Twilight

Before I begin let me say a few things. First off, I am not against romantic dramas. The time I sat through The Notebook I was affected by the love story. Also, ask Erik and he will confirm my Moulin Rouge obsession. Secondly, I love vampire stories and I love vampire stories involving falling in love with human beings, (Hello, Buffy!). Lastly, no matter what I think about the movie, I am glad it is successful. Independent film companies are suffering and Twilight is from such a company. Plus it has a woman director and women directors never get a shot at big money pictures.

Bella(Kristen Stewart), the only pale person to ever come out of Arizona has just moved to the Pacific Northwest to live her with dad because her mom and her mom's boyfriend are going to Jacksonville for Spring Training for Baseball. (On a side note, it makes no sense for a minor league baseball player to live in Arizona if he is not playing for an Arizona Spring Training baseball team.) Bella and her dad have an odd relationship and in her new hometown, of only 3,000 people, Bella is big news for the school. She adjusts well and makes friends very quickly, even if she doesn't seem to enjoy their company much, which is a nice change for these types of movies. Her first day she is paired with Edward Cullen(Robert Pattinson) and Cullen is apparently repulsed by her scent and goes missing. He comes back, eventually and they engage in perfectly awkward conversation. Bella is then almost hit by a car and Edward comes from nowhere and stops the car and saves her life. Now Bella needs to know who Edward is. Well, Edward is supposedly a vampire. I say supposedly because he is missing vampire qualities. He does not seem to grow fangs, he has a reflection and the biggest vampire departure, the sun does not burn him alive. No, the sun makes him glisten like a diamond. Edward comes from a family of Vampires who are "vegetarians" meaning the don't drink human blood, only animal blood. Bella is so taken by Edward his confessions of murder, animal murder and his constant desire to drink her does not scare her. She trusts him, when he does not trust himself. Bad vampires come into town and they want Bella. Bella has a special scent. I like to call it "Le vampire." Vampires all want to drink her more than anyone else. Bella is like chocolate for vampires. Bad vampires and good vampires fight and through it all Bella and Edward fall more and more in love or eternal lust.

When a movie is super entertaining small bad details can be overlooked, when a movie sucks those minor details enhance the suck. Twilight is not at all nearly entertaining enough to take my mind off of the minor things that were so bad. First off, the idea of vampires able to live in sunlight is a hard one for me to swallow. I understand that vampire legends have all kinds of different myths, but vampires cannot go into the sun. Also, in a town of 3,000 people, some of which live on an Indian reservation and do not go to the actual high school, how did the town get such a huge high school and why? Are class sizes like 15 people? Are there just a bunch of empty classrooms? Where are all the adults, if everyone of the 3000 people are high school students to warrant such a large school? Is it love when you feel that strongly because your ultimate desire is to murder that person? Do I love T-Pain secretly because I want to kill him and maybe even taste his blood? The Cullens are full of teenagers, so in theory they have to move often. And I know there was a one-off joke put in about high schools, but if the Cullen teens are not meant to socialize with humans, which it seems they are not, then at some point don't the "parents" just tell people they are home schooling the teens? High schools can only teach so much, and it would make sense to let the kids learn on their own.

The effects are very Smallville like, meaning Twilightplays more like the two hour premiere of a new show than a movie. I get the small budget and the small studio, but the trailing effect of the vampires to show speed, is a television thing, not a movie thing. With the exception of two or three scenes the dialog is clunky and way too heavy on exposition considering the story is such a classic Romeo and Juliet affair. Robert Pattinson oozes a smarmy charm and a danger that I like, but Edward is only interesting in scenes where he is having fun and smiling. Edward as a tortured monster would only work, if we had some flashbacks to see the monster inside of him. Without a point of reference for the monster, Edward just seems like a guy who is tortured because girls like tortured guys. He certainly looks the part, although his eye brows were just too perfect for me. I think he has a bright future, but I also thought that of Hayden Christianson at one point. Kristen Stewart does a good job with Bella. There is never a moment when you don't believe she believes she is in love. The two are gorgeous together and the heat in the one moment of passion burned brightly enough. However, with a name like Bella Swan, it is kind of hard to like her. That name is just too on the nose for this kind of story. It makes me think the author spent months writing variations of names and crossing them off until she found the "right" one.

There were some things I did like though. I like the crossing of genres found in the scene where Bella meets the Cullen family. Being a teenager meeting the family of your boyfriend is awkward enough as it is, but then throw in the fact that they are all vampires and it makes for a great moment. That scene is played perfectly in its awkwardness and comedy. However, why doesn't Bella fall in love with the entire family, since they are all suppressing their overwhelming urges to drink her like Gatorade? Also, the baseball scene, while a clear rip-off of Harry Potter's Quidich obsession, has a nice charm to it. It is played for laughs and thrills and the effects actually almost work in that moment.

On HBO there is a show called True Blood, which is based on a series of novels dealing with vampires. It is in to be a vampire these days. I bring this up because of one similarity between the two. In True blood, the main character, Sookie, can read the minds of everyone, until she meets a vampire named Bill. She falls in love with him. In Twilight, Edward can read everyone's mind except Bella's and he falls in love with her. The reasoning for it is not explained in Twilight, so it just comes off as very easy and unconvincing plot device. It seems in Twilight, neither of the young lovers falls in love because they have come to know and love the other. They are in love because the writer has decided they are going to be in love and the readers accept it because they think that is how love is supposed to be. Love is supposed to be all consuming and the ultimate act of love is staying with someone even though every thought in your head wants to devour that person whole and drain her like bath water from the tub. I cannot accept that.

I have heard many people coming out of the movie with a world full of complaints but saying they loved it. I wish that would stop. They did not love the movie if they have complaints about just about every aspect. What they loved was seeing the characters from the books on the screen. What they loved was experiencing the event that was Twilight. They loved the theater full of like minded people. Loving a movie and loving the experience of a movie are two different things. I first experienced that with X-Men 3. I came out thinking I loved it after the midnight show, but I did not love the movie, I loved the experience of watching it at midnight with people who were cheering and loving the experience as well.

Final Grade: D

Quantum of Solace

I was never a big James Bond guy. I prefer my spy movies to be more brutal. I did not really enjoy the light hearted realm of James Bond movies. I enjoyed the girls, the stunts and a few of the gadgets, but for the most part, I just was not terribly interested in them. That changed with Casino Royale. I enjoyed Bond with the Jason Bourne aesthetic. I loved the muted colors, the up close fights and the awkward close ups. I enjoyed a Bond with vengeance on his mind and I loved me some Daniel Craig as Bond. Craig is a real man (no disrespect to Sean Connery). Craig could take charge and he was cold. I like cold. I like intense thrillers and Casino Royalegave that to me. Plus, that card game. Holy Crap what a game! The stakes were intense and it was played perfectly. needless to say, the stakes were high for this 22nd installment into the 007 canon.

If ever the phrase "hits the ground running" were to be fitting for a movie, this movie epitomizes that phrase. Right from the word "Go!" Bond is in the middle of a high speed chase, with loud cars roaring and quick cut editing the scene is dizzying, loud and effective. Bullets fly and pierce car doors, but sound like they are whizzing by your head. Only mere minutes after the car chase, Bond is on foot chasing a traitor who almost killed M(the fabulous Judi Dench). The foot race is again, fast and loud and while it does not quite live up to the best foot race ever, of Casino Royale, it ends in a doozy of a fight, with tricked out rope work stunts and a great shot of Bond shooting a gun. the pace dials down for another little while before Bond is attacked by another guy and throws him through a window and kills him. next up is the beautiful Bond girl Camille(Olga Kurylenko). She is about to be killed at sea, when Bond saves her and we are off on a boat chase, now. yes in the first 30 minutes we have a car chase, a foot chase, a fist fight and a boat chase. Then the movie slows down to give us plot. The problem is, the plot sucks. Do the bad guys want the oil, the diamonds or the water of Bolivia and who is good and who is bad? I am not entirely sure, but did you hear me say the first 30 minutes contains a car, foot and boat chase??

James Bond is out for vengeance and he is not afraid of killing. He is smart though. There is a great sequence of events set against the back drop of this epic Opera that not only shows Bond's intelligence, it leads to a nice chase and it gives director Marc Forster his indie roots. The Opera get to serve as the sound track to more death and more stunts and more action, but since in the Opera itself there is a gun death, it seems to be symbolic of beauty in gun deaths. Cool stuff, man. Well Bond does not sleep with Camille but he does sleep with agent Strawberry Fields. She is sexy and had sex with Bond, so she dies. I wanted more time with her, but such is the way of James Bond. Bond bickers with M like they are mother and son, but she trusts Bond because Bond gets things done. Eventually Bond and Camille are in a plane, where a nice plane chase/fight/crash takes place and Bond and Camille lament fallen pasts and they wonder what happens when you get the vengeance you seek.

Then in a finale featuring a set piece so gorgeous it is a shame it was built just to be blown to pieces, Camille gets her revenge and Bond struggles to get all as this gorgeous glass building is exploding an catching fire. The stunts in that scene are immaculate and Craig shines again as the brutally stoic Bond. For her part, Olga is undeniably sexy, so much so you want the two of them to exchange in hot sexy and sweaty sex, instead of just discussing what life means after vengeance is won.

If I seem ambiguous here, make no mistake, I loved Quantum of Solace, but I loved it less than I had hoped. The Bourne aesthetic only works with a sure handed director and so the shaky camera and the quick jumps and edits are not always effective here. The movie doe snot make much sense because the story is never as engaging as Casino Royale. We are never sure exactly who the bad guys are and what they want. But, we do Bond kicks ass and they lay that on thick. As an action movie is thrills, it is just Casino Royale was more than just an action movie. Quantum is bogged down a bit by clunky exposition and a plot that seems unsure of itself, but every time you think you have had it they dazzle you with a chase or a fight. I still believe Jason Bourne as the number spy, but James Bond proves he is up to the challenge. Thank god they got rid of the invisible car!

Final Grade: B

Soul Men

I have never counted Bernie Mac as a favorite stand up comedian of mine and I never will. Don't get me wrong he was hilarious, but he was not a favorite of mine. Having said that, there was a reason he went last on The Original Kings of Comedy tour. he was less famous than Cedric, Steve Harvey and D.L Hughley, but he went last. He is the one you would remember, he was the one you would quote and he was the one who made you feel the happiest. Bernie Mac always had that in his stand up and even in some of his movies. he was a verbal giant with a great voice. the most expressive face and the mind and mouth to turn the F word into art. He seemed to have a genuine love of life, which is not shared by many comedians. He was a master at turning his life into jokes. His movies never fully got to get his entire personality on camera and they never took full advantage of his perfectly fine tuned F word bomb dropping skills. Then he teamed up with Samuel L. Jackson, another skilled F bomb dropper and it was to be comic gold. Sadly, Bernie Mac never got to see it. And now we will never know what else he could have been capable of.

Back in the day, Louis(Jackson) and Floyd(Mac) were back up singers for Marcus Hooks(John legend). hooks went solo and became a massive star, and Louis and Floyd, or "The Real Deal" had one major hit and then broke up. Here it is 3 decades later and Floyd is moving into a retirement home. He spent years and years as a rich and successful business owner and now he has given the business over to his nephew. Louis on the other hand has been in and out of jail and lives in a hole. When Marcus Hicks dies on stage, VH-1 puts together a big funeral celebration and want "The Real Deal" to perform again. Floyd is all about it, but Louis wants to be left alone until Floyd promises they can split the money they will be paid 60-40. So they set off on an adventure. We find out they broke up over a woman and that they still bicker, but they still both love the music. On their road trip from Los Angeles to New York, they play some small gigs to get themselves in shape and they start to remember why they liked the road so much to begin with. When they start to run out of money, they show up at the door of the woman who broke them up to find her dead and to find her with a 20something year old daughter, Cleo(Sharon Leal). Floyd believes the daughter to be his and Floyd and Louis take her on the road with them. As with the typical road movie, shenanigans abound and lessons must be learned.

My biggest complaint with Soul Men is that I was hoping for more music. The music, mostly funk and soul, really feeds the movie a nice rhythm and pace, but I guess I was hoping for some more of it. Jackson and Mac are furiously funny in their amazing bickering. I am sure much of it was done improv like with these two F bomb geniuses just working off of each other. They have amazing chemistry and are both in great comedic shape. Jackson shows a great comic flair that I have not seen from him really and Mac looks like he was just realizing how great film could be to mine his talents. He even gets some serious moments that show a deeper talent hidden in nonsense movies of the past. They look like they are having a blast on screen and they make you wish you could transport there and enjoy the time with them. It isn't all a hit though. There is a side plot involving Cleo's gangsta rapper wanna-be boy friend that does not work as much as the movie think sit does, as they come back to it 3 times instead of just having it be a solo scene, set aside for a bad black comedian.

The story is predictable sure, but it is funny. It seems like there isn't a real conflict, but bunch of small easy to overcome conflicts, which may make it a bit of a slow movie for some. I can understand that, but these two guys really light up the screen. Jackson with his choice of crazy hair, gets high marks for not being too crazy with the hair in this movie. I believe both men were playing a bit older than they actually are, or maybe Jackson just usually plays younger than he really is, and they both do it well. Sharon Leal exudes a nice calm energy, to counteract the loud manic energy of the two men with whom she shares the screen. The performance scenes are entertaining and the two men do their own singing. Both have passable, nice distinct vocals. Voices that do not soar, but are not bad. They are believable as back up singers who got one big hit and the finale is a nice little ditty.

But mostly, Soul Men is a movie to go and watch and appreciate a man who lived to make us laugh. it is a place to see Bernie Mac int he way he is meant to be watched- funny and foul. In the credits there is a very moving tribute to the man where he tells you what making us laugh meant to him. He was a warm man and a nice performer and it is nice that we have one last R rated comedy by which to remember him. I want to leave anyone who reads this with the best moment in The Original Kings of Comedy, but warn you they language is truly explicit:

When you're listening to one of our conversations you might here the word MOTHER FUCKER about 32 times. Don't be afraid of the word MOTHER FUCKER... Imma break it down to ya... If you're out there this afternoon and you see like 3 or 4 brothers talkin', you might hear a conversation and it goes like this: You seen that MOTHER FUCKIN' Bobby? That MOTHER FUCKER owes me 35 MOTHER FUCKEN dollars! He told me he gone pay my MOTHER FUCKEN money last MOTHER FUCKEN week. I aint seen this MOTHER FUCKER yet! I'm not gonna chase this MOTHER FUCKER for my 35 MOTHER FUCKEN dollars. I called the MOTHER FUCKER four MOTHER FUCKEN times... but the MOTHER FUCKER won't call me back. I called his momma the other MOTHER FUCKEN day... she gonna play like the MOTHER FUCKER wasn't in. I started to cuss her MOTHER FUCKEN ass out, but I don't want no MOTHER FUCKEN trouble. But I'll tell ya one MOTHER FUCKEN thang... the next MOTHER FUCKEN time I see this MOTHER FUCKER... and he ain't got my MOTHER FUCKEN money... I'm gonna bust - his - MOTHER FUCKEN head! And I'm OUT this MOTHA FUCKA!


R.I.P. Mr. Mac.

Final Grade: B-

Role Models

2008 has been a good year for comedies in my mind. Typically I only enjoy 3 or 4 in any given year. Yet this year there are at least 14 comedies that have receive at least a B- from me and a few of those are even true comic gems. As the year comes to a close, the movies tend to get more dramatic or more family oriented, so I feel like this, with Soul men, was the last shot to add to the list of good comedies. I tend to stay away from movies written and directed by David Wain because the entire Stella thing lacks any sort of, well, laughs. Then they went and let Paul Rudd re-write the script and I was interested. I enjoy the cast and it looked pretty funny, even if a bit of an Apatow wanna-be. Not that that is a bad thing, honestly.

Danny(Rudd) is a miserable human being. he is out to pick fights with everyone for the tiniest thing and one day he just cannot handle it anymore and his verbal vitriol embarrasses his girlfriend, Beth(Elizabeth Banks) and she ends it with him. Having a really bad day on top of having a miserable job, Danny loses it. At a high school, where he and his partner, Wheeler(Sean William Scott) are trying to tell kids to drink an energy drink instead of doing drugs, Danny tries to drive off in the monster truck and ends up damaging school property. Instead of jail, Danny and Wheeler are sentenced to 150hrs of community service at Sturdy Wings, a day camp for children. Danny is assigned Augie(Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Wheeler is assigned Robbie(Bobbe J' Thompson). Augie is an ubernerd who practices LARPing- Live Action Role Playing. He has a whole universe in which he is not a nerd, but a valued member of a society. Danny hates it, but Augie is a sweet kid and Danny starts to try and befriend him. Wheeler and Robbie have an easier time together because they bond over breasts. Robbie is a truly foul mouthed little kid, but he has a good spirit and his mother is sweet. Wheeler and Danny are learning the values of not being so selfish and building relationships.

The opening 25 minutes of Role Models feature some seriously great verbal exchanges and the finale is a beautiful showing of physical comedy and in the middle are spattered a variety of funny lines, lines that don't work, hot girls and the most sexual innuendo jokes since Arrested Developmentwent off the air. Paul Rudd seems to revel in playing these kind of depressed directionless guys and he nails it here. He and William Scott have a great chemistry and the relationship between Rudd and mcLovin is perfect. In fact, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays Augie with such conviction it is hard to laugh at him for being a dork because he really is a sweet kid. He is only occasionally made the butt of the joke, which is nice because dorks are usually picked on in these movies. For his part, Sean William Scott probably gives his most likable performance since American Pie. I hope we are about to experience a Sean William Scott revolution because I have always liked him. He is charming and has an easy likability. they are all outdone by Bobbe J' Thompson. Thompson is a young and talented kid with crazy verbal skills and he swears like a young Chris Rock. He is unbelievably funny and fast and vulgar but never mean spirited.

Another person worth mentioning is Jane Lynch. This woman is a very sturdy comedic supporting actress. She killed it as the boss in The 40 year old virgin and in this movie she gets a lot of great laughs. She doesn't always hit, but she recovers so quickly you forget the bad jokes. Elizabeth Banks is solid as usual. She continues to do interesting roles that are diverse enough that will not allow her to be pigeon-holed as an actress. There are a few supporting players from various Judd Apatow produced movies that get their laughs within the world of Augie's real life role playing, but the main foursome don't allow the movie to be stolen from them. Speaking of the Live Action Role Playing, the climax of this movie is a complex, hilarious and actually touching battle royale sequence that sees Augie finding his calling as a leader. He is a great battle cry, and a stirring speech and it is all played straight down the middle, which keeps the movie from being too silly. The actual battle is full of laughs and even a few thrills.

In the end, Role Models carries a nice message about responsibility, love, friendship and doing what you love. Augie is a nerd and so he believes he is a nerd, but the second he is a leader in a town of LARPers, he excels and everyone around him sees that he is a good, level headed kid. Role Models is vulgar, yes, but who says vulgar cannot lead to something sweet. The main characters learn and teach and in the end, everyone truly is a winner. Where is the crime in that?

Final Grade: B+

Rachel Getting Married

I can remember from all of my acting classes in college my professors saying that an audience brings what ever happened to them that day into the theater. We were to believe that if a person had a real crappy day that maybe they would not enjoy the show, or whatever. I have never lived by that theory myself. As an audience member of movies or plays, whatever happened to me before the show goes out of the window. I have always only been able to get behind the theory if someone just lost a loved one and they think going to a funny movie can cheer them up. It is most likely not going to help. That being said, I saw Rachel Getting Married on Wed. November 5th 2008, which was the day Proposition 8 passed and right before I saw this, I had a very long and passionate discussion with someone about the subject of Prop 8. This movie is about marriage, so it is possible my opinion of the movie will have something to do with my cultural surroundings.

Kym(Anne Hathaway) has recently been released from Rehab to attend the wedding of her sister. Kym is in her late 20s and has been addicted to drugs of some sort for most of her life. In her interactions with people we know she has been on Cops, had an incident in a pet store and is generally thought of as a screw up. She is a brutally honest train wreck of a human being who chain smokes, grasping to that last addiction. She lies in rehab and does not seem terribly interested in actually rehabbing. Her sister, Rachel(Rosemarie Dewitt) and her father, Paul(Bill Irwin) are both excited and nervous to see her, and with good reason. This is a dysfunctional family of the highest degree. The movie takes place the day before and the day of the wedding and in all of the complexities of family and loved ones.

I believe I can say that Rachel Getting Married is my favorite movie of 2008 thus far. I came out of it thinking I had just witnessed a masterpiece of cinema. The performances all the way around are incredible, especially Hathaway and Irwin. Jonathon Demme has an amazing directorial vision. Yes, it is shot with that kind of shaky camera documentary style, but it works because the movie suffocates you in these lives. You are fully engulfed in the dark family tragedy that is boiling under the surface for the first half of the movie and then erupts like a volcano in consecutive scenes that ignites the screen and ignites these characters lives. There is no distance between us and the characters on the screen, which works for the movie in various ways. First off, we feel each stinging tragedy, but at the same time, we live every glorious moment of the actual wedding as well. We see the pure magic that weddings are and this wedding is among the most beautifully honest I have seen on screen. It moved me in a way movie weddings rarely do. It is a wedding that crosses cultures and traditions and mixes them with beautiful music, an abundance of love and people of all colors, shapes and sizes, and probably sexual orientation.

At the core, Anne Hathaway rips her way through it. With a hair cut that looks like it was cut with a razor and bags under her eyes, Hathaway shreds away her Disney princess sheen and delves deeply into a character who at one point states that she cannot believe in God because she does not think she deserves to believe in a God. Hathaway lives inside the broken Kym, a girl who needs the constant attention while saying she hates the constant attention. Her performance is raw, gutty and emotionally exhausting and we are witness to it all. We are right next to her during each tearful confession and during each fight with her sister who is just fed up by Kym's life and actions. They have a bizarre relationship in the most stark of movie revelations, they go at each other with such force and velocity it is hard to see how a make up will ever happen. On the edges of insanity, lives their father, played to perfection by Bill Irwin. There are some amazing supporting performances already this year, but this guy needs accolades and nominations so people will watch him in this. What a truly spectacular, engaging, heart felt, sad and winning performance. Here is a father trying his best to keep a positive outlook, while his two daughters are hell bent on destroying each other. He is a man always on edge of breaking down, but always finding a way to keep it together. Only in a few brief seconds do we see the man behind the act and wow, what sadness lives in this man's eyes.

Rachel Getting Married has interesting visuals, a great ethnically diverse cast, beautiful music throughout and tremendous performances. It is a movie I have been thinking about almost nonstop since I saw it. It is such a small slice of life, but it is an incredibly powerful story of how family works and how love can help people change and how stressful moments can act as catharsis in moments of brutal honesty. It has long scenes and long camera shots, but it is never boring. There is a scene that is based around how to fill a dish washer that turns into a fast paced, funny, engaging and ultimately sad moment that sums up everything about how I feel about this movie.

Yes, maybe I was tearing up thinking of all my gay brothers and sisters who cannot experience how magical a legal wedding can be, but it was more than that. Rachel Getting Married made me believe in the power of music and singing when just telling someone something is not enough. I came away from the movie full of hope in my heart for a better tomorrow. It made me appreciate the family I have and the loved ones that surround me. Rachel Getting Married is the kind of movie that reminds me why I love movies so much and how something like a movie can be more than just entertainment.

Final Grade: A+

High School Musical 3

Troy(Zac Efron), Gabriella(Vanessa Hudegens) Sharpay(Ashely Tisdale) Ryan(Lucas Grabeel), Chad(Corbin Bleu) and the rest of the bunch are all back, this time it is senior year. The Wildcats have just won their second straight state basketball championship (The rousing opening number Now or never) and now Gabriella has just kind of forced the entire gang into the Spring Musical. Being that they have a girl at school who writes musicals they decide to do an original musical that will be entitled Senior Year and will include things like Prom and other senior year activities. Issues arise when Gabriella gets an early admission to Stanford and leaves the Wildcats behind. Troy is unsure of what he wants from his future with pressure coming from everywhere to go to the local college to play basketball. Also, Julliard has extended a full ride scholarship to one of the students, but received 4 applications and will be coming to the musical to make their decision. Sharpay is still annoying and whiny and wants to be the girl who gets the scholarship and will go to great lengths to get it. A few younger students are introduced to perhaps carry on the HSM legacy. People sing and dance in the rain, Troy and Gabriella finally kiss and Troy gets his serious angst on. Pretty typical HSM stuff.

Here is the part where I review things and by reviewing this movie I am supposed to talk about how stupid it is and all of that. I want to, trust me. I do. But something is holding me back. I know, I am a 28 year old straight male who has somewhat high standards for movies and I am quick to tear stupid kid movies apart and do not tell anyone this but, I kind of enjoyed it! Is it corny? Well, duh of course it is. I could sit and talk about how this is some weird fantasy world and how childish these high school kids are, but we all know that about these movies. Musical comedies are not grounded in reality. They are absurd by just existing and is it so wrong that here is a musical that kids can enjoy. The drama teacher in the movie says that "The stage can be a great help on the road to self discovery" and is that such a bad thing to say? For a decade the stage was where I made myself into the person I am today. So what if the music is too pop heavy and the voices aided by computers. Does anyone really care? Look these movies speak to a very specific demographic, I get that. However, I was tapping my toes right along with them. There is something to be said for the team of song writers to write such catchy music.

There are a few wonderfully produced numbers, "I want it all", "The Boys are back" and the finale "High School musical" and the cast performs them with the kind of energy any director directing any musical would kill to have. It is not all great though as the slower numbers falter because there is not as much energy surrounding them. Efron and Hudgens make a very winning couple on screen as they both look amazing and have a very safe sexual spark. Zac Efron is the one of this group who appears to have break-out success potential. Many people do not like him in these movies because they see him as a wrong fit for the character. He does seem to have some trouble with all of the angst because, well he is Zac Efron and life as him is not very angsty. However, his solo emo number "scream", while unintentionally comical at times, provides a nice outlet for his Footloose like potential. He commands the screen nicely and while his look of sadness is kind of funny looking, he does the job he is supposed to do.

There is something comforting about a world where a team of high school kids wins a championship and it is celebrated with a big family cook-out and not the drinking and general debauchery that is typical and more realistic. High School Musical looks like something out of Pleasantville, yes, but who cares. In high school so many people went through the same issues. When presented with a choice of where to go to college, I buckled under expectations and have regretted it ever since. I admire the ideals of Troy Bolton choosing the school outside of what was expected. High School Musical 3 takes what worked in the first two movies and made better use of the bigger budgets with neat camera tricks and big production values. It doesn't come off as forced the way HSM 2 did and maybe it does not have all of that lightening in a bottle Disney magic of the first one, but it is an earnest, honest, non-ironic look at a fantasy universe where the mother of the brainiac likes that she is dating the big man on campus. Do not think the movie is completely void of knowing that the girls love Efron. The movie opens on a shot of his eyes and sweaty face and he does strip his shirt off, but that is about as PG as it gets. High School Musical exists in a world of the un-ironic. It does not wink at itself or get meta. It believes in everything it says, dances and sings. It is kind of refreshing, to be honest.

Final Grade: B-

RocknRolla

There was a time when Guy Ritchie was a stud in the movie world. Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrels and Snatch are widely held as terrific post modern films. He has always managed to capture a unique visual flair that fit the crazy version of the world he was creating. Then he married Madonna and made Swept away, which was terrible and then did not do anything for a few years. last year he returned to the crazy world of drugs, power and money with Revolver, but it was a massive misfire. Well the public divorce of the once power couple, has brought Guy Ritchie back with another movie in the world of mobs, power, drugs and... a painting?

I will attempt to do my best in recapping the movie, but I do not have an ability to take notes, so I may get lost. Mr. One,Two(Gerard Butler) and Mumbles(Idris Elba) lost money received from a loan Shark, Lenny Cole(Tom Wilkinson) in a real estate scam and need to get it back to him. Lenny believes he owns London's underworld and real estate scamming business and the Russians want in bed with Lenny. As a show of faith, the head Russian gives Lenny his lucky painting. The Russian calls his accountant to get 7 million Euros. The accountant, Stella(Thandie Newton), in turn tells Mr. One,Two where to find the 7 million Euros. One,Two and Mumbles jack the money and pay back Lenny, but now the Russians cannot complete their deal with Lenny. While all of this is going on, the painting is stolen. Lenny believes his step-son, Johnny stole it and now he has sent his second in command, Archie(Mark Strong) to look for it. Archie muslces Roman and Mickey(Ludacris and Jeremy Piven) to find it. Johnny then loses the painting himself. One,Two and Mumbles get a chance to jack another 7 million Euro exchange, but this time it is not as easy. On the side there are also plots involving a police informant and even a brief homosexual side plot.

If that seems like an awful lot to take in. It is. However, RocknRolla is also incredibly entertaining and uniquely made. Guy Ritchie uses all kinds of neat tricks to tell this story including subtitles (while two people talk over music) nice lighting effects, great musical cues, nonsensical flashbacks and all kinds of varying degrees of extreme closeups and other camera tricks, including some great use of the shaky camera. Ritchie obviously decided to throw it all in the mix to see what he could create and it is all very effective. I may not have explained the movie very well, but when it is over it all becomes pretty damn clear. Ritchie stages a wonderful climax with all of the main and supporting characters that features some great gun play and wonderful dialog. Every single actor plays their individual roles perfectly, but a few stand outs are Tom Wilkinson, Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton and Mark Strong. Wilkinson is often in deeply dramatic films and he is obviously having a blast as a deep cockney accented wannabe gangster. Mark Strong continues to impress me and he looks fantastic in his sharp suits. Newton and Butler have a smolderingly sexy chemistry and Newton so scorching I was waiting for the screen to catch fire.

Ritchie's use of the voice-over narration is very effective because it is Strong's Archie who is doing it. He is connected to all of the stories, but not the main focus of them all, so we trust him because we do not think he has any reason to lie to us. Then in the movie there are a few monologues, one bordering on brilliant as Johnny attempts to explain his obsession with the painting while he plays the piano as that visual is cross cut with the visual of a man being beaten. Then there is a monologue from a totally side character about Johnny's drug habit that is very effective as it slows everything down, halting the action but pointing out how alluring and traumatizing drugs can be.

The term RocknRolla is summed up in the movie as someone who wants "The Whole fucking lot." Being a RocknRolla is not about drugs or sex or money, or power. It is about having a bit of all of it. A real RocknRolla is cultured and appreciates art. he is articulate, but vicious. He drinks tea while he tortures you and he looks damn good doing it. Ritchie finds his footing again in this crazy version of London. He has a hyper-visual style that matches the frenetically paced action sequences (the extended second robbery scene is a flash of genius, if you ask me) and the whole movie is wrapped in this coating of sexual fun, without it actually being very sexual at all. It is a movie that makes you wish you could be that much of a RocknRolla. The kinetic energy bursts off of the screen with its fits of comedy and violence and I wish to hell I could look as good in a suit as Mark Strong.

Final Grade: A

Zack and Miri make a Porno

Yes, I worship at the temple of Kevin Smith. I do not deny it. The man has a knack for clever dialog that captures the way people really have conversations. Yes, he writes in a way that probably more foul than most people speak, but he gets his point across. The man has tackled lesbians, malls, slackers, religion and Hollywood all with great wit and a considerable charm. Lately, a new comedy king has replaced Smith. The new King, Judd Apatow, also worshipped at the temple of Kevin Smith, as he has stated numerous times. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for Kevin Smith to recruit some Apatow players- Seth Rogen, Daryl Robinson and Elizabeth Banks- and put them in this movie. The title alone has raised eyebrows and caused quite a stir. It was originally slapped with an NC-17 rating and then changed to R, but what else is new with Kevin Smith. The man has been a thorn in the side of the MPAA for most of his career. But has he lost his touch? The first footage shown made it seem like, yes he had lost his touch, but the official trailers looked good and I was somewhat optimistic.

The title pretty much says it all, in the way Snakes on a Plane or The Hiest sum up their movies. Zack(Rogen) and Miri(Banks) are platonic best friends who live together and barely make ends meet. Their water is shut off on the night they are to go to their high school reunion but they go anyway because Miri hopes she can nail Bobby Long(Brandon Routh), on whom she had a crush in high school. At the reunion, Zack meets Brandon who is a gay porn star who gets all of his profits because he makes and distributes his own porn. Desperate for cash, Zack and Miri find themselves making a porno. At first they set out to make Star Whores, which is accompanied by a brutally hilarious montage, but things go wrong and they end up shooting a porno in the coffee house where Zack works. They shoot after hours and assemble a crack-pot team to help. Deleney(Robinson) is the producer and talent scout and he finds them a few good men and women. With the day of reckoning upon them, Zack and Miri make their porno debut as stars, but something happens during their scene that complicates everything. The two must confront deep hidden feelings they had for each other all along.

Much has been made of Seth Rogen getting impossibly hot women in his movies. Girls that look like Katherine Hiegl and Elizabeth Banks do not belong with overweight, sweaty, and hairy men. Whatever. These are male fantasy movies. Women have movies where disgustingly gorgeous men say and do all the right things all of the time. They have movies that exist in false realities where old lovers die in each other's arms after a life of shared passion. That is the fantasy women have. Men have the fantasy that they can get the hot girl. What is the difference, in reality, between The Notebook and Knocked up? They were hits based in fantasy. Zack and Miri is another one of those male fantasy movies, except, the way Elizabeth Banks plays Miri it is easy to see her and Rogen together. The woman is a comedic gem in this movie, which is saying something because typically women in Kevin Smith movies struggle to keep up. Banks is up for the challenge matching bad word for bad word. She is not afraid of looking foolish, which is good when her granny panties are a main subject for the film.

Is this movie for everyone, no, of course not. Kevin Smith knows his audience and he gives them what they like. He gives an insanely hilarious comedy, full of bad language, wit and that trademark charm. He also delivers on the porno promise using former porn star Traci Lords and current porn star Katie Morgan along with a few good men and they do not shy away from shooting that porno. That being said, the porn making delivers some great laughs on its own. When Jason Mewes(Going the full monty in the end) is giving it to Katie Morgan a drunken fool wanders in and wants coffee, totally not catching on that sex is going on. Kevin Smith begat an entire generation of young men with his movies and while he nods to the success of Judd Apatow, he is not ready to give up his crown as King Man-Child. What Zack and Miri lacks in class and tact, it makes up for with fast jokes that come so rapid fire, when one doesn't make you laugh, you do not even have time to register it before the next one does make you laugh.

Seth Rogen is a very funny guy, but what makes him more than just funny is that he is likable. He is relatable. He is not going to win any Oscars but he has found a nice niche in the movie industry and I know there are those who hate him, but I think he is a very funny man. He continues that in this movie. He has a great chemistry with all of the people involved and he also captures the pathetic nature of Zack. Smith and Rogen really crafted a nice character who is not just funny. he is very sad in the first twenty minutes and only when he gets motivated do we see why all of his friends like him so much. The supporting cast all do wonderfully, with Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes stealing some of the better jokes and the one true moment of scat humor is set up so perfectly that it borders on genius and I typically hate scat humor.

Kevin Smith is a man loved by many and hated by just as many, but he is a man who has always made the movie he wanted to make. He is not afraid to tackle the tough issues in absurd way. There is a way to look at this movie as a look at things to come as more and more people are hit with financial trouble and it points out the absurdity of how mainstream pornography is. I am not saying it is a good thing, but Smith is there to show us how ridiculous the whole thing is. Zack and Miri is another hilarious comedy in a year already stacked with great comedies. I am waiting for Smith to branch out to another genre, but until he does, I will continue to welcome his writing and in this movie, even the direction. He utilizes slow motion to great success in two very poignant moments in the movie and he seems much more confident overall in his direction.

Final Grade: A-

Pride and Glory

Good cop vs. Bad cop movies are a dime a dozen these days. Just a month ago we had one called Righteous Kill. The differences between the good cop movies and the bad cop movies are so sometimes so subtle that you cannot always think of exactly what made one specific one better than another one. All of the stories are somewhat derivative of each other, but whether it is the writing or the acting some just turn out better. Righteous Kill suffered from a myriad of problems, which was sad given the two leads are a pair of the best living actors we have. Pride and Glory (Which sound like the title of a war movie) has Edward Norton, who is considered a great talent and Colin Farrell, who is not considered a great talent. If Righteous Kill had two of the best and Pride and Glory only has one great one, does it even stand a chance?

We open on a football game, but it is quickly over and the movie quickly, intensely and dizzyingly jumps to the scene of a shoot out. 4 cops are dead and a few low level criminals are dead too. Someone got away. The police put a task force together and it is to be led by Ray Tierney(Norton). he does not want it at all because he is still on edge over something that happened months ago that left him with a scar on his cheek. However, it is the squad of his brother, Francis(Noah Emmerich) that got hit and the dead men were under the watch of Ray's brother-in-law, Jimmy(Colin Farrell) and Ray's alcoholic father, Francis senior(Jon Voight) has begged him to. Unfortunately, the reveal of Jimmy being actually guilty is ruined by the trailer, but from there this movie becomes not only a race of family and cop vs. cop, but towards the end, the scope of the picture gets much bigger as to include an almost riot over cop's treatment of a minority. Ray must figure out exactly what was happening and who knew about it, all the while confronting his own demons of a former bust gone wrong and dealings with his soon to be ex-wife. Francis meanwhile, is not really guilty, but feels guilty and is also dealing with a cancer stricken wife, Abby (Jennifer Ehle).

So, now we come back to that fine line between good cop movie and bad cop movie. Pride and Glory has all of the cliches of the cop movie and much of the dialog you'd expect from such a movie, so for all intents and purposes, it should not work. Yet, there is something fully engrossing about the whole thing. Pride and Glory strips itself of all the shine and polish on so many movies these days and gets to something down and dirty. The camera moves a little too much in the fashion of a Cops episode, Robbie stay away, but when the camera focuses and zooms in for extreme close ups of Edward Norton's damaged cheek and dead eyes, the movie sparkles. Not only does the movie sparkle but it cracks with fire and a frenzied intensity that is slowly boiling under the surface and then unleashes in the final act as consecutive scenes see a shooting, a fight, a near riot and then ultimately a blood bath of sorts. Through it all, director Gavin O' Connor finds a way to make it seem fresh, even when we know it is not. It is not an easy thing to do, just ask Jon Avnet (IMDB him). O' Connor is a confident, interesting director who is not as interested in telling the story of a good guy and a bad guy, but the story of two men doing what they think they have to do in order to survive. Norton's character is our moral center, but that is shaken when we realize he may have done something very bad at one point. At that point we are not sure what we can trust.

Speaking of trust, I think it is safe to say I can trust Colin Farrell and his acting choices again. Sure, he had a rough patch where he was doing his pretty boy thing, but this year he has redeemed himself. First he was in the savagely funny In Bruges and now, he is truly riveting as a New York City police officer who not only puts his personal gains over his oath and duty, he puts it over life and truth. There is a scene involving a baby and an iron that is about as crazy as I could expect from such a movie and Farrell never backs down from any of it. He is down in the dirt, using that Irish dialect to his full advantage. I am not sure how often Colin Farrell can be the villain, but he seems more at home in it. He is better suited and he and Norton spark a fire in their confrontation scene. They do not have many scenes together, but when they get together, it is a barn burner and we are all invited to watch. Another man worth mentioning is Noah Emmerich. He has done some pretty great work in his career, especially Little Children, but here he gets his shot to play with the big dogs and he does not disappoint. He is the most sympathetic character because he didn't do anything wrong, but he may have allowed some of it, and his wife is slowly dying. The scenes with his wife are the kinds of scenes the bad cop movies don't have.

Is Pride and Glory the most original or innovative movie ever? No, of course not. It takes what we know as familiar and does something interesting to it. I was hooked from the moment the movie took off until it finally closed. The turns it takes are curious and often offer us a point of view we may not have figured on. Instead of making Jimmy's crew a bunch of nothings, we spend a little time with them, therefore it gives a sense of meaning when they endanger themselves as greed takes hold. When you start to supplement your income with extra stolen money, you cannot always go back to how it was before, even if you want to. The hold is just too much and we see that in this film. Gavin O' Conor may rely a bit too much on the shaky camera thing that is so popular, but when he finally focuses on something, he always seems to be capturing the exact thing he was meant to catch and we were meant to see? Can we really ask much more than that?

Final Grade: A-

Saw V (Major spoilers!)

Since watching this movie on Thursday night, I have been trying to figure out how to best review it. My initial thought was to say that I was only going to write the good things about the movie and then just have a blank review. I also considered doing my usual review, but this movie isn't worth it. So instead I am going to talk about the tag line and the ending.

The tag line for this installment of the most popular torture porn series was "you won't believe how it ends." In the third Saw movie, Jigsaw died, but he had someone carry on his legacy. What follows is a list of things that would have shocked me:


Jigsaw was not really dead.
The good guys win and the Saw franchise ends
The guy we thought was the good guy is actually bad.
Saw V ends in a musical number featuring Zac Efron.
Batman saves the day.
An ending with no death or gore.


Here is the one thing that would not shock me in the Saw franchise: The good guy is killed and the bad guy gets away.

So how does Saw end? Sadly, it does not end with a musical number featuring Zac Efron, no it ends with the good guy dying and the bad guy getting away with it. Not only that, but the other good guys think our good guy was the bad guy, so the bad guy gets away even more. What kind of nonsense is that? Look, I get that anyone willingly paying money to watch these garbage "films" probably gets what they deserve but seriously, is there a way to sue the makers for false advertisement?

Final Grade: F (of course)

Quarantine

Typically when a movie is not screened for critics, it is a very bad sign. Quarantine was not screened for critics, but some of them paid their money, watched and reviewed it. Surprisingly many critics thought it was very scary and wondered why it was not screened for them. Then, 4 or 5 people in my horror film class started talking about how surprised they were by how scary and good Quarantine was, so I gave in and decided to watch it. Plus, when the whole hand-held shaky camera thing is done well, I really enjoy it. Before I begin, I will not bother using characters names because I never learned them while I was watching.

A female reporter and her cameraman are doing a human interest piece on fire fighters and so they are spending the night shift with them. It starts off with fire fighters teaching her how to slide down the pole, put on the clothes and just goofing off. They have no idea what is about to happen when they are called out to an apartment complex. When they get there they are told a woman screamed and fell, so there are 2 cops and 2 firemen in the complex, now. The woman who fell is foaming at the mouth and bites one of the cops. Then a fireman gets dropped off the balcony. Everyone involved freaks out, they call it in and when the cops show up, instead of helping, they shut all of the people in the building and soon people start turning into these rabid, foaming beasts.

For about the first hour Quarantine offers some pretty creepy and scary moments, utilizing the whole hand-held camera thing quite well. The first 3 or 4 instances where they run into one of those rabies infested people, the slow moving people with heavy breathing mixed with the camera bobbing up and down results in a very tense, cabin feverish mood for the audience as we are the cameraman. Sadly, the movie is not only an hour long. In the final 30 minutes the lead woman does nothing but hyperventilate and scream and it gets very annoying very fast. All of her whining crossed with her cameraman trying to calm her down bogs down the final act, when the final 30 minutes should be the most intense and crazy. It does not help that the final shot of the movie is not only given away int he trailer, but on the freaking poster! Anyone who watches horror movies could pick out that it was going to be the final shot.

The gimmick of shooting everything with a hand-held camera has been done better and it has been done worse, yet, this is the first time I was really annoyed by the cameraman continuing to film through it all, even though they gave a pretty good reason for it. The two remaining people-cameraman and reporter need the light offered by the camera to see in the pitch black. It makes sense, but still at some point do you not drop the camera and just attempt to survive? I get it, people have a right to know that law enforcement lies, but at what point does your own survival become more important? Is what they are doing the ultimate act of self sacrifice? Will their death force changes it how our law enforcement works? Will they stop lying to us as a nation if this tape is shown? Won't the tape ultimately end up in the hands of law enforcement anyway?

I don't know why I was conned into seeing this movie by a bunch of people. Maybe they wanted me to share in their headache. I will be giving them a talking to on in class, that is for sure. I was interesting for a while and there were some good creepy moments and one legitimate scare, but it is all nullified by a super obnoxious final 30 minutes. The shaky camera work doesn't really get overly annoying, but there were moments when a steady cam would have been helpful.

Final Grade: C-

Sex Drive

Teen sex comedies have been a staple of the movies for quite some time, but the trilogy of American Pie movies kind of killed the whole concept. How is it possible to beat having sex with a pie and having an instrument up the butt? I know people will try and say Superbad was a teen sex comedy, but I don't think it fits this category. It wasn't focused on getting virgins laid like Losin it, Porky's or American Pie. We have not seen a successful one in far too long and when Sex Drive opened to better reviews than these types of movies usually get, I thought maybe I finally found a movie to carry the American Pie torch.

Ian(Josh Zuckerman) is a loser virgin who pretends to be a big buff football player on-line to talk to girls. One in particular, Ms_Tasty, has been smitten by the on-line Josh and tells him he should take the 6 hour drive and she will make it worth it. Ian isn't really buff and he doesn't play football and he doesn't drive a 1969 "Judge" either. He is a loser who works at a doughnut store and the car belongs to his alpha male, homophobic brother(James Marsden). Ian's two best friends are a girl, Felicia(Amanda Crews)and a male slut, Lance(the oddly cast Clark Duke). Lance lives by the mantra of "if you are a dick to a girl, she will love you." It works always, besides the fact that Lance isn't really what you would think of as a heart throb. Lance convinces Ian to steal the car and take the trip. Lance and Felicia(Who is crushing on Lance) tag along, but Felicia thinks they are going to visit Ian's grandmother. Along the way they have all kinds of adventures and shenanigans, which include a stop in an Amish village where Lance meets, Mary(Alice Greczyn) and falls in love. If you saw Mary, you would understand.

American Pie opened up with a scene where the lead character is caught masturbating by his parents; in Sex Drive, the main character experiences a wet dream, wakes up, throws his wet and sticky underwear towards the hamper misses, and his new step mom slips on it, falls and lands on it. In American Pie, the lead kid is trying to figure out how to use a condom and his dad sits on one; In Sex Drive, the lead character accidentally flings a condom into his new step-mom's hair. In American Pie, the lead character is embarrassed when he broadcasts something on web-cam that was not meant for everyone; in Sex Drive characters are embarrassed when pictures of them end up in random blogs and fetish sites. The similarities do not end there, but those are the two most prominent. If you are going to copy a movie, why not copy the single best movie in the sub-genre you are in. It makes sense. They don't necessarily one up the concept of having sex with a pie, but we are nearly introduced to something called "The Rolling brown out." Yeah, get the picture? Sex Drive is brutally nasty at times, but it is also brutally funny at times. It does lack the certain charm of American Pie, but it fills that void with random hot girls all over the place.

The bulk of the comedy comes from the heroes' stop in an Amish village. The Amish are fixing their car for the night and our heroes are introduced to what is known as rumspringa. Rumspringa is a short period of time where young Amish people get to act a total fool. Fall out Boy comes to play a concert and Amish people get drunk high and naked. Plus, Seth Green's turn as Ezekiel is comic gold. He is a master of sarcasm and it is impossible to tell if he is joking around or being serious. He delivers the best and biggest laughs. But laughs are also mined from Ian accidental pledging abstinence and getting a hard-on on stage as a girl warns of the perils of sex. Also two side characters, Andy and Randy mine laughs as two guys who hit on everything. James Marsden as the macho brother is hilarious in breaking his recent string of nice guy roles. Of course, the big reveal at the end of the movie of his character shocks no one.

As far as performances from the 3 leads, they are all fine. None of them really seem to have break out star quality the way everyone thought the cast of American Pie would have, but since they all fizzled maybe that is a good thing. Clark Duke is an odd choice for the Lothario because he is pasty, flabby and isn't particularly hot, but maybe that was the idea. Perhaps the whole stunt was that girl will fall for any guy who acts like a dick. It is not exactly new material for movies, but they make it work. As Ian, Zuckerman provides a pretty stable and reliable protagonist. he is more earnest than the usual straight man in these movies. Bad things happen to him, but not overly embarrassing things, once the first 15 minutes are over.

I could dedicate a whole paragraph to the amount of insanely hot girls show up in various moments throughout the movie, but instead I will just say that Alice Greczyn stands out. She is sexy, but there is a sort of innocence to her. I am not saying I believe her as an Amish girl, but I believe she could be the love of the life of a guy who has never believed in love. I would probably lead the world behind for her.

While it is not going to change the sub-genre of teenage sex comedy the way American Pie did, Sex Drive offers plenty of laughs and a few gross out moments that these movies have to have. Plus, it has one tremendous doughnut costume. I am not sure how much further teen sex comedies can push the boundaries, but I am curious to see where they lead. Now if only there was a character in these movies pointing out the absurdity of going to such lengths just to have sex.

Final Grade: C

DVD round up

I have not quite got back into watching TV shows on DVD through Netflix because I have not found a good replacement for The X-Files, so recently I have been watching for movies on DVD. I do not typically do DVD reviews, but that is mostly because I do not watch too many movies on DVD. I am not sure how regular this type of thing will appear on the blog, but I know many people rent movies more often than go to the theater, so I thought I would some mini reviews and provide maybe something for someone to watch. Featured in these DVD round ups will be movies of all types- new releases and older films. It is just a place for me to write about all the DVDs I watch.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers- This is the original version of this story. It has had a few remakes, but I am not sure I prefer any of them to this original black and white film. It is not terribly scary, but it features some really cool visuals, like when the leads are all watching the pods start to grow. It is an intense 88 minutes and nothing ever fills like filler, at all. The underlying themes of the suburbanization of America still feels absolutely fresh as we are a race of people constantly trying to get what everyone else has. Good performances, interesting direction and a cool story make up for the forced ending that tries to turn the movie into a happier moments.

Hitman- I did not expect a damn thing from this movie and turned out to be pleasantly surprised. I turned it on as background noise and within 25 minutes I put my focus fully on the movie. Yes, it is bad and full of stupid dialog like "The organization is so secret no one knows it exists." obviously people know it exists, but what it lacks in intelligence, it makes up for by having a sword fight involving 4 people and 8 swords! Yes, 8 swords, SICK! Throw in 3 or 4 nicely shot gun fights, 2 hand to hand fights and one sexy almost always nearly naked Russian girl and you make up for Timothy Olyphant sucking in the role and the trite awful dialog. it is not for everyone, but it was pure trashy fun.

Sky High- I have been hearing for a while now that this was a great superhero movie. It is a kid movie, yes, but people were swearing by it. I now understand, what a treat of a movie. Set mostly in a high school for superhero teenagers, Sky High manages to cross the genre of Superhero with the genre of teen comedy and meld them perfectly into a special effects bonanza with heart, innocence, fun, morals and some entertaining superhero stuff. From having the side kick kids in side kick school, to a main kid not having his powers on the first day of school, Sky High is the perfect teenage parable of acceptance and awkwardness. I highly recommend it.

Finding Amanda- Matthew Broderick stars as a very rich Hollywood writer/producer with a bad addiction to gambling on horses. He is a former drug and alcohol addict as well and now he has a niece who is a hooker in Las Vegas. To impress his wife, he goes to Vegas to convince the niece to go to rehab. The Niece(The perfectly vulnerable and spunky Brittany Snow) has no desire to leave. She seems to love hooking. She has a the perfect house, but it may all be a lie. Don't get the wrong impression though, it is hilarious. The dialog pops out of the mouths of the two leads as they work their way through their own demons in a very frank way. I was very much taken in by the spectacular wordy dialog and stayed for the great characters and interesting morality spins.

Appaloosa

Westerns are not typically my thing. Last year we had some good ones, but for the most part, I think Westerns are for people who want people to think they love film. Westerns are like Radiohead: you are supposed to like them so show you are serious. When the trailer first came out for Appaloosa, I thought it looked pretty good and then the reviews reaffirmed that thought. Plus, Ed Harris directed Pollack beautifully and he was directing himself here, as well. But again, Westerns are not really my thing.

Virgil Cole(Harris) and Everett Hitch(Viggo Mortenson) travel the wild wild west enforcing law. They are paid to be "good" guys and in order to do it, they make the towns adhere to their brand of justice. Included in their brand of justice is killing people if they disobey the law. They are brought to Appaloosa because the town is being terrorized by the Bragg gang, led by Randall Bragg(Jeremy Irons). Bragg killed the town's sheriff and his two Marshalls and they town wants him and his gang brought to justice. Cole is an everyman who stumbles to speak in big words and Hitch is a smart man, but a man of few words. Cole tells Hitch he cannot be one of the greats because Hitch has feelings and "feelings get you killed." This theory will be tested for Coles himself because into town strolls Allison French(Rene Zellwegger) and Coles is quickly taken by her. Allison is a piano playing, intelligent and quick witted woman, but she needs to be the center of the world and when she starts to feel neglected she tries to turn to Hitch. Coles and Hitch finally get Bragg and get him to stand trial for his crimes. As he is being transferred to his death, circumstances free him and Coles and Hitch must chase him down again.

I can think of few westerns that feature a script as smart or full of wit as Appaloosa, which is probably the biggest saving grace. First off, this is not your shoot them up western. Guns are drawn and shot only 3 or 4 times and they are not long battles. In a brilliant exchange of dialog, Hitch, after a shoot out exclaims "well that was fast" and in rhythm Coles responds "Everyone was a good shot." It perfectly summarizes the movie in whole. It is a straight to the point film that doesn't take itself overly serious. Ed Harris seems to have a very good handle on the western genre, shooting in a way that is both dirty, sparce and beautifully poetic at times. However, the most important thing in the movie becomes the relationship between Harris and Zellwegger and because of that, the movie ultimately falters.

Zellwegger's appeal is lost on me, but she and Harris have hardly any romantic chemistry. It does not feel like an age thing, they just aren't compatible. Harris and Mortenson have so much more chemistry and I would have seen more focus on them. Mortenson's Hitch bookends the movie with some voice over narration, so we are witnessing this story through his eyes. We see Allison's need to be loved and her willingness to change men quickly to get it, through his eyes. We see Coles change from a hard edged lawman to a kinder, less focused lover boy through the steely cold eyes of Viggo Mortenson's Hitch. It works better that way, I think. It seems less a study in vanity for Ed Harris, by making the audience point of view, Mortenson's point of view.

I was hoping there would be a bit more to the idea of "Feelings get you killed" because it is the tagline of the movie and it is obviously a moment of importance for Coles but in the end, feelings got everyone exactly where they were supposed to go. The ending is not clean cut in terms of being happy or anything like that, but it could have been a more interesting ending. I think it would have required the movie to go deeper than it intended to go though. I was also hoping Jeremy Irons, the greatest voiced villain ever, would have just a bit more to do, but when the movie takes an unusual turn in the third act, the Irons character kind of loses his ability to instill fear in the hearts of men.

Final Grade: C+

W.

This whole thing sounded like a bad idea from the get-go. Why I went to see it was beyond me, really. I enjoy most of the actors and I have enjoyed plenty of Oliver Stone movies, especially his more off the wall crazy movies, which this one looked like. The concept was decided on in March, it was shot in 6 weeks, edited in two months, promoted semi quietly and now it is here. The whole process was only like 6 months, which is kind of exciting and very scary all at the same time. The trailers are all over the top which made me believe this would be something actually worth watching.

The story is straight forward. This is the story of George W. Bush starting in college and ending a few years ago. The movies switches between post-9/11 and Bush's life from his Yale time until he runs for President. We get the major events that are well documented and probably some that are less so. Throughout the whole thing, Bush is presented as a good-ole boy who seems to mean well and is likable but is led around by Cheney and others whom are smarter than he is. Josh Brolin, as Bush, presents a pretty complex character full of inner turmoil. A man with daddy issues, a lack of work ethic and who is unsure of what his future holds. Oliver Stone seems a little timid to go fully crazy. In fact, the whole movie seems a bit timid. I wanted something all over the place and some non-stop zaniness. Instead I got a boring movie that goes nowhere and brings up nothing inventive or interesting.

Some great performances get lost in the shuffle of this mess of a movie. Josh Brolin is excellent, James Cromwell as Bush Senior presents a great counter-point and Bush's staff is filled out with some great performances. Richard Dreyfuss' Dick Cheney is a conniving piece of garbage who plays on Bush' naive nature and Toby Jones' Karl Rove is played as an energetic little man-child who is a little keen on Bush. To round it out is Thandie Newton as Condelezza Rice, as a little girl with a big crush on Bush and in the best performance of the whole shindig is Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell. Wright gives Powell a nice sense of gravitas that raises above all of the silliness of it. However, enduring two hours of W. almost voids the whole thing.

The jokes almost all fall flat or are so easy, that it is surprising I paid for something that isn't even as good as a good SNL sketch about politics. And, how can you make a movie about W without any mention of the events of 9/11. I get a bit sad even thinking of the whole thing today. I know it is getting good reviews and I should like it because it takes shots at a conservative regime, but I was checking my watch throughout the entire movie.

Final Grade: D-
Performances: B+

Body of Lies

Yes, the title of this movie sounds like it should star Angie Everhart and Richard Greico and it should premiere late night on Cinemax. Yes, the movie is another movie about the war on terror in Iraq because that is really what we need or want right now. Yes, the movie pretty much bombed(excuse the pun) at the box office and yes, it is time for Russell Crowe to move on from being in Ridley Scott directed movies. Yet, it does have the nice combination of Russell Crowe and Leonado Decaprio and is directed by Ridley Scott, so it couldn't possibly be a bad movie.

I am going to keep the summary pretty basic so as to not ruin the few surprises or twists that are scattered throughout. Roger Farris(Decaprio) is a field operative for the C.I.A currently in Iran, trying to find the man responsible for a series of bombings. His mission goes horribly wrong and he ends up being responsible for the death of a friend and ends up with cuts all over. he gets transferred to Jordan where he will be working with Jordanian intelligence led by Hani(Mark Strong). Stateside, Ed Hoffman(Crowe) is running the operation from a cell phone while doing the mundane family tasks. He is consistently undermining Farris and putting Farri's job and trust at risk because he doesn't have the luxury of Patience. One night as Farris is chasing a guy he gets his leg torn up by some dogs and meets a nurse, Aisha(Golshifteh Farahani). They begin a friendship as Farris tries to find a sense of peace with what he does.

That is all I feel terribly comfortable giving out as Body of Lies, plays out in a series of possible double crosses and a few twists that vary in degrees of surprise. What Body of Lies lacks in originality it makes for in many other areas. Spy movies are rarely totally original, I mean how many different ways can people be double crossed? What Body of Lies brings to the table is confident direction, great performances, a script with some nice moments of relief and a few truly brutal moments. As I was watching Decaprio, I couldn't find that timid soft spoken actor from Titanic anywhere. He has fully transformed into a strong and confident actor. His Farris is a respectful, tolerant but wily and smart agent and Decaprio, as the movie's main focus really nails it. It isn't Oscar worthy material or anything, but he keeps you riveted, especially in the final act, where he ramps up the intensity. Crowe is also great, which is quite a feat considering the screen time and the kind of screen time he has. Most of his stuff is expository and kind of light and Crowe does wonders with it. He is so perfect at the subtlety of a line like "Well, I should probably pack." He handles the whole thing quite well. However, Mark Strong, as Hani the Jordanian intelligence leader, really steals the movie in a star making turn. He has an Andy Garcia quality to him and really falls into the role perfectly. He keeps us wondering if he can be trusted or not and he shows that ruthless can be played with class and style. The costumer puts him in these spectacular suits and it helps him fit the role perfectly. It makes me excited to see his villain turn in next year's Sherlock Holmes movie.

For his part, Scott keeps things moving along at a brisk pace. The movie never comes to a stop and even when it slows down, Scott manages to keep the intensity of every scene moving. Even in scenes with Decaprio and the lovely Iranian woman, we never get full sense of calm. I am not sure if it is because of how it was filmed or why, but I never felt a moment of sure rest, even in the lighter moments. One scene in particular balances the light and the heavy. Farris is invited to eat with Aisha and Aisha's sister and Farris has a light hearted and funny conversation with the children but follows it up by being grilled by the sister about the war. This movie kind of walks that line. Crowe and Decaprio have a few conversations that border on too silly for the movie, but it always pulls back in with some cool spy stuff.

It isn't exactly the movie you would hope it would be given the talent involved, but it is a nice addition to the espionage sub-genre and it features a whopper of a torture scene and a better than expected third act. Decaprio has transformed himself into a true star in terms of acting and Crowe seems perfectly comfortable taking the back seat. He is Scottie Pippen in this movie and it suits him. I went in with not terribly elevated expectations and was pleasantly surprised at how it all worked. Scott has directed better movies, even a better war movie (Black Hawk Down), but Body of Lie works way more often than it doesn't.

Final Grade: B-

Max Payne

I could be considered a pretty big fan of Mark Wahlberg. I think he works as an action star and actually works in odd comedies(His performance in I Heart Huckabees is classic). More than anything though, Wahlberg works when he has guns in his hand. He belongs in movies where he is shooting at people. I tried to play the Max Payne video games, but the controls didn't work for me, so I have no idea if Wahlberg is the fit for the character but the character carries guns and so Wahlberg is perfect for it in my eyes, and that is all that matters. My one worry going in was that the movie is only PG-13 and it looks like should be R.

In a dark and dank version of New York, Max Payne(Wahlberg) stalks to the streets looking for the guy who murdered his pregnant wife. He is a former murder detective who now works in the cold case unit. He uses old contacts to find the killer. One night he meets a sexy woman, Natasha(Olga Kurylenko), who has tattoos of wings, which intrigues Payne. Natasha wants sex, saying she'll pretend to be Payne's dead wife, which is a total turn off for Payne. She leaves and then is killed. Payne's old partner finds Payne because Natasha had his wallet on her. Payne doesn't talk but the old partner later notices Natasha's tattoo is the same as a tattoo on one of the people who killed Payne's wife, who was killed by Payne. The partner is promptly killed and Payne becomes a suspect. Meanwhile, Natasha's sister, Mona Sax(The very sexy, but very miscast Mila Kunis) is looking for Natasha's killer which leads her to Payne. Payne and Mona team up to try to find out what is happening. SO what is happening? There is a drug on the street, Valkeir, that causes some seriously wicked hallucinations leading to death. The drug was created by a pharacudical company, where Payne's wife used to work, and the idea of the drug was to make super soldiers because the drug makes users super strong. Unfortunately in 99% of users it causes those suicidal tendencies. Payne trusts the wrong people and gunfire ensues often.

In a case of style over substance, Max Payne is at times stunning and awesome and at times boring and tedious. John Moore, the director of such movies as The Omen(remake) and Flight of the Phoenix, directs Payne with a strong visual hand but not much else. Also, in showing the hypocrisy of the MPAA rating system, Max Payne has about the highest body count one could possibly have in a PG-13 movie because there is no blood. Instead of blood, we get striking red visuals throughout the movie as a possible substitute for the blood. It gives the movie a sort of Sin City light feeling because the movie is so dark and and drab, but these fiery reds streaking across the screen in letters or sets. The violence is paced well and choreographed well and of course,e Wahlberg with guns in his hand, rules the Earth. The gun blasts are so loud and vivid, you jump the first few times you hear them, especially in the public bathroom scene. In terms of the hallucinations, the visuals are truly intense and spectacular, in particular when Payne himself takes the drug. What we see are gigantic winged gargoyle looking Angels, that all look like shadow creatures and the loom over the city and tear roofs off of the building and make painful screeching sounds. They give the effects of the drug quite a nice visual kick for us. The camera, with quick jilted movements help emphasis what a strange drug trip it is for people.

The good kind of ends there though. The story is muddled and the writing quite terrible. Wahlberg is usually charismatic, but he is lifeless as Payne, some of that is the fact that the character is lifeless, sure, but he could have brought something to it. Kunis is sexy as hell wielding weapons, but she doesn't work as a bad ass, in my opinion. Her voice and body language don't really incite fear the way you want them too. Ludacris, as a cop, sets the rapper turned actor movement back a few years with his dreadful acting. he can't make any of his lines sound fluid or real. Beau Bridges as a confidant of Payne's doesn't really add anything whatsoever and while it was nice to see Chris O' Donnell on screen again, he doesn't get enough screen time to really give us anything worthwhile. In scenes where there isn't action the movie comes to a screeching halt and none of the actors have much chemistry.

Also, if you have a fear of drowning stay away from Max Payne. The movie opens on and comes back to, a scene of Payne struggling to survive in water and it is a violent, visceral experience of what it looks like to drown. The water loudly crashes against his struggling body and he dips under the water and he shoots up trying not to choke on the water. It is a loud, messy and scary moment that sets things in motion very well. The way the camera dips under the water really captured me and put me right in the water with Max. It is moments like this that make me believe there should have been a better movie here. I know movies shouldn't be all action all of the time, but when a director as such a vivid visual style, you kind of wish they could be. John Moore may not know what to do in times of story or character, but he certainly knows how to stage a drugged out high and because of that, I will rate this higher than it maybe deserves.

Final Grade: C+

Religulous

There was a span of about 5 years where Bill Maher and his show, Politically Incorrect, was appointment television for me. I thought that man was hilarious, polarizing, charismatic and asked interesting and thought provoking questions. Then, the show was cancelled and I lost my interest in the man. I think it was two years later when I stumbled on a stand up special of his and after about 3 minutes concluded he had lost it. Nothing was easier at the time than jokes about Priests and young boys, but the entire section I saw was full of those easy jokes. My other point of view going into this movie, is known to those who know me, but for anyone justs tumbling onto this review blog, I should fully disclose that I grew up Mormon (I no longer affiliate with it) and religion has long been an interest of mine.

As far as documentaries go this is a pretty straight forward one. Bill Maher hates religion and interviews people to find out why people buy into it. He talks to Christians, Muslims and Jews. He talks to a Catholic Cardinal, ex-Mormons, Ex-Jews for Jesus, Muslim leaders, a Muslim rapper, Jewish Rabbis and even a guy who believes he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. He talks to black ministers, reformed Gays, Gay Muslims, scientists and a guy who plays Jesus in a reenactment at the Jesus version of Disneyland. He also talks to random people on the street and gets kicked out of the Vatican and The Mormon Temple Square. Maher is a funny interviewer although very combative at times and yes, he is out to trick his interview subjects.

Religulous plays like Borat crossed with Michael Moore movies. Maher attacks easy marks like Borat and incorporates music, cartoons, subtitles and clips from existing sources to make his point in the way Moore does. If you go back and see my Borat review, or have had discussions with me about Borat, you would know, my biggest issue with the movie, aside from not being funny in any way, is that Borat attacked easy targets. We all knew that homophobia exists in the south and that frat boys are misogynistic. When Maher opened this movie talking to a group of Christian Truckers, I thought, "Oh great, here we go again." The fundamental issue with intelligent conversation or debate on religion is that religion is not based in intelligence. That is not to say that only idiots subscribe to religion, it is saying that people who have faith, are led by their faith and not facts trying to prove or not prove the existence of God. It is easy for Maher to make people who have faith look stupid and it is easy for "I have faith" to be a cop-out in a debate. This presents a problem for Maher's interview tactics. He does land some nice punches and he gets people to say stupid things like a U.S Senator saying "You don't have to takes an I.Q test to be a senator."

What Maher should have focused more energy on is the hypocrisy of the commercialization of religion. When he goes there he scores great laughs and great points. He confronts a minister who wears $2,000.00 dollar suits, has lizard skin boots and thousands of dollars worth of bling and wonders if Jesus would be happy about it. The highlight of the movie was the Catholic Cardinal who admitted he hated the excess of the Vatican. The guy was funny, honest and humble. He seemed to "get" his faith in a way so many do not. Maher does contradict himself in one moment though, that bugged me. Maher spends a lot of the movie trying to convince Christians that the bible is a dated book, that it contains things that no longer apply and that to believe 100% something from a book written so long ago maybe is not the best way to go. He makes the point "What else from those ages do we still use?" Well, nothing really. However, when a Muslim woman tells him that she believe the violence spouted by Muhammad was meant only for the days of Muhammad, Maher attacks her by saying, Well the book says it is to be. Maher tries to have it be both ways. Here is an intelligent and peaceful Muslim woman who buys into the theory he spouted to the Christians and he has to attack her. It doesn't work.

Of course, Maher is preaching to the choir in this movie because no real religious person is going to watch it. He makes the point repeatedly that the story of Jesus follows countless ancient myths, like Horus and that religion is man-made solely. Maher doesn't believe in God and he has problems with God because he asks those all too frequent questions "Why would God allow the Holocaust to happen" Or "Why would 9-11 happen?" These are important questions to non-believers and the only answer faith based people can give is that we can never understand God's will. For Maher, those kinds of answers are not even close to sufficient. Towards the end of the movie, Maher loses that sense of humor and goes for the jugular in two impressively written and even more impressively delivered rants aimed square at not just people of faith, but people who do not have faith, but refuse to challenge faith based people. Maher is angry and eloquent all at the same time and his message is clear: Religion, with its violence, intolerance and hypocrisy, is dangerous. If God was not involved any group who practiced such blatant homophobia, violence and monetary hypocrisy would be considered a blight on mankind.

I do want to mention that Religulous is a very funny and interesting movie. I did not mean for this to turn solely on religion, but I also want to say that Maher was not exactly fair and balanced here. He did get intelligent men to debate him and Maher did hold his own and at times best people, but Maher spends an awful long amount of time grouping religion into religious fanaticism. Not all people of faith are out for blood and not all people of faith are homophobic. The religions may have homophobia engraved in the tenets, but not all people who subscribe to religion are fanatics and I am not sure that group was represented well in Maher's skewering of religion. Bill Maher makes so many great points, but at times, he is does get lost in his own mission. Of course, there are times when he doesn't even have to make the jokes because the jokes just happen, like two theme parks- one based solely around the Crucifixion and another by a faith based group out to explain science and the bible co-existing by having animitronic dinosaurs right next to anamitronic children. Those jokes can't be written folks!

Final Grade: B

City of Ember

Books are always better than the movie on which they are based. The most annoying thin g a person can snidely say is "The book was better." Of course the book was better. The book typically has much more time, language and ideas it can get across. Also, the entire action takes place in our mind and no image on a movie screen can compare to the images that flicker in our own imaginations. It is just the way it is. Perhaps then, the best compliment a movie can receive is that the movie made me want to read the book. If a movie based on a book I have not read is a good movie, why wouldn't I want to read the book, if books are always better? I mention this for this movie because I now have a desire to read the book, and maybe even the others in the series.

Ember is an underground city that needs to exist for 200 years. It was built in hopes of maintaining the human race after some unexplained event that wipes out the above world. The city is supposed to last for 200 years and after 200 years a box will open with instructions on how to leave Ember. Each mayor holds onto the box, but something happens after one Mayor's death and the box disappears. I have never seen a movie that so quickly and effectively spanned 200 years. It is a manner of minutes before we are 200 years later in the story. Ember is starting to fall apart, the self sustaining artificial lights are starting to freak out because the generator was only meant to last 200 years, only no one seems to know. The Mayor, Cole(Bill Murray) is a clueless and mean Mayor, who has a giant pot belly, when the rest of Ember is barely scraping by. The story focuses on two young people, Lina Mayfleet(Saoirse Ronan) and Doon(Harry Treadway), who have just been assigned their jobs in Ember. Doon got messenger and Lina got pipeworker, but Doon trades her because he wants to be closer to the generator that he believes he can fix. Lina's younger sister finds the magical box and Lina begins to piece it together trying to figure out what it means. She and Doon quickly realize they are directions to leave Ember, which no one thought existed.

City of Ember is the kind of movie that everyone ignores, but shouldn't. Every year so many movies come out aimed at kids, based on books that have supernatural type flavor and some catch on and some get lost. City of Ember has gotten lost and it doesn't deserve to be lost. Ember moves quickly, features an amazing CGI city (Some of the other CGi miss the mark, admittedly), is thrilling, interesting and complex. Of course, it is also too dark and maybe a bit scary for kids. It is a PG movie in the vein of The Goonies or other adventure movies. I am not saying it is comparable to The Goonies, but it is similarly themed. The two young stars are both good here and Bill Murray and Tim Robbins add a nice adult presence. Murray doesn't deliver the laughs you might expect from him, but he facilitates the villain role well enough. Robbins has become a master at playing disaffected weirdos and here he adds another character to that genre of characters. Ember is a dark movie and doesn't offer the kind of escapism people are looking for as we watch Ember go through the hardships of an economic downturn and the citizens are in constant fear during the very scary blackout sequences. It seems that the soul or spirit of humanity has been lost as these underground citizens remain unsure of what is going on.

There are many unanswered questions that I think will annoy people, but I kind of enjoyed that aspect. We never find out what happened above ground that caused the demolition of the human race. Whatever it is, it may have been the cause of turning small animals into giant animals. We see a giant bee and a mole looking creature that is botrh impressive and very scary looking, with these weird tentacle looking things and a nasty appetite. The ending will also probably provoke questions, which I think is a good thing. Is the ending happy? One could make that argument, but there is still so much left about which to be curious. I know that a young person movie has to wrap up in time for kids not to get squirrelly, so I am sure some of the stuff got left on the cutting room floor. But I have so many questions. I want to know more. I need to know more. I was even hypnotized by the crisp sound in the movie. Throughout the whole movie you could hear the water dripping from the tiniest corner of the frame. It is mesmerizing for me.

It is not all that often that a movie aimed at young people gets me these days. Pixar being the exception of course. However, City of Ember has me interested. I want more time in that dark and dirty city. I want to know more about how the whole thing works. The movie leaves some to be desired, but it also has made me care enough to know more. I want to know why English hasn't seemed to change much in 200 years, but the names have gotten stranger. Maybe I am over-thinking it (Me, NO, NEVER!), but I am fully committed to this idea of an underground city that has a very cool and elaborate way out. And to me, that signals that the movie did its job of thrilling and entertaining me. I was never bored and when it was over, I felt relief, sort of. Oh and if you need more of a reason to see it, the woman who wrote Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare before Christmas wrote the script, so you know it is interesting.

Final Grade: B+