook is still bothersome to me. I do not like the robotic feel of it because Eminem is all about feeling. There is not much to the beat that really stands out but it allows Eminem to just be very on edge throughout the song. And clearly every verse starts off normal but as the verse gets on, his lyrics gets more driven, his delivery more pointed and the whole thing sounds more desperate. It is another way Eminem goes beyond just writing insane lyrics. His performance elevates this song way beyond what I heard the first few times. 4/5
11. Cinderella Man- This is another kind of anthem type song. The kick drum and clap create the foundation of the beat and the chorus has a gospel feel to it and Eminem sounds like a man given second life, which is kind of true. The song about a guy who is still around when he maybe does not deserve to be rings very true to Eminem's life. The song takes a lot of boxing metaphors, which fit with the movie called Cinerella Man. His words are very crisp and he is hitting every single beat perfectly. He is not playing with his voice at all, because it is the clarity of message is what is important here. Even the guitars in the beat are muffled to not pull focus from the marching effect. It is also catchy as hell when the hook comes in "Wish I had a time machine." The second verse he plays with his words a bit more because he knows he has our attention and now he can show off why we are glad he is still around. I love how the beats drops out when he raps "How fuckin irritated are you? How much in your face am I?" His confidence/swagger are back! 4/5
12. 25 to Life- Hip-Hop as a woman is nothing new. Rappers have been using that analogy for a long time. However, Eminem's take on women is very different from most, when Eminem compares hip-hop to a woman, you know you are in for something different. He does not disappoint. The song, if you can guess from the title, is how he has felt imprisoned by hip-hop. He feels he has not been given the respect he deserves and that hip-hop is using him. It is a surprising revelation to me because so often Eminem has rapped about how rap music saved him, and of course it has saved him, but hip-hop is fickle and there really is a "What have you done for me lately?" feeling in the rap world. It is a young man's game. The beat is nice, but not overwhelmingly so and it lets Eminem play a lot with his flow. The chorus is probably a sample, but I do not know. This is another song where he breaks from the traditional 3 verse format for two longer verses and in the second verse it gets complicated to follow the rhymes because he is not putting them in traditional places and I love that about him. He may rhyme the first syllable in one word with the third in another and you have to pay attention to catch them sometimes. 4.5/5
13. So Bad- In my opinion, this is another filler track. It is a song the album could have done without and been better for it. However, the beat is sick. It sounds like Dre, but Dre with a lighter touch. The song is about how he gets a girl interested and how he is totally wrong for her, kind of. To be honest, With as much as I like this beat, I wish Eminem had just ripped the track. The hook is boring and Eminem sounds his least inspired on this song. 2.5/5
14. Almost Famous- This song begins the perfect storm of awesome that closes the album. The beat is NUTS, the chorus is spot on and Eminem just RIPS it up all over this track. The song is about his struggle to get a major label deal, but it is more about how he spits this song that makes it amazing. The third verse is ridiculous and it sounds like the hungry Eminem who was rapping his ass off to get on. To be able to put himself back in the frame of mind of a young rapper starving, unable to buy diapers for his daughter and just rapping out of desperation, is amazing. The lyrics are incredible, but printing them would do them a disservice. It is about how his vocals just rip through the beat, the hook, the lyrics, the album all of it. He is truly a rapping animal all over this song. He mentions screaming the wood panel off of the studio because he is just rapping to eat, to survive. Oh man, the kind of passion found in the final verse is INSANE! 5/5
15. Love the way you Lie- It is hard to believe this is an Eminem song because it is so "pop" but not in the way Eminem songs are usually "pop." It might be his catchiest song, which is saying something. Rhianna and Eminem make a wonderfully vulnerable song pairing and the song allows them both to be vulnerable all over the song. Both have been through incredibly tough public relationships and so the song suits them. The beat is pretty special and lends itself to a song about getting your heart ripped out by the person you love. Eminem has never had a filter and even though this is a massive crossover hit with the big chorus, Eminem keeps up the kind of wounded, angry, slightly misogynistic persona he has milked for so long. It is kind of a bold move on a song where one of the most visible victims of domestic abuse is singing on your hook, but that is what gives the song the depth. Eminem's desperate pleas border on too crazy and by the end of the third verse you realize he is his own worst enemy when it comes to love. His temper is what has him alone. 5/5
16. You're never Over- The only rap song to ever bring me to tears, is this one. It does not still get me there but the first 5 or 6 listens I was on the verge. 3-4 years later, Eminem is finally able to write a song about his murdered best friend and what a fitting tribute it is. It is inspiring, angry, confused, winning, and features the amazing vocal dynamics Eminem is famous for. You really get the idea that Eminem's soul was attached to Proof, his best friend. Eminem paints a picture of a man who meant everything to him and was the reason he was able to hold onto his sanity. The second verse is one of the most heartfelt, open and warm verses I have ever heard EMinem spit and it begins with this: For you, I wanna write the sickest rhyme of my life/So sick it'll blow up the mic, it'll put the "dyna" in "mite"/Yeah, it'll make the dopest MC, wanna jump off a bridge and shit himself/Tap dancin all over the beat, it'll jump off the page and spit itself
As someone who once lost a best friend, I can really relate to how he is feeling and as I go through some of the hardest moment of my life the last 6 months, I realize how much I wish I had my friend back and I can only imagine how hard it is for Eminem to go through the drugs, the second divorce and everything else without his best friend. I can listen to this song over and over and never tire of it. 5/5
17. Untitled- Havoc produced this song and Eminem heard it once, loved it so much he had to have it no matter what. It is exactly the way Eminem closes all of his albums, a song where he just spits ridiculous stream of consciousness rhymes that essentially nonsense, but sound so fucking good because of how he manages to rhyme. He is also very dark, morbid and hilarious again. My favorite little section is probably:
Cause it will turn into a +Gremlin+ and run over kids, women and men Vrinn-vrinn, motor so big you fit a midgit in his engine Bitch give me them digits, why you cringin? Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin will I spend-spend even ten cents on you, since when do you think it's gonna cost me a pretty penny? Shit, if I think a penny's pretty Just imagine how, beautiful a quarter is to me Eeny-meeny-miney-mo, catch an Eskimo by his toe while he's tryin to roll a snowball But don't make him lose his cool, if he hollers better let him go y'all!
It is complete and utter nonsense, but I cannot help but giggle and sit in awe of it all. The song is nothing but sections like this set this amazing beat. It is the perfect way for Eminem to finish off this reintroduction to who he is. 5/5
Bonus Coverage!
18. Session one (Featuring Slaughterhouse)- I could get used to hearing Eminem killing tracks with this group for years to come. Eminem is the lead off batter here, setting up this track with word play like "So suck my dick on the couch if you wanna cushion the blow." The beat is vintage Just Blaze sounding, which means it is breezy, it hits hard and is perfect for a group of emcees to rip up. Royce, Eminem's one time rhyming partner feeds off of Eminem's energy and rips his verse, even if it is a little more straight forward, but his growl compliments Eminem's voice nicely. Joell Ortiz continues his insanity on the mic. The kid is rapping along side veterans, but he does not show any signs of feeling overwhelmed, instead he sounds just as confident on the as everyone else. He destroys the voice and his breath control is INSANE! Crooked I, the surprise of the group to me, closes the song off and he brings it home wonderfully with this insane group of rhymes, all set to a spot in the beat where it changes, just slightly: Bilinguist don, I kill with the tongue, I'm Atilla the Hun I'm Genghis Khan, I'm a genius spawn I pillage your village for fun, an egregious con A syllable gun, real as they come, Long Beach Saddam!
Oh man, I wonder what Joe Buddens verse would have sounded like if his label did not stop him from jumping on it! 5/5
19. Ridaz- This is not an Eminem sounding song. In fact, Dr. Dre drops his most West Coast/Gangsta rap beat in years. I felt like The Game should have been rapping voer this menacing track. Granted, it is a dark sounding beat which is where Eminem excells, but it just hits so HARD, I expected a gangsta rap song, not an Eminem. This is not a problem, it just takes some getting used to. Em goes into the song nicely, but it sounds a bit like a left over from the last album. It is a drug infused story of violence, which is more in line with Relapse than Recovery, but it does not stop Eminem from dropping his brand of odd rhyme schemes all over the place and because I am who I am, I still love it all because of how he rhymes, or how he delivers his rhymes. However, I feel like this beat could be better served. Rarely do I feel that in an Eminem song. 3.5/5
20 Despicable Freestyle-
I wanted to post the whole thing because it really gives you an opportunity to hear what I have been talking about this whole review because this verse embodies all of who he is. His rhymes patterns, his breath control, his flow, his delivery, the wordplay and his just pure rhyming insanity are all on display in this 2 minute verse. I cannot even listen to the original versions of the two songs he uses because he just murders both beats too well. He takes possesion of it all. It may take a few listens to catch it all, but give it time. You will probably love it the way I do. 5/5
I may overrate Eminem a bit, as I am admittedly a massive fan of how this guy operates. I understand that my opinion might be a bit biased, but I am entranced by interesting and complex rhymes, so even if I am not sure I like the theme of a song, or even the tone of a song, his ability to make words do what he wants them to do, always impresses me. He is an inspiring artist to people who love to create and as I wish I could be a writer, I am floored by how his mind puts words together.
I am not the biggest Jay Roach fan. He directed those horribly over rated Meet the Parents movies and was a producer on Bruno and Borat. However, he also directed the 3 Austin Powers movies and the wonderful HBO movie Recount. This leads me to believe that he has nothing to do with my liking or disliking of a movie. I hate Ben Stiller typically and I like Mike Myers typically. It would make sense I hate Meet the Parents and love Austin Powers. With that reasoning Dinner for Schmucks appeared to be a winner for me. I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell makes the most out of even the worst scripts. The original trailer was horrid though. It did not make me laugh at all, but the revamped second trailer looked funnier and my concerns were mostly quelled.
Tim(Rudd) is a man who is living a bit above his means. He loves his girlfriend, but when he proposes to her, she needs more time and Tim is not sure he is good enough for her, so he goes after a promotion at work. He is this close to getting the promotion, but he has hit a snag. His boss and the people on the 7th floor (where Tim wants to be) have a gathering once a month where each person has to bring an idiot and the biggest idiot wins a trophy, but the idiots all think they were invited because they are uniquely talented. Enter Barry(Carrell). Barry is the kind of person who only exists in the movies. He takes dead, stuffed rodents and creates these dioramas out of them. he has created The Last Supper, The Mona Lisa and various other works of art. At his house he has a giant landscape of these stuff rodents. Tim knows Barry would be perfect for this dinner, but Tim's girlfriend is dead set against the idea and makes Tim question whether he should. Through a series of very contrived happenstances, Tim and Barry end up spending the entire day together as Tim wonders if his girlfriend is cheating on him with an artist she is curating for. The Artist, Kieran(Jemaine Clement) sort of eases Tim's fears, but Tim has to decide what is more important to him, his job or his girlfriend.
Paul Rudd is hands down the most likable actor working. You just want everything to work for him. Here he is working very hard to make Tim a little bit not likable, but it is so hard to even believe Tim is anything but a good guy. Rudd's Tim has a quality to him that gives him more of an edge than I would have thought, but he is still a basically nice guy. Rudd is very funny as the straight man in most movies, but here he almost has to work overtime to play the straight man because everything else going on round him is so damn wacky. Even he has to resort to the wackiness in a moment of physical hilarity involving some serious back pain. The problem is, you can see him working hard. Rudd is at his best when the jokes, the looks and the attitude come naturally. The script for this movie is, at times, so awful, you can see the sweat forming as Rudd tries to mine the funny out of the source material.
In fact, that is my biggest issue with the whole movie. You can see everyone working. Steve Carrell, Paul Rudd, Zack Galifinakis and Jemaine Clement are all extremely funny people, so for them to get laughs out of me is not a difficult task, and they accomplish it often, especially Clement's brilliantly spacey performance as a performance artist in love with his own animal sexuality. However, you get the feeling that after every take each man was exhausted from trying so hard to make the movie funny. Galifinakis particularly is working very hard. The role is not written in a very funny. It is mostly just mean, but Zack is working overtime to make it funny. It helps that he is playing off of Carrell, who can find the funny in the most unfunny of places. Carrell has made a career out of playing lovable losers and this is no exception, but there is some depth, some sadness and some real pain thrown into this role. There is also some very real joy in watching Carrell light up as Barry starts talking about his creations.
The movie has plenty of misses though. Every scene involving Lucy Punch as a crazy ex-fling of Tim's falls flat in a massive way. The jokes and the physical comedy are just so out there that I cannot buy them. They do not get laughs, they just get looks of bewilderment. I am not sure if the movie needs to have a 2 hour running time, as it starts to burn off the good will with roughly 20 minutes left and because of the hefty running time, by the time we actually get to the dinner I was kind of worn out. The dinner is not as funny as one would hope with the crazy collection of characters, but that embodies the spirit of the movie. They just throw the wackiest stuff possible at you and hope you find it funny. You get a blind fencer, a woman who claims to be a medium for dead animals, a ventriloquist, Carrell and Galifinakis. It is a kitchen sink scenario big time.
Dinner for Schmucks could have been an absolute disaster if done by any other set of actors probably. Somehow the people involved in this make it work. I laughed more than I thought I would and yes, I did roll my eyes more than I thought I would as well. You do get some wonderful comic moments and I do not want to take away from those gems, but you also have to sit through a ton of unfunny stuff. Jay Roach is probably lucky he got this group of men involved because otherwise, it might have turned out to be just as bad as Meet the Parents.
This movie made waves before it ever got going on filming. It was set to be Tom Cruise's comeback picture, but he passed on it and Angelina Jolie took over. The part had to be re-written for a woman, and the battle was set for the summer of 2010: Tom Cruise's actual comeback vehicle vs. the one he passed on. I was not really anticipating Salt all that much. I like Jolie in the action genre, but I could not get excited about this particular one. There was no reason for the lack of enthusiasm. In fact, this is usually the kind of movie I get up for. I love espionage action flicks! The trailers were just so "blah." Yet the reviews were mostly positive and that has the ability to swing me one way or the other if I am unsure about a movie. I mean, I probably would have seen it eventually, but with all of these critics saying it was a solid, fun action movie, I ventured out hoping I was not being led astray.
Evelyn Salt(Jolie) is an American Spy with a specialty in Russian spy stuff. When a Russian defector comes in to the office, Salt is charged with finding out if the guy is on the level, or not. The defector tells that a Russian spy is going to kill the Russian President on United States soil during the United States Vice President's funeral. He also tells a story of groups of young kids who were stolen from their parents as kids and turned into killing machines and then planted all over the world with assumed identities and when the time is right, they will all be called upon. Salt smells the B.S, but the defector says the name of the operative and, you guessed it, the operative is Eveyln Salt. From there, the chase is on. Salt is the one being chased and Ted Winter(Liev Schreiber) her friend/boss, and Peabody(Chiwetel Ejiofor) are the ones doing the chasing. Winter believes that Salt is being framed, Peabody does not. With crazy twists and turns hitting every 15 to 20 minutes after that, it would be wrong to divulge anymore of the plot from there.
Salt has a title that lends itself to really bad puns about flavor for critics to put in the headlines of their reviews and it is hard to get away from that for the first little while of watching the movie. You think to yourself, why is her name Salt? Could the writer really not come up with something that was not so silly? However, when you get over that, you settle in and realize you are watching a surprisingly kick ass movie. With old school action stunts, Jolie's winning charm and solid acting performances from Schreiber and Ejiofor, Salt turns out to be a great action movie. From the moment Jolie's Salt goes on the run, through every twist and turn (some awesome, some totally ridiculous) to the even more ridiculous but fun ending, Salt kept my attention and at times put me on the literal edge of my seat. The car chases all have this very old school feel to them and the limited use of CGI effects helps that. Yes, there are explosions, but mostly there are just cars running into each other and this brilliant moment of Jolie stealing a motorcycle to better weave through the traffic. This sequence is one of the best, and the most extended. She is leaping off of trucks, she is running while getting shot at, she drives the motorcycle and dodges oncoming traffic and when this scene comes to an end, you can finally exhale.
I do not want to compare this movie to some movies that I want to mention, but I want people to know what kind of action movie this is. I really got a The Fugitive vibe from this whole movie. The Fugitive worked because it was constantly moving, had a lead who was comfortable in the role and had this wonderful supporting role. It also hearkens back to another Harrison Ford movie, Patriot Games, which was directed by the same man who did this one, Phillip Noyce. These action movies work because they keep the foot on the gas. Yes, there are pauses in the action, but the tension never really goes away once the movie gets going. There are no light hearted jokes once the action gets moving. We do not pull away from the main characters to see what someone else might be doing. No, we watch Jolie on the run for nearly 90 minutes and she handles all of the action stuff wonderfully. She never looks out of place holding weapons, or shooting them and She keeps the mystery alive at every twist. We are never entirely comfortable with Evelyn Salt and that is to Jolie's credit.
The script might have some holes, upon closer examination, but that is the fun of this style of action. it moves too fast to really pay attention to those potential holes. I love the sequence at the church, and how creatively it is set up and the hand held fights, while semi plagued with shaky camera syndrome, look crisp and clean and it is possible to actually see what is going on, which is always a welcome change in action movies. I know we are supposed to feel the action as opposed to seeing, but I like to be able to see Jolie totally kicking ass. The effectiveness of an action movie rests on the action and Salt has great set ups, wonderful execution and it is all shot in ways that allow the audience to actually see what is going on. That is all the important factors.
Salt is not a genre changer, nor is it this wonderfully epic movie that everyone needs to run out and see, but it is a solid action movie. It would have been a wonderful comeback vehicle for Tom Cruise, but Jolie is definitely solid in the role and it helps having pros like Schreiber and Ejiofor handling some of the more tedious work. Your enjoyment of the film may rest on how you handle the 3 or 4 big twists, but I think the action looks good enough that it can overcome twist problems, although I had no problems with the twists, even the more ridiculous ones.
