BMF Movie Reviews

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2009-10-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

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Fast and Furious

2009-09-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

Since when did it become obvious that a fourth installment of the street racing series was not only needed, but wanted by “fans” of the originals? Seriously, the last flick, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift made half as much as the second film, checking in at a paltry $62 million dollars. Really, this is what warrants quad-quels nowadays? Ah, it has been long enough since the original film debuted in 2001 and all the subsequent iterations watered down that crisp, clean, original formula. So maybe it was time to get the band back together! Quick hit: no, it wasn’t!

Fast and Furious brings the original players back to the street with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster comprising our starring couple of couples. This film actually is a mid-three-quel or a sequel-in-a-half, as far as timelines go. Strangely enough, this franchise feels continuity is important and thusly, creates a space five years after the original film for this one to take place. As a result, this is the 4th installment, but it takes place between the 2nd and 3rd films. But who really cares, all that matters is that the band is back together!

No, it doesn’t! For the first time in any of these movies, including the original, Fast and Furious tries to present a real plot. Why!? Every other film was simply a street racing, semi-action, low on IQ romp dressed up as something else. Like in the original, we were supposed to be following an undercover Paul Walker who was infiltrating the street racing scene, but really it was street rocket scenes glued together by bad acting. Now, in Fast and Furious, you have a sorta redemption, crime-thriller, revenge flick masquerading as a brainless street racer flick. And unfortunately for this franchise equation, these converses are not equivalent. I apologize for referencing a mathematical formula, but my brain rebelled after getting dumb from watching the flick.

So, with this “plot” driving the movie, we get collateral damage as well, in the form of pensive Vin Diesel and matured Paul Walker. Look, the original film is no masterpiece no matter how hard it tried to recreate the Point Break feel. But at least you had a goofy-ass Paul Walker, who while oblivious to his DBag status, was at least called out on it by those around him. And you had Vin Diesel, in arguably his star-making role, embodying the justifiably confident badass that owns everyone.

Now you have a “real fed” in Paul Walker, forcing him to cleave what little charisma he already possesses, and a saddy sad but maddy mad Vin Diesel out on a revenge mission. He’s like a robot, and you might expect that out of his acting already, but he’s like that only cranked to “11” on the dial. If you’re gonna bring the band back together, at least let them play their old songs.

Overall, this is a flat film. This is the first time I’ve ever said this, but the choice to focus on an actual plot cut the legs out from this film. If you can’t have Vin being Vin and cool street races, then this isn’t the Fast and Furious that I know! There was one magnificent line, when Vin states the obvious after beating Paul in an early race, but an entire movie isn’t worth that one chuckle. Out of the 1500 horses under the hood of the Chevy, Fast and Furious sputters along with 650 horse power. This movie needed to be a fun adrenaline ride, not a “everyone’s a downer” flick of brooding.

Adventureland

2009-09-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

It’s a little bit sad realizing how old you’re getting. It didn’t seem so long ago that fun, nostalgic flicks focused on times too distant for me to truly relate to. The 60s, the 70s, free love, bad hair, whatever the case, looked fun even if I couldn’t directly understand the eras. Nowadays, Hollywood is churning out 80s based nostalgia, and that’s scary. This isn’t The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles, comedies in contemporary settings. Nope, this is stuff looking back, making light-hearted fun of the fashion, the music, the hair, everything that made the Regan-era. The scary thing is that I know all about it because I actually lived through it. Quick hit: the latest nostalgia, indie dramedy isn’t quite rad, but it’s decent.

Adventureland focuses on a cast of characters slight older than you might expect, but who look younger than any Michael Cera-starring comedy that you’ve seen. Centered on James, played by Jessie Eisenberg, Adventureland follows his “coming of age” story during his pre-grad school summer. Instead of going on the clichéd backpacking trip through Europe, James is forced to find a summer job after his parents inform him of financial difficulties. After searching for any type of employment, James is only able to land a job at the local amusement park. And not even a cool job like manning the rides, nope James only gets to handle various gaming booths.

What follows is the supposedly deep, vaguely insightful trials of James and the misfits of the park. He makes connections with a couple of the fellows, he falls for Bella from Twightlight, and lusts after some other chick doing her best Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam impression. Then you get some funny moments with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park managers. And lastly, you get some darkly adult moments starring Ryan Reynolds, the prerequisite “cool older guy” of the flick.

The strangest thing about this flick, the thing that leaves this a little off-kilter, is the mismatched setting: college graduates experiencing high school issues. Why? There’s no apparent reason for this, other than the subplot involving Ryan Reynolds, and maybe that was the supposed hook of the film. However, everyone else is going through first date, first kiss, sneaking out, and secret house party hijinks that you would expect to wrapped around American Pie/Superbad settings. In the end, it doesn’t make the film bad, but it creates a weird experience when ideas clash and crash the mood.

Yet, the flick is decent for what it is. There are tender moments and funny moments, but most of these are wrapped around long periods of nothingness. And that’s not an existential comment, that’s a statement of fact. You’ll have times where James is sitting at the park, trying to make it through the mundane boredom, and you’ll be bored right alongside with him. Maybe he’s a really good actor! Probably not.

Overall, Adventureland is a movie that sits there. Highly touted when it first arrived at the theaters, Adventureland doesn’t quite live up to its critical acclaim. Then again, it was placed in that rare realm of Juno-Waittress-indie-flick-greatness, and those flicks weren’t really that great. So maybe Adventureland lives exactly where it should be, in the company of those overrated-but-still-decent movies. Out of a roll of 100 quarters, Adventure wins the smallest stuffed animal with 60 quarters.

17 Again

2009-09-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

Zac Efron mania! The birth of a heartthrob happened a couple summers ago when High School Musical surprised the non-Disney Channel public with a smash hit. Efron went on to steal the show in Hairspray, further cementing his status as prettiest pretty boy in town. Then something called Twilight came along, and pale, broody Robert Pattison stole Efron’s show. So sad, but truth be told, RPats owns all females at this moment, and Zac is just a backup. Why do I feel like I’m a writer for Tiger Beat? Why am I even continuing to write about this? Quick hit: the reverse Big squarely designed to be Zac’s star-making vehicle is actually decent enough to cause major disbelief and head scratching from any non-teenage-girl viewer.

Strange, I know, that a Zac Efron/teen comedy isn’t immediately hurl-inducing for anyone over the age of 15. Yet, it seems the producers and directors knew this would be the sentiment from the start and worked extra hard to remove the saccharine overload. Instead, we’re served with a mostly mediocre, cookie-cutter age transformation flick, but that’s a win in its own right. It’s like one of those horrible sports clichés: this is a good defeat, or this is a strong loss, or whatever stupid oxymoron you want to assign it.

Starting with Matthew Perry as a life-long defeated Debbie-downer, 17 Again paints by the numbers to set up the plot. Perry is a flailing pharmaceutical rep, a distant husband, and an absentee dad. Imagine Al Bundy mixed with Chandler from Friends, and you get the basic character. Once his fed-up wife demands a divorce and his kids do everything possible to maintain an icy, vacant relationship, Perry stumbles upon a high school visit and a brief encounter with the mysteriously old, no-named janitor. Cue reminiscing and life full of regrets, cut to weird night time storm and river, lead into Zac Efron now dressed in Matthew Perry’s suit the next morning. Ta-da, you got your age shift, you got your problems-that-need-solving, you got your high school temptations of making better choices, blah blah blah. Like you expected, paint-by-numbers simplicity.

However, 17 Again exhibits just enough self-awareness that it plays off these clichés quite nimbly. First, you have Efron’s best friend, Ned Gold played by one of the cops from Reno 911, acting as the geeky know-it-all guide. Only, he’s really middle-aged, he’s 40 Year Old Virgin loserish, but he’s rich because he’s so geeky. Then you have things like Efron breaking into dance and cheer before the basketball game, only to wake up from his dream. Perhaps the best in-joke of the entire film revolves around one of Zac’s high school pursuers and their reasoning as to why he wants to reject them, that single joke might have made this entire flick worth watching.

And speaking of Efron, kudos to his actual acting talents. No kudus to his basketball talents, because he looks like one of those guys who can sorta play ball, but really tries hard only to be barely average. The fact that they make him a basketball stud just makes you kinda chuckle. But back to his acting skills, there are numerous times where he channels Matthew Perry to a tee, which is fun to notice. Stories were that Perry would recite Zac’s lines, and Zac would use that to model his own performance. Whatever the case, Efron does a very good job of being de-aged Perry throughout the flick.

Overall, 17 Again is mostly reverse-Big starring Zac instead of Tom Hanks. The flick is decent at throwing some adult-targeted jokes into the mix, and the story wasn’t anything horrible. That probably doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but coming from the point of view that this would be a complete brain-deadening two hours, that’s seems pretty good. You’ll find the exact level of humor and enjoyment out of this movie as you would expect, nothing more and nothing less. Out of the 12 years of school, 17 Again avoids detention by reaching 7th grade.

District 9

2009-08-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Whether it’s a low-budget indie flick, most likely starring Micheal Cera, or a low-budget sci-fi flick starring vomit-inducing unsteady cam, there’s always at least one movie that “sneaks up” on audiences and delivers the “surprise hit of the” fill-in-the-season. Last year, you had Cloverfield come out to some decent reviews. You had Juno and Waitress and stuff like excite the critics to uneasy proportions. This year, we get an Independence Day meets Halo meets political allegory to keep us entertained through the hot August nights. Quick hit: quite entertaining.

District 9 is the brainchild of one Neil Blomkamp. Who’s Neil Blomkamp? One rich mother now who’s laughing over his bitterly cold platter of sweet revenge. You see, Peter Jackson, yes Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson, had signed on to produce a Halo flick. He tapped Blomkamp to helm the hundred-million dollar movie even though Mr. Blomkamp had all the experience of an assistant gaffer. That’s when the studios said, um, no. That’s when Peter Jackson said, fine, go take a long jump off a short pier, sticking to his man Blomkamp and telling Blomkamp to make a full-length feature off of the short he had previously developed, Alive in Joberg.

And that’s where District 9 came from: a tale of a spaceship, shanty towns, and shrimp-like looking aliens. The interesting thing? Critics loved that it takes up a higher cause, drawing parallels to apartheid in South Africa. In the District 9 universe, a giant alien spaceship arrives and proceeds to hover. Turns out the aliens have no one in command, leaving the humans to theorize that all we have left are the “worker” bees of this alien hive. So, doing as humans do, they drag those aliens down to the surface, set-up a big old refugee area, and sorta run it with military authority.

Yet, the whole political allegory thing takes up around 20 minutes of this flick. Yes, we get to the how the area, District 9, has evolved into a massive slum. We see how the aliens are treated with annoyed disdain, pandered to with little effort and thrown the scraps of humanity. We see how the aliens adjust and make due, becoming a teeming mess of scavenging, poverty-stricken prisoners. It’s not a pretty sight, and it’s not really meant to be. Bad humans, bad!

However, most of District 9 becomes a simple, guerrilla-style sci-fi thriller. Focusing on Wikus Van De Merwe, and goofy, mostly-prejudiced, but largely unintimidating MNU officer, District 9 follows the same beats that you would expect any entertaining movie to do. Tasked as the head of an eviction force, Wikus hams it up for the cameras as he leads the charge to “legally” evict the aliens from District 9 and move them to the more remote, even less humane District 10. As Wikus mentions at one point, it’s not a better place, it’s more like a prisoner camp.
Ah, but what would a sci-fi flick be without conflict? Wikus falls prey to some alien technology and suddenly becomes a victim, a valuable commodity, and a fugitive all at the same time. Moving into the realm of The Fly-meets-The Fugutive, Wikus must escape from the now “evil” humans, survive amongst the aliens he disdainfully condemns, and find an impossible solution to his predicament. This means, good times!

Presented partly as a pseudo-documentary, District 9 offers personal testimonials interspersed with “actual” field footage, security cameras, gun-mounted cameras, and news footage to present a off-kilter, reality-version movie. And largely, it succeeds, with little vomit-inducing shakiness, but lots of extreme close-up-in-the-face of anxiety-inducing reality for all those involved. There’s some fun action sequences, especially once we get to see the alien technology come into play. It’s like a great live-version of a video game, with chain guns, plasma rifles, sonic rays, and all the other good stuff that you would want to power-up on to get past the next box. Even the wonky Mech Warrior battlesuit is fun to watch, because low budgets often mean creative ways to make fake things look cool.

Overall, District 9 is a fun ride, but apparently not for everyone. Is this your completely brain-dead, look at the shiny robots, Transformers-level drivel? No, not at all, it actually has some poignant scenes and allows one to think, even if just a tiny, tiny bit about bad things done by you and me. But really, it’s not a deep movie, it’s not what the critics are touting as socially conscious dressed up in sci-fi. It’s just well-written sci-fi that you should see. It’s sad when a simple, but interesting idea is held up as the pinnacle of innovation and creativeness; however, it is great that we got to see it in the first place. Out of 1.8 million refugee aliens, District 9 staves off eviction with 1.26 miillion alien “prawns” leading the charge. A solid flick to check out!

Inglourious Basterds

2009-08-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

I’m surprised this didn’t get released as The 5th Film From Quentin Tarantino. Seriously, when Kill Bill was released, that was the big tagline. And strangely, or no so strangely, Tarantino stood by that tagline with boastful pride. He said it reflected his growth as a filmmaker and it made sense to tout his fourth outing as a director...I guess? I mean, four films, is that a lot? Is that something to hang your hat on? I guess quality over quantity, huh? So, what does that make the 5th film? Quick hit: actually, it makes it a damn good flick.

Inglourious Basterds sticks to a couple Tarantino staples: seemingly unconnected stories and characters intertwining in eventual payoff story threads, and a film literally broken up by chapter breaks and titles. For a basic summary, let’s just say there are lots of people out to even the score against WWII Germany. However, seeing as how Germany was powerful enough to occupy France and aim for world domination, just because one wants to get even doesn’t mean they can get even.

A little more detail? One subplot involves Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine, the hick from Tennessee who’s out to invoke harmful damage to the enemy. He puts together a “band of brothers” and their mission is simple: hunt, kill, and scalp until the Germans bow in fear and terror. A second subplot actually opens the film, as family of Jews hides from the infamous Colonel Hans Landa. And if one survives the hunting German, where does that leave them four years later?

Ah, but what ties the story together is the aforementioned Landa, played by Christopher Waltz. In the most chillingly dynamic performance of the year, Waltz is the absolute embodiment of vile charm possible. He’s an educated linguist, he’s a brilliant tactician, and he’s an intimidating interrogator. There isn’t a scene he doesn’t steal and it’s because of him that you’re drawn to this flick over the course of two-and-a-half hours. Without him, and Tarantino has said as much, this flick doesn’t even exist.

Beyond that, Tarantino surprises with his self-proclaimed opus. And yet, that’s not boastful rapping about his newest project. Tarantino worked over a decade to develop this film, committed, backed out, recommitted, held off on pushing forward until he found the perfect Landa, and delivered his most entertaining film yet. Yes, more enjoyable than even Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s legend was built largely off of Pulp Fiction, and while every one of his films has distinct voices, they all speak in the same tongue: Tarantino-laced dialogue, over-the-top violence, and self-referential to the point where it sometimes crosses the line of “I’m cool cause I know I’m trying to be cool and I know you know that I’m trying to be cool.” Inglourious Basterds actually exhibits none of the last point, which is extremely refreshing for a Tarantino film. The violence is there, but it’s not “I’m gonna shock you into thinking this is awesome”. And the dialogue, while very good, doesn’t stray too far into “I’m a great writer, see watch this” territory.

In fact, this is Tarantino’s homage to a couple different genres and he doesn’t weigh it down in excess. This is the band of rebel misfits out on death missions flick. This is the Casablanca-we’re in the middle of a war and making movies to lift the spirits of our country flick. This is caper-esque-we’re doing the impossible and it’ll take all of us to do it flick, if less so than the others. Yes, this is all that, rolled into one nice, albeit long, package.

Overall, Tarantino delivers his first general audience flick. Meaning, you don’t have to be a fan of his style to “appreciate” the nuances of the filmmaking. Nope, this is your whoop ass, lets riff on the WWII backdrop while offering some over-the-top action. In short, this is the opus he was hoping to deliver. Out of 100 enemy scalps, Inglourious Basterds takes no prisoners with 80. It’s a violent, but enjoyable ride the whole way through.

Fanboys

2009-08-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

To the uninitiated, the term fanboys generally refers to the comic/sci-fi culture. Often semi-derogatory, fanboys is used to describe your stereotypical “geek”: prime example being Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons. However, like many groups, fanboys have adopted the term to empower their own agendas, and calling someone a fanboy isn’t as bad as it was before. Yet make no mistake, if you’re a fanboy, that means you’re attending the San Diego Comic Con…for the fifth year in a row, you’re buying comics…and toys…and more comics. You sometimes dress up as comic characters or superheroes…even when it’s not Halloween. Yes, these are the burdens you’ll be assigned when referred to as a fanboy…and I too, will admit to being a fanboy. But not too often. So how’s a small-time flick centered around this pop-sub-culture? Quick hit: mildly endearing.

Fanboys could just as easily be named Star Wars Geeks, but maybe that was too confining. Centered around a group of young adults in Ohio, we see how some fanboys embrace their geekdom to extreme levels. There are three in the group, the weird looking kid from Tropic Thunder, the weird looking dude from Balls of Fury, and the wannabe movie producer in The Girl Next Door. Together, they’ve graduated high school and achieved nothing. However, when they show up at a Halloween party, they do show up in style, as Darth Vader and two Stormtroopers. Strangely enough, they’re not overly ostracized or made the butt of jokes, they’re simply some of the geekier folks there.

Then there’s the one who grew up, Jimmy Olsen from Superman Returns. Once close to the other three, he’s now a working man, a salesman at his dad’s car dealership, and one who shuns his past. He arrives at the party and awkwardness ensues.

Let’s cut to the chase, Jimmy Olsen claims to be proud that he’s outgrown his friends, even though it cost him his best friend for life, the Girl Next Door dude. Well, being a movie that requires conflict and purpose, Jimmy finds out that his friend is dying from cancer. That, coupled with the fact that this flick is set in 1999 right before the new Star Wars movies were first released, lead to a buddy-guys-out road trip. In an attempt to patch their friendship and spur everyone to better things, the group decides to carry out a plan they had from their youth: storm George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, now with the intent on seeing an early cut of what would become Star Wars: Episode 1.

So, we get to see some amusing stuff. Their vehicle of choice is the obligatory black van decorated like the Millennium Falcon. There are random hijinks, like the stop in Las Vegas, the showdown with Trekkers, and whatnot. There’s funny cameos from the likes of William Shatner, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher. All in all, its pretty harmless fun, something like a vulgar road trip movie without the vulgarity.

Yet, to take it to the next level, Fanboys tries to introduce some points of earnest compassion. The entire cancer subplot plays the biggest role, but additional things like Kristin Bell playing the geeky tomboy who is more than that also inserts itself. Unfortunately, these attempts to add high-level value to the movie fall a little flat and remain a little underdeveloped. Granted, this isn’t a film striving to be an Oscar contender, but the attempts at weightiness are a little…light. Hehehe.

Overall, Fanboys is a fun flick. Just a brief history lesson, this was actually scheduled to be released in the fall of 2007. However, the budget was increased that allowed for reshoots, which pushed the release back to early 2008. Then all hell broke loose, directors were replaced, cancer subplots were removed, release dates were pushed to summer of 2008. Then directors were brought back, new cuts were made in 36 hours, and a screening finally happened at Comic Con 2008. The release was scheduled for November 2008, but that didn’t happen either. Eventually, it hit a small release in February of 2009, and died away to video. And I finally caught it last night, August of 2009, nearly two years after its intended release. It’s a shame because with proper backing, this film could have been a small success. And if anything, the style of this movie embraces the underdog attitude, something the film itself found as it struggled to be released. Out of 100 fanboys sitting in line for Star Wars, Fanboys manages to keep pace with 60 geeks in costume. Not a bad, small flick.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2009-08-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

Five movies in and there hasn’t been one majestic offering. Sure, some were good flicks, some were even very good, but there hasn’t been one that was astounding. You’d think with so many shots at it, they would nail one and just blow you away. Maybe sixth time’s a charm? Quick hit: nope.

Rather than provide a recap, I’ll leave that to you, the book, and Wikipedia. Instead, let us focus on the deficiencies that actually made this movie painful to watch. Starting with, boredom! This is almost a two-and-a-half hour long movie and it seems like the first two hours is obsessed with boring teenage romance. Don’t get me wrong, teenage love stories aren’t inherently boring, just look at all the flicks that succeed at delivering the goods: Sixteen Candles, 10 Things I Hate About You, even Superbad. You can have fun with the awkwardness, the goofiness, the apprehensive first kisses, all that stuff can be fun. In Harry Potter 6, it’s not fun, it’s not engaging, it’s just boring. And it’s the only thing you see for two hours!

In trying to appeal to the Twilight crowd, we follow Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny through various love triangles. And they all suck. In the novel, maybe it works because you actually weaved that together with the overarching story and battle against the rising Voldemort. Here, you get nothing. It’s a bore. BORE!

Then you get a half hour of good stuff. Action, plot, story advancement, you know, the movie you came to watch. You begin to realize how the final installments of the Harry Potter flicks will be delivering some major goods. So then why wait until the end of the movie to do that? I don’t know, it’s probably one of those decisions of “staying true to the novel” while “adapting for the big screen”. I’ll never understand why filmmakers have such a hard time with this contradiction. If you’re going to adapt anything, then you’re no longer staying true to the book. And if you’re no longer staying true, then make a damn movie, not a step-by-step recreation of the pages that omit major pieces of the story.

For example, who’s the Half Blood Prince? Well, you get a two-line explanation at the climax of the film and poof, you’re done with that mystery. It’s in the damn title of the flick, shouldn’t there be some focus on it? Nope, because that backstory would have been too much to cram in. Uh, you mean you couldn’t shorten the stupid teen romance bits to fit in an actual plot? Horrible.

In the end, this was a glaring example of filler-movie. It provided so little substance, it grew the characters a tiny amount, and then slammed you with a couple biggies at the end and said, see you next fall. It was an extremely weak effort that provided near nothing to the Harry Potter mythos and continues to grow in disappointment as I think about it. When you end up buying the eight movie set in a couple years, this will be one of the discs that you never play, that’s how inconsequential it is.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince offered little substance despite its efforts to become Harry Potter and the Raging Hormones. It’s weird because every Harry Potter effort has been modestly good at best, and frighteningly mundane at its worst. I wonder when someone takes a shot at remaking these, if they’ll go all out and make it their own. Until then, we’re left with some good, some bad, and this crapfest. Out of 7 horcruxes, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is cursed to 3 disembodied soul fragments. Blah, I needed a potronum spell to fend off my boredom.

Bruno

2009-07-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

A couple years ago, Borat-mania took the nation by storm. If you count the number to bad impressions and “I LIKE” utterings, you would be nearing the number of Big Mac’s sold. I don’t know where I got that comparison, it sucked, and I apologize. However, Borat’s success we get more Sasha Baron Cohen doing mockumentaries, good for all. Right? Quick hit: good enough, I guess.

People tend to forget, but Borat, Bruno, all this stuff was borne out of one Ali G. As the host of a fake talk show, Cohen set up shop as Ali G, a hip-hop, completely moronic talk show host famous for lambasting unsuspecting victims in overly ironic, satirical interviews. From this show, Cohen brought two more characters to life, Borat, who all now know and love, and Bruno, who we’re about to get to know better.
So, Bruno steps up like its Borat-predecessor, a fake documentary with a paper-thin “plot” aimed to put our title character into awkwardly funny situations. Again, like Borat, Bruno probably would have benefitted from dropping the entire plot, and just presenting people getting embarrassed by a flamboyantly gay, Austrian talk-show host. But whatever, we still get to the funny scenes even if they’re bracketed by fake plotting.

How’s the character, can Bruno carry a movie? Um, kind of. He’s a pretty flat character, a riff on gay stereotypes, with maybe a bit more mischievous, more evil-than-not intentions. It’s hard to argue that Borat is a multi-layered caricature, but relatively speaking, Borat offered more innocent ignorance that was easier to get behind. Bruno is a reflection of the self-involved, self-important, celebrity-hungry non-celebrities that we get a daily dose of everyday in tabloids and TMZ. We don’t cheer for them in real life, and it’s harder to get behind Bruno in the same vein.

The comedy is pretty good. Unfortunately, and not necessarily surprisingly, you’ve seen the best bits in the trailers already. Sure, scenes are built out a little further, but if you like the hunters camping gag, or the army training goof, then you’ve already seen the punchlines. There are some new pieces that they seemed to have saved for the flick, but for the most part, they’ve already showed you most of the good stuff. One thing that was fun: Celine Dion song, good use of Titanic.

The outrageous can be on the extreme side. There’s some graphic stuff going on in the first three minutes of the flick, imagine Austin Power without the well-placed fruit or shadows. There’s also quite an extended scene of gyrating penis, which is strange that it passed the censors. Add in a swingers party with not-great-looking people, and you get your fill of bad Skinamax for a while.

In the end, Bruno was more of a condemnation of the Southern hicks than it was of anything else. It makes sense, since a gay Austrian character is likely to get the most bang for his buck out of the ultra-conservative Bible Belters. It’s not necessarily hilarious, but some of it is chuckle-worthy.

Overall, Bruno is entertaining enough. It’s not great, it doesn’t make you roll on the floor and bend over in laugh-filled pain. But it keeps you chuckling and squinting in awkward voyeurism as Bruno pushes the envelope. Out of 100 references to some type of phallic device, Bruno hits the head with 60. It’s decent, hello.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2009-07-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

I’ll begin with my Transformers diatribe and a reflection of the state of movies. Look, just because Michael Bay acknowledges he pisses in the face of fans all over doesn’t mean it’s a legitimate reason to make shitty movies. You want to treat Transformers as a separate entity, untied to 30 years of history and fan worship? That’s fine, it’s stupid, but fine. But that defiant attitude that you take with it doesn’t mean you’ve done a good job. Shitty movies with no semblance of plotting and pacing are bad. Shitty movies with no attempt at logic are worse. And your willingness to not only accept your shortcomings, but flaunt them with a suck-it-if-you-don’t-like attitude is insulting, not to fans, but to humanity. We’re not that dumb, and all of us, me included, should do a better job of speaking with our wallets and avoid the platters of poo that are served up. Quick hit: I didn’t care for Transformers too much, in case you were wondering.

On to the movie. Picking up a couple years after the first, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes a couple minutes to recap. Open with a little action, a little covert mission that sets up the general situation, cool enough. Lots of explosions, lots of crap getting destroyed, whatevers. But then you get another hour of supposed plot building, but is actually just boring crap involving Shia acting overwhelmed and his parents being goofs, and you start to get that numb-ass feeling. Not good.

Cutting to the chase, the good-guy Autobots have been working with the US government in a don’t-ask-don’t-look way, killing the lingering Decepticons on Earth. Call me old-fashioned, but seeing the good-guys rip the bad-guys in half or blow their heads off seems a little off. I don’t know, aren’t good-guys supposed to show a little compassion or honor? Guess not, rip his face off Optimus!

On to the plot, somehow it’s taken two years for the Decepticons to mount an offensive. They steal some fragments of stuff, revive Megatron, who was dumped at the bottom of the ocean, and begin to hunt down Shia because the little kid is the key to something. Doesn’t really matter as plotting isn’t exactly the purpose of this flick. But even in that one sentence summary, the glaring logic-holes are hard to overcome. So you have Autobots killing the shit out of the bad guys, but the baddest bad guy, you dump at the bottom of the ocean? Why not just rip his face off? Why not blow a hole in his head like the other bad guys you find? Oh, because then you wouldn’t be able to get to the next scene…I see.

Moving on to the special effects, stuff looks shiny. But if you’re gonna spend time properly setting up the enormity of these robots, why make the action scenes extreme close-ups? And if you’re gonna make them shiny, why not make them a little easier to tell apart. Near the end, a bunch of silver bots are fighting, which might be Decepticons since they’re the ones that get blown up. But really, is it that hard to destroy a couple more character legacies and make them distinct? Plus, the action is so in-your-face that you can’t tell what’s going on. Except, shit is being beat up and big things crash into big buildings. Fun.

Let’s get to the heart of this flick: teenage id-fantasy. Big robots, check. Bigger explosions, check. Hot babes, check. Yes, Megan Fox is hot in this flick again. You wouldn’t think it’s possible to cram a dozen slow-mo running scenes with her, but it is! Bless the desserts of Egypt for providing the proper setting for escaping explosions in slow-motion abundance. Also of note, Isabel Lucas, who plays a hot-for-Shia college freshman. Never mind that she’s a robot-in-disguise, only mind that she’s onscreen. Man, I wish I were a horny teenager, this would be great! Oh and Shia is in this. Again, geek fantasy as someone so schmucky somehow maintains a relationship with arguably the hottest It-girl of the moment. Power to the 14-year-olds of the world!! Oh, and the demolition balls for the giant robot Devastator, hey, you can’t go wrong with a testicle joke.

For the long time fans, you’ll notice some “inspiration” from the classic animated movie and series: the inclusion of the Matrix of Leadership, an Optimus moment or two, even the Fallen draws comparison to one planet-eating Unicron in terms of motivation. Yet, it’s done poorly, oh well. One thing that was nice was a return to character traits: the Starscream and Megatron relationship finally added a little character to these guys and gave them a little more personality.

OK, but here’s the thing. You knew all of this before you walked into the theater. My opening mission statement aside, you get exactly what you expect from Michael Bay. And strangely enough, this might be a more entertaining flick than the first one. It is long, but when it’s rolling through explosions, they’re better explosions than the first. Plus, the sheer absurdity is higher, making it easier to laugh at the flick without being mad at it. Case in point, there’s an “old” Transformer, so old, he has a cane…yes, a mechanical, transforming cane. And he’s Scottish. I will say no more.

Overall, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen offers nothing but melted brain cells and a vehicle towards a future reality detailed in Idiocracy. But, it’s a semi-entertaining attempt at it. Are the logic holes passable? No, not even close, but you shouldn’t bring logic to this party. Again, my argument is that we shouldn’t accept this type of attitude, but that’s for the future, nothing you can change about that in this movie. Out of 10,000 year old pyramids, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ages ungracefully with 4500 years. This shall be the summer where my favorite toylines in childhood get destroyed, with GI Joe coming up in August. Whoo hoo.

Public Enemies

2009-07-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

I wonder if it’s a reflection of my local public school education that I don’t know John Dillinger’s story. I also wonder if it’s a reflection of my movie viewing habits that I haven’t seen any of the Dillinger movies that preceded Michael Mann’s latest effort. What I do know is that the prospects of seeing Captain Jack Sparrow square off against Batman in a Heat-like cops-and-robbers showdown is too good to pass up. Quick hit: unfortunately, this flick was flat like the 2-liter bottle of Coke that you find at the back of your fridge from last year’s barbeque.

Public Enemies presents a simple enough premise: John Dillinger is the larger than life reality villain of the 1930s and Melvin Purvis is the forgotten G-man that brought him down. However, with a skilled filmmaker like Mann helming this flick, only good things could come out of your charismatic bad guy going up against your angsty good guy, right?

Wrong. Public Enemies plays out like a film student’s overly ambition passion project that tries to offer lots of zest, but fails to provide any meat and misses on most of the zest. Most glaring is the “innovative” film techniques peppered throughout the flick. Starting with the opening scene and continuing haphazardly throughout the film, you get unsteady hand-cam action full of in-their-face close-ups, nauseous-inducing bouncing, and random HD-Cloverfield-handy-cam shots that completely take you out of the film. If there’s one thing I’ve picked up over the years of pseudo-film study it’s that movies are an extreme form of escapism. You suspend your belief to transport yourself into the fictional story before you. So it doesn’t do much good when a period piece offers up super-technology like HD-shots and bouncing, fake documentary framing in shots. Bad choices abound.

What about Johnny Depp as Dillinger? Well, he looks cool. It’s been too long since Depp chopped his hair and kept a clean, chiseled look for the audience, but here he does it well. Yet, for all his looks, the natural charisma seems stifled and suffocated under the weight of portraying the real-life figure. Since the material offers little leeway, Depp is boxed up as he humanizes the larger-than-life Dillinger. If the movie keeps saying how big of a bad-boy celebrity he is, why does he come off as a Joe Schmoe. Sure, maybe that’s the point, but it doesn’t offer much to watch.

On the flip-side to that coin, Christain Bale steps in as Melvin Purvis. In what can only be described as a moving mannequin role, Bale sure does fill out his finely tailored suits well. Other than that, he does a lot of staring, speaks a little in a heavy Southern/Texan accent, and that’s about it. You could have had anyone in this role and it would have been the same. However, it does get you to start thinking, maybe Bale is just flat in general. He plays Batman as a constipated, growling thing and Bruce Wayne as a flat, overly-serious, self-important guy. As John Connor, he showed more emotion while yelling at a grip than in the actual movie. Maybe Bale is just kinda there.

Are there good heist scenes at least? Not really. There’s two, maybe three action scenes, and these consist of walking into a bank, slapping a couple guards around, then making off in an old car. When Dillinger says it takes him one minute and forty seconds to complete a job, I guess they meant to keep that realistic. You get a way more dramatic scene in the first five minutes of The Dark Knight. And you get the end-all-be-all heist in the middle of Heat. In Public Enemies, you get little to nothing.

Overall, Public Enemies is just kind of there. Michael Mann makes a movie once ever couple of years because he gets so involved in the process. You can bet that everything on film is as close to real as you’re gonna see. However, he’s also made the same cops-and-robbers themed film several times. Unfortunately, he hit the peak with Heat and everything since then has been blah. Miami Vice was simply horrendous, long, drawn out, and boring. Public Enemies doesn’t fare much better, with flat flat stuff being shot in stupid ways. Out of a 100 second heist, Public Enemies gets caught with a mediocre 50 second botched job. You can safely avoid this one.

Up

2009-05-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

I speak in reverential tones when discussing Pixar films. There isn’t another studio that embraces the creative process in today’s Hollywood. The foundation of telling quality, character-driven stories is bred in Pixar’s DNA, and you’ve seen that from its very beginnings. In the days of Toy Story and A Bug’s Life, the focus was on creating a great story imbued with heart and care, and this was so successful that these stories resonated in the audiences. Even as Pixar became a money-minting machine, they never bowed to the temptation of box-office bonanzas. They produced one film at a time because that’s what their staffing could handle, and if it meant an 18-month wait between Pixar flicks, that’s what it meant.

So now, we find ourselves in the new age of Pixar, subsidiary of Disney. Has the cycle changed? Yes, there’s basically a new Pixar flick scheduled for every year. Has the quality changed? No, they approach every new story with wide-eyed wonderment and aim to tell something unique. Will it last forever? I doubt it. But is this shift evident in their latest offering? Quick hit: Up is a fine fine movie.

Let’s get this out of the way. The technology, the CGI, the visual and auditory offerings from Up: magnificent. It’s not so cutting edge, it’s not like WALL-E’s opening junk-pile sequence where things were near photo-realistic. But Up looks very nice, classic Pixar, and nothing to sneeze at. For the most part, CGI-animated flicks are now the standard and Pixar doesn’t cut any corners with Up.

That leaves us with the story, and what a strange concept it is. On the surface, one might think a story about a cranky old man tying a bunch of balloons to his house to travel around the world is sorta weird and mostly uninteresting. Even the early trailers didn’t offer much other than CGI and Pixar branding to sell it. Yet, as you settle in, you begin to realize this story has little to do with the balloons, little to do with the house, a little more to do with the relationship between old man and young boy, but mostly to do with old man.

And that’s where this flick, more than any other Pixar film, treads firmly in the adult-themed arena. Sure, WALL-E was a pretty obvious knock on human consumerism and over-consumption. Something like The Incredibles had some hinting of family-life and mid-life crises. Ratatouille was all about pursuing your calling in life, damn be the critics. But Up, this film is almost a downer, a story wholly focused on fulfilling the dreams of youth that have since long slipped away in the midst of surviving life’s speedbumps.

Carl Fredricksen, voiced by Ed Asner, is the gruff old man whose life is much more than this simple stereotype. Conveyed in the first five minutes of the film, we see how Carl met his sweetheart as a young kid, we see them grow up and get married, we see how they manage to live a fulfilling existence even while maintaining youthful dreams. Honestly, in the first five minutes of this film, you experience the bittersweet reality of…reality.

And from that fun recap, we jump into the meat of Up. Facing a retirement home, Carl concocts the most unlikely of plans, sail away with house-in-hand and find the one paradise that always eluded him and his true love. Unfortunately, a young “wilderness adventurer”, read “boy scout”, ends up on Carl’s porch and now we have a funny odd-couple. However, this is where Up diverges from the preconceived notions of the film. The story isn’t about journeying in the house of balloons, it’s actually about what happens after they’ve journeyed. There’s little time spent in the atmosphere, and most of the plot revolves around where they land and the characters they meet. It’s funny that a film called Up is really about what happens after you come down. Deep, I know.

Overall, this is a solid film. It’s touching at points, especially as you see Carl’s “This is your life” montage. It has funny gags, things that make both the kids and adults laugh out loud. There’s not a whole lot of clever bits, as this story really isn’t a comedy at all. But little things like the HSN Schneider lens clip is great for those of you who watch too much Youtube. The talking dogs are funny, but if you’ve read We3, then you get the joke already. This is a good-hearted Pixar offering, not their absolute best, but nothing to sneeze at. Out of 1000 helium balloons, Up floats off with 750. More than any of its predecessors, this is an adult-Pixar offering.

Terminator Salvation

2009-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

Remember when Eddie Furlong was a small kid? He was tiny enough for Arnold to pick up while riding a motorcycle and plop Eddie in front of him like a two year old. Guess what? Eddie is hella fat now, like gigantic fat. Shame. But it kinda reflects the state of the Terminator franchise. Once sleek and cool, the killer robots from Skynet are now bloated caricatures, toy props and merchandising machines. However, Christian Bale wants to change this, to change the course of history and avert the total downfall of the once-fresh franchise. Did he do it? Quick hit: like the inevitability of Judgment Day, Terminator Salvation falls victim to its destiny, the fourth movie in the franchise.

What does that mean? It means it sucks. How many fourth installments are good? I count one, Harry Potter, and that’s really a result of a seven-edition book series. No no, Terminator Salvation falls prey to what most franchises do, and that’s craptaculation. Stupid script. Stupid characters. Overly important rallying points. Stupid plotting. About the only thing going for it is the special effects, not Christian Bale. Sad. Like a fat Eddie Furlong.

The biggest miss is the overall storyline. Yes, the trailers set up a nice, dark take. But if you really want to see a good Terminator 4 movie, you should stick to the trailer and make up the rest in your head. Because the flick that comes out on the silver screen is mostly trite, unsophisticated dribble. The foundation is there: Christian Bale as the badass John Connor. The mysterious Marcus Wright who seems to be an amnesia-plagued robot. The unending march to Skynet’s total domination. It’s all right there, right? Then, you get past the two-minute highlight trailers and build out a story, and have the stupid police control the content. Ooof, its bad.

For instance, terminators fighting humans…killer robots programmed to “terminate” waste their time with fist fights? Really? The T-1000 poked people through the head with his liquid metal. Original Arnold drove a truck into a police station then killed all the cops. Now? The baddest models are busy having hand-to-hand combat with their most prized targets?? Um, ok.

And what about the vaunted “resistance”? You have the head honchos hanging out in a submarine, led by Michael Ironside, who no longer brings gravitas, but does bring cheesy in hearty amounts. Then you have random “freedom fighters” hanging out like Mad Max rejects. I mean, if they’re already that screwed, why didn’t Skynet just wipe them out? You know, send your gigantic gunships and just completely annihilate everyone. No? Rather hunt them and gather them up like cattle? And why is that? Oh, never explained. Maybe slightly alluded to, but um, the reasoning still doesn’t make sense.

Lastly, you have John Connor headquarters, which looks like a bleak version of Matrix’s Zion. And you have a bunch of “time tested” troops who act like they’re in an action movie. Seriously? There was more intensity in the three minute flashbacks from T1 and T2 than there was in the entire movie. Blahhh.

The cast wasn’t even a shining point. So much has been made about A) Christian Bale’s intensity on set and B) Sam Worthington’s turn as his nemesis/ally/foil Marcus. Well, A) Christian Bale’s intensity really led to low gravely voice and loud yelling, and B) Sam Worthington had the fade-in-fade-out Australian accent throughout the whole flick, which was awesome. Throw in Anton Yelchin, who was very good as Checkov in the new Star Trek, as a weinny Kyle Reese, spouting off famous lines with all the flare of a pre-pubescent goofball, and you’re killing the legacy of Terminator almost as bad as Terminator 3. At least Terminator 3 is widely disregarded as non-canonical, but this one was supposed to reset the course.

Last thing, and this is a stylistic choice that I would have made. When the non-surprise cameo comes up, it was a wasted money shot in a wholly incoherent and stupid climax. Imagine a stupid fight scene predicated on ridiculous logic and there you have the ending of Terminator Salvation. I would almost venture to say that Terminator 3’s ending was more satisfying in that it led to the Judgment Day inevitability that we all know and love. This ending was just dumbness, endoskeletons boxing, heart resuscitations via random electrical wires, just, I don’t want to say much more, but when little kid grasps hand of Marcus, I was laughing.

My choice, the non-surprise cameo should have been the final shot. Skynet completes its mission, and we know humans are f’d because they just made their ultimate weapon. Not the crap they gave us instead.

Overall, Terminator Salvation fails on many levels. It’s a goofy, poorly executed summer flick that tried to be serious and weighty. At least Wolverine knew what it was, even if it failed to reach that low bar it was aiming for. Terminator raised the bar then failed to qualify on the lower level it should have been. That’s like a double fail. Out of Judgment Day in 2018, Terminator Salvation shouldn’t be back with a poor 807. Let’s hope Skynet succeeds and keeps anymore Terminator drek from being produced.

Star Trek

2009-05-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

How do you properly reboot a franchise steeped in decades worth of continuity, a rabid fanbase, and more recent overexposure than outright failure? That is the status of Star Trek, a sci-fi property that long ago went boldly past good taste and intriguing entertainment. Yup, for years, Trekkies or Trekkers have been reduced to anxiously awaiting fans. When would the right creative team bring the shine and luster back to the Enterprise? Quick hit: be careful what you wish for, Trekkies.

JJ Abrams brings this reboot to life. The mastermind behind the Alias TV show and one of the creators of Lost, Abrams has amassed a good amount of Hollywood credibility. However, his first turn as blockbuster director yielded Mission: Impossible III, a serviceable if not mundane film. More importantly, to the geeky legions, he was the writer of the failed Superman script which saw Lex Luthor as an FBI agent who eventually revealed he was Kryptonian as he battled the Man of Steel…yes, you read that last part correctly.

So to say there was apprehension with this project would be an understatement. As the trailers came out and the new cast revealed, more nervous anticipation: everything looked slick and stylized, maybe too slick and too modern. Which just goes to show, people like to complain about anything, even things that are “too good”.

Back to Star Trek, the reboot, relaunch, revisioning, whatever re-you-want it to be. Focused around the core formation of the original Star Trek characters, this film takes a look at how Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Uhura, and Scotty can to man the Enterprise. Only, with a twist. Seems that there’s some temporal stuff going on, some threats from the past or future, that kick start everything. It’s an elegant and quick way to kickstart this series, nodding to the old, but opening the door to the new. And it easily takes care of any questions about past movies and tv episodes, and how they should be treated in this new reboot. Quick answer: everything counts, but the new stuff does, too. If you want more details, you gotta see the flick.

As for the cast, everyone does a very good job. Chris Pine as Kirk is very solid. Beyond the rugged, I’m-good-looking casting, Pine throws in a nice dose of arrogant confidence. He’s likeable and believable as the charming macho guy, a modern embodiment of the 60s Shatner version, which is surprisingly fun to watch. Zachery Quinto from Heroes fame sports the pointy ears of Spock, and much like Pine, rises to the occasion. This Spock is confident, not overly cold, a bit brooding, but not boring. Both actors infuse the characters with their own touches, make the characters their own, and run with it.

The rest of the ensemble is very good as well. Both a reflection of good writing and good acting, the characters take on greater importance and display greater depth than any of the previous movies have allowed. Case in point, Uhura is sexy and smart, with an actual skill set to justify her existence. Same with Sulu, well, not the sexy part. Bones McCoy is good, but almost a parody of himself, which is the only misstep in the cast. Scotty is comic relief, but not overdone, and enjoyable in the doses we get.

Ah, what about the plot? What about the story? Yes, the cast is good. The direction is good. But really, it’s the story and execution that bring this out to play. It’s paced extremely well, and the two hours moves along without notice. The action is very good, showcased with the space dive and 20,000 foot high battle. And very high on the list, the special effects are finally good. Not just serviceable. Not static and boring. Abrams wisely threw out any Trek-focused styling and introduced a whole new era of explosions, starships, and starship explosions.

The actual story is very solid as well. Sure, if you sit back and think for a couple minutes, there’s some weird and stupid things that happen. But for the most part, Star Trek is a fun, well conceived story that showcases the good parts of Trek lore. Is it deep? No, not particularly, and maybe that’s where the traditionalists have issues. However, it is entertaining and sheds the skin of geeky space-UN peachiness.

Overall, this is a very entertaining film. Easily the most well rounded summer flick so far. Given that there’s only been Wolverine and Star Trek, that’s not a hard accomplishment. However, I’d venture a guess that this will remain as one of the most solidly entertaining movies of the summer. Imagine Iron Man levels of geeky happiness. Out of 1701 designation for the Enterprise, Star Trek warps ahead with 1446, or 8.5 out of 10 for the mathematically averse. This is how summer blockbusters should be, and looking forward to the next installment.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

Review by Loc

The Saturday morning X-Men cartoon was ridiculously awful that it was sometimes good. To some of you younger folks, you actually liked those episodes with horrible animation and bad voice acting, so kudos to you. I enjoyed it for the sheer audacity of mind-bogglingly stupidity. Like any episode that featured Cable was awesome! One time, he has a prisoner handcuffed and kneeling, and the X-Men are running to stop him. Cable unpins a grenade with his mouth and proceeds to spit the pin onto the prisoner’s head, and exclaims, “Plasma grenade!” You just start laughing at the ridiculousness. Wait, this is a review for the new Wolverine flick…Quick hit: if only you could laugh in the same way. Sigh.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the latest entry from the mutant universe, courtesy of Hugh Jackman. Ripped beyond belief, Jackman steps up as the lead actor and executive producer of this summer blockbuster, and delivers something to you in the form of celluloid. It’s not a great movie, it’s not even a good movie, it sometimes borders on bad, but starts well enough, yet also devolves with each passing minute after the halfway mark. Hmm, if that last “sentence” was a jumbled mess, then you might get the idea of what this movie has to offer.

Aimed to capitalize on the hugely popular Wolverine, X-Men Origins: Wolverine also acts to unveil the secrets behind our claw-minded friend and bridge the gap between his past and the first X-Men flick. And boy do we get some history, as seen in the opening 2 minute montage that covers every major war since the 1850s and places Wolverine and Sabretooth in Forest Gump-like situations. Before that, we see how Wolverine was a sickly boy with Sabretooth a semi-good companion, and it all starts to make sense. Nevermind that they vaguely stay true to the comic history, this flick wasn’t meant to be a comic-accurate adaptation of any sort.

We quickly skip to the near-present, maybe it was 20 years ago, maybe it was yesterday. Nothing is really dated, but it is only supposed to be 6 years after an Asian-flavored war, so who knows. One thing is for certain, you can find isolated cabins located at the very edge of ravines in the Canadian Rockies. Good thing, too, since Wolverine is all into isolation and stuff.

Whatever the case, the movie takes the pacing of an epileptic seizure where we see Wolverine serene with his chick for a little while. Then bad things happen, he gets mad, a little, agrees to undergo some experimentation, and poof, metal-laced Wolverine is born. It’s funny, it was like an epic eight month storyline in the comics that detailed the intricacies of the torturous process, even in the various cartoons, at least an episode or half an episode was dedicated to it. In this flick, which one would think would focus a lot on this area, spends about five minutes in the lab. That’s like the same amount of time in all the other flashback scenes from X-Men 1, 2, and 3, haha.

Back to the erratic pacing, Wolverine runs away, gets a little comfortable. Then he gets hunted, blows stuff up, rides a motorcycle to Vegas, rides a motorcycle to New Orleans, meets Gambit, flies to New Jersey, and fights everyone. It’s really weird how slowly and quickly the story moves in the span of a half hour.

But wait, this is the summer blockbuster season, it doesn’t have to have a good story or pacing. Hmmm, tell that to The Dark Knight. Hell, tell that to Iron Man even. I’ll say this until I die, you don’t have to make a stupid movie just because it’s an action movie. You don’t have to make a crappy movie just to make a summer movie. Don’t play down to the competition, make them play up to you. Fight fight fight. Go fight win tonight, boogey down, alright alright! Dammit, got stuck in my high school football flashbacks.

Which brings us to the cast. There’s a fat-faced dude playing Gambit, the actor is from Friday Night Lights I believe. He does OK, but really, what the hell is Gambit doing here, being shoe-horned into scenes? Wasted potential. There’s others like that, the Blob, Agent Zero, Cyclops, even Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds is an annoying smartass, which is perfect for Deadpool, who is also an annoying smartass. And he does a nice turn as Wade Wilson, pre-Deadpool. Again though, it’s like throwing a bunch of random characters in there for no apparent reason, wasted wasted.

Ah, but Liev Schrieber checks in as Sabretooth, and he’s pretty good in this role. He’s physical enough to hold his own in the action sequences, and he actually brings a nice bit of charisma that was unexpected. He plays a nice foil to Hugh Jackman.
And Mr. Jackman, who has always done a very good job at bringing Wolverine to life. Sure, he’s too tall, but you’re never gonna cast a 5’2” actor as a lead in a Hollywood blockbuster. Jackman got it right in the first flick, and has done a good job since. In this starring vehicle, it’s a little less stellar, lots of roaring and semi-badassness, but almost too fake. Worst of all, the poses, the damn poses. He and Sabretooth take turns hitting the “five second” poses after every claw-swipe and fingernail thrust. It looks damn silly.

The silliest pieces of this film are actually the “history” nods. In what was as bad as the Star Wars prequels, Wolverine aims to bridge gaps that no one actually cared about. Stuff with Cyclops, stuff with lost memories, there are explanations that need not be there. It’s like when you’re selling your car and you decide to point out the rusty scratches and dented-underside. If you just don’t bring it up, no one will care, but since you did bring it up, boy was that stupid. Or it’s like Obi-Wan picking up a lightsaber after chopping off Anakin’s limbs. Take your pick.

Overall, it’s a mediocre film. It starts off mildly entertaining, but begins down a slippery slope of craptacularness that it never recovers from. The action sequences are big, and while I expected them to be over-the-top-boring, they were simply over-the-top-mundane. Some of the CGI was horrendous, like the bathroom scene where Wolverine found himself as an extra in Space Jam and Bugs Bunny was giving him his wacky cartoon claws, yuck. I believe X-Men Origins: Wolverine represents this generation’s version of Rambo Part II or Commando. These are not good movies, but they are action flicks that we all watched, and they pass for entertainment in lieu of anything substantial at that moment. Out of six claws, Wolverine snikts three. Snikt! And the unintentional Airwolf cameo was high-larious!

Valkyrie , Gran Torino , Bride Wars

2009-04-28T16:53:00.001-07:00

Micro-Reviews by Loc

Another trans-Pacific flight, more micro-reviews for your enjoyment. If there's one good thing about avoiding the wasteland of summer and fall movies, it's the chance to be forced to watch them to avoid complete boredom on a plane. Enjoy.

1) Valkyrie: Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Jerry Maguire Hunt in this tale about Nazi Germany and internal conflicts with Hitler. I only half-jest, as this flick really is Mission Impossible: Nazis for Cruise. All the way till we get the switch to Jerry Maguire and his "show me the money" routine for 45 minutes. If that sounds weird, then you might get the gist of this review: mundane near-crappy movie.

Here's the two sentence summary. Start with Nazi's who all speak with British accents and throw in a one-handed, eye-patched Ethan Hunt as they plot to kill their leader and make peace with the world. Then after the assassination attempt, watch as Ethan Hunt tries to sell the assassination attempt to all the athletes, oops, I mean districts, that he represents.

It's funny because Bryan Singer said everyone knows that this didn't work, but its fascinating to see it unfold. It's only fascinating if you enjoy watching people make phone calls without the use of cell phones...for 45 minutes.

2) Gran Torino: The surprise hit of the fall, Gran Torino is another fun meld of old movie characters. What do you get when you mix Clint Eastwood from Million Dollar Baby with Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid? Answer: a racist old white guy who grows a heart of gold with his Hmong neighbors.

Gotta give Eastwood credit on two fronts. One, he makes this cookie-cutter story watchable becasue he's that much of a badass. Two, he wanted to hire real Hmong people to play the roles in the movie, kudos. Too bad that meant they sucked at acting, since they weren't actors.

As bad as that might sound, and yes, they are quite bad in this movie, it's the annoying young preacher who sucks the most. And unfortunately for him, he is an actor and can't hide behind the "I'm just a regular person who got a lucky break."

Overall, its silly, but Eastwood makes it watchable. It's unintentially funny, but only because racism is funny to watch. Wait, racism is nothing to joke about. But it is OK to chuckle at.

3) Bride Wars: Seriously, you watched Bride Wars? Yes...I'm sorry. Starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, Bride Wars plays up the stupidity of our generation as self-obsessed, materialistic idiots so self-important, that best friends can't sacrifice their preconceived fantasies about wedding planning. Fun. For me. To die watching. In eternal damnation.

It's not funny. It's passable. But so is gas, so that's not necessarily a compliment. Hathaway is settling into the semi-sweet Princess Diaries, Devil Wears Prada naive role well. Hudson is there. The grooms are not. The shenanigans are everything you've seen in the trailers. Not much going on here.

If you're stuck, like on a plane, and have to do something to avoid falling into a coma because you just suffered a concussion, and the flight attendants won't give you a fork to stab yourself in the arm repeatedly with, this might be worth putting on the TV screen to stare blankly at for the duration of your flight. I don't think you need headphones, just stare at the pretty colors.

Marley and Me , Yes Man , Bolt

2009-04-20T02:23:00.000-07:00

Micro-Reviews by Loc

This is what happens when you’re trapped on a plane and you didn’t see many movies in the fall. You begrudgingly watch a bunch of flicks as you’re flying over a large body of water. You don’t stop it, cause the movies are free, but you do hate yourself a little because you know you’re dying a little bit. So these will get the short-but-sweet treatment.

1) Marley and Me: maybe it works for the dog-owners out there, but this flick didn’t work for me. With no exaggeration, this is two hours of random scenes where Owen Wilson and/or Jennifer Anniston are interrupted by a crazy-ass dog doing something that an untrained dog would do. Like the time when Owen leaves to pick up Jen from the airport, and the dog destroys the garage. Or the time when Owen lets the dog off the leash, and it craps in the beach. Or the time when Jen is having a stressful day and the dog knocks over one of her kids.
If that sounds weird and stunted, repeat this for two hours and you have yourself Marley and Me. It’s like snapshots of Owen and Jen not getting old, but pretending by having kids and aging them in every scene that follows. And you have Marley wrecking shit. That’s what I would have named this: Marley Wrecks Shit.

The only decent part of the movie comes near the conclusion, as things come to a head with Marley. The filmmakers finally decided to give you a bit of story to go along with the other hour-and-a-half of wrecking shit scenes. Blah, not worth the time over the Pacific Ocean. Out of 7 dog years, Marley and Men scuttles around with 3 years. Put it to sleep.

2) Yes Man: Jim Carey’s return to the basic comedy. Imagine a sequel to Liar Liar, where instead of forcing Jim Carey to tell the truth, you force him to say yes to any question or offer. And that’s the gist of this flick.

It’s actually a very decent, average flick. Zooey Deschanel is profoundly OK in her lead role, but having seen very little of her before, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. But she does an excellent job of being the sweet foil to Jim’s decent shmo.

It is what it is. There’s the set-up, then the hook, then the rewards, then the missed rewards due to complicated circumstances, then remorse, and eventual resolution. It’s a formula, but it works OK here. Out of a $6000 micro loan, Yes Man hits a decent groove at $4000.

3) Bolt: Disney still makes animated flicks that aren’t from the brains at Pixar. Luckily for us, John Lasseter oversees all of Disney animation, so even if it’s not Pixar, it’s got some Pixar fingerprints on it. Bolt is a computer animation feature starring John Travolta and Miley Cyrus.
The basic premise revolves around Bolt, a TV-star dog that doesn’t know he’s a TV star.

Rescued as a puppy, he was made to believe he inhabits the spy-world of the show he stars in with Cyrus. So what happens then he accidentally gets shipped across the country while thinking Cyrus was kidnapped by the show’s villains? Fun you would hope.

More than anything, you get bland stuff. The animation does look slick, and I bet the 3D version was pretty nice to watch. But the story is pretty mundane and action just drags on. The Pixar-prints come as the story tries to develop more depth to all the characters, like the cat and hamster that Bolt picks up along the way, and it succeeds to a point. But it’s not too engaging. Out of the 3000 mile cross-country trip, Bolt gets stuck at 1500 miles. Mediocre.

I Love You Man

2009-04-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

When did Paul Rudd spin-off into his own little world of adult-oriented comedy? Sure, he’s been the random third and fourth wheel in the past, the Panther cologne guy in Anchorman, the lovesick dumbass in 40 Year Old Virgin, even the random surf instructor in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But a strange thing happened last summer when he teamed up with Stifler in Role Models: he was somewhat likeable in an adult-themed comedy. Even more, this wasn’t the ever pervasive Apatow-inspired comedy, it had its own distinct 70s-rock inspired, vulgar but more conventional humor that some would argue doesn’t actually exist in Apatow-inspired stuff. Quick hit: it looks like lightning struck in the same place again, putting Paul Rudd into semi-bankable category.

I Love You Man centers around fully grown adults. Not necessarily mature, not necessarily fully self-realized, but these are characters who exist in a world similar to yours and mine. Again, this isn’t the randomness of Anchorman or the idiot cops from Superbad. Instead, you have a decent guy in Paul Rudd who’s working hard as a realtor and has just proposed to Rashida Jones, she of The Office fame. Basic and relatable, who knew that could be such a good formula?

The one problem: Rudd has never had many guy friends. Spent much of his high school and college years working the chick population, which again, you probably know someone like that. The basic quandary is that Rudd needs some men to fill out his wedding party, especially his best man. The more textured problem, which is actually presented and where Rudd is operating from, is that his fiancé’s friends think he’s weird and question his masculinity because of this.
Cut to Rudd going on man-dates. Simple fun, doesn’t last too long, but offers some chuckles.

Then enter Jason Segal, he of Forgetting Sarah Marshall fame. Segal seems to be the perfect guy, and strangely enough, is open to hanging out with a bumbling Rudd. Segal is like the Maxim-version of Yoda, he speaks wisely of women, relationships, sex, and rock-n-roll. Together, Segal and Rudd develop a close friendship, which leads to some fully predictable problems.

However, just cause they’re predictable doesn’t mean the situations aren’t funny. Afterall, whenever you get Lou Ferigno whooping ass, that’s a good thing. And like the entire movie, these issues are dealt with a level of realism that is almost what you might see in your own office. If you’re seeing it in your own life, then you watch too much of The Hills and you believe life and drama are one-in-the-same, not good.

Overall, I Love You Man was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Whereas Role Models was a bit more sophomoric and vulgar, I Love You Man focuses on the simple problems that arise when you have a fiancé and a man-friend. It’s tough, but the wisdom of Jason Segal will pull you through. Out of 20 cheesy realtor billboards, I Love You Man is plastered on 15 signs. It’s a good, fun flick.

Watchmen

2009-03-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

Watchmen
Review by Loc

Who watches the Watchmen? Lots of fanboys will, that’s guaranteed. Will the rest of the population see it? Maybe, definitely during opening weekend. Maybe not much beyond that. Why? Because this movie is less a movie and more an adaptation. A great visual feat, a faithful recreation, but not a piece of work that stands on its own. And in effect, it misses the opportunity to become an entity unto itself. Quick hit: watch for the sheer audacious attempt, but don’t expect greatness.

As the only graphic novel/comic book to garner praise as one of the greatest novels of all time, Watchmen has filled countless pages of analysis and critique over the years. In 1986, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons delivered a 12-issue comic series that deconstructed the modern superhero and ushered the era of realism in comics. Along with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen set the stage for a dramatic shift in comic storytelling. Not all of it was good, as the industry took the surface layer of
“dark” equals “deep”. Regardless, Watchmen has since been elevated to rarefied air, and been stuck in movie development hell for years.

Until now, as Zach Synder took the goodwill generated from 300 and cashed it in for his shot at Watchmen. And that’s a good thing, cause if there’s one thing Zach can do, it’s make a movie look great. Watchmen looks magnificent for the most part, scenes pay homage to the comic series in panel-to-scene translations that are stunning. The action looks good as well, with some usage of the fast-time-slow-mo sequencing that Synder loved so much in 300. There are parts where the costumed heroes look pretty stupid, but the editing mostly hides the awkward actor trying to look smooth. Hint, Malin Akerman and Matthew Goode aren’t natural athletes, don’t try to make them do choreographed fighting, it looks dumb.

Which brings us to the casting. Some was very very good, some was decent, some was bad, much like the movie itself. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is spot on as The Comedian, a scary brute who’s moral boundaries lie somewhere south of Antartica. Jackie Earle Haley is very cool as Rorschach, but almost brings too much emotion to the table. Rorschach should be nearly black-and-white, doing what he does because his world view is so cut and dry that there is no ambiguity. In Haley’s performance, you almost get a Batman-type badass, which is a bit more than you need.

For the decent, Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl is good. He’s a good-hearted wholesome guy, the type of superhero that you wished existed. But again, the material really presented him as a broken, fat loser, a man who had given up in life and had little to offer. Wilson’s Nite Owl is genuine and nice, but not exactly someone who needs redemption. Goode’s Ozymandias is also OK, he’s there to be the smartest man in the world. He does what he needs, but there’s not a whole lot of chewing up the screen with this performance.

Then we get to the bad, with Akerman’s Silk Spectre and Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan. Akerman turned in a performance that was exactly the same as when she was in 27 Dresses and The Heartbreak Kid: slightly annoying, mostly flat, and somewhat unbelievable as she delivers her lines. Kinda like she was trying to act instead of just acting. Then there’s Crudup, who is about 90% CGI, a big blue hulked-out naked dude with everything hanging out. And he has a nasally voice. And a soft voice. And that’s really not working for the living nuclear weapon. Not at all.

So with this mixed cast, what happens to the movie? Well, this should really be considered an adaptation more than a movie. You see, Synder does a great job of translating the book, bringing whole issues to life with panel-by-panel recreations. But he failed to make a movie out of it. To make this work as a wholly independent presentation of the comic, Synder needed to cut out some of the fat, rework some of the pacing, and tell a story for this different platform. But he didn’t, he made a visual, moving-pictures comic that ran 2 hours and 45 minutes. So it’s great for the fanboys, probably disjointed, boring, and confusing to the mass population.

Oh but wait, if you stick so closely to the source material, why succumb to reworking the ending?? No spoilers here, but it’s easy enough to say the climax of the movie is reworked to fit more seamlessly to movie’s presentation. But if you’re going to do that, shouldn’t you rework the whole script to make it into a full fleshed out movie? This is the conundrum faced by the audience that may wonder, why oh why is it not there! And if you don’t know what that means, it’s because you haven’t read the book and compared the movie. Dammit!

Overall, there’s some nice visuals and the adherence to the source material is impressive. At this grand scale, it might have been even better as a dramatic series via HBO, 12 episodes to glory. But nope, it’s a long ass movie. And that’s the missing link. It’s not a movie, it’s an adaptation that leaves out some of the important stuff. Too bad, cause it looks pretty sweet. Out of 5 minutes on the Doomsday Clock, Watchmen is ticking away with 3 minutes.

Hulk VS

2009-02-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Review by Loc

Superheroes and animation, they can go together better than peanut butter and jelly. Batman: The Animated Series anyone? But, when handled poorly, this natural pairing becomes the equivalent of explosive diarrhea: anything released by Marvel Animation Direct to DVD. If you’ve never seen the Ultimate Avengers, Doctor Strange, or Invincible Iron Man DVDs, be thankful. However, could it be, did Marvel Animation turn the proverbial corner. With the Hulk VS. dvd, there’s some good signs. Quick hit: fun romp with nice animation.

Let me take a second to divulge my fanboy status: superheroes and comic stuff is sweet. So from that point of view, this review may delve a bit into comic-y details. But, at the heart is still a critic’s response to seeing some new stuff. So enjoy it.

Hulk VS. is a sort of a double feature, with two separate, self-contained stories presented. First, there’s Hulk VS Wolverine in a knock-down, drag out smack-fest. Then there’s Hulk VS Thor, which is full of Asgardian ass-smashing action. Both are very good and both have very distinct stylistic approaches.

While the animation is similar, there are differences, even in the presentation of Hulk. In Wolverine, every character is a bit stylized, with the brutes being top-heavy behemoths and the smaller guys being exaggerated in their emaciated rippedness. In Thor, the characters are presented with regal designs and the mystical realm of Asgard is captured nicely.

As for stories, each approaches its subject matter differently. Yet, one consistent theme emerges, and it’s not the Hulk. Rather, it’s the lack of focus on the Hulk. Each episode uses the Hulk as a catalyst, but really tells a story focused on the other title character. For Wolverine, this is mostly an exploration of the mutant’s past, showcasing a quartet of villains in the Weapon X program, and throwing in Hulk for some good smash-em action. In Thor, we see an introduction to Asgard and the royal hierarchy that these gods inhabit. There’s a small showcase for the natural enemies like Frost Giants and Trolls, but most importantly, we see how Loki is the scheming, half-brother, arch-nemesis to the honorable Thor. How does Hulk fit in? He’s the tool that Loki uses to wreak havoc in the magical kingdom.

So, this could be a problem to anyone hoping to focus primarily on the Hulk. Yes, Hulk is in these stories, but he really is a means to an end. If you’re wanting Hulk Smash action, you’re gonna get it. But if you’re hoping for some exploration into the Hulk psyche, you’re not gonna get too much.
Yet, each story does a very good job of entertaining, which has been sorely missing in previous Marvel Animation DVDs. In Wolverine, you’re getting a real PG-13 level of attitude, wisecracks, and violence! Yes, claws go slashing, blood goes spilling, and limbs go flying. No joke. While this almost seems like a primer for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, the Hulk VS Wolverine episode delivers nicely. Mix in a little humor, mostly provided by the first real animated appearance of Deadpool, and you get geeks wetting their pants. It’s a good slap you in the face presentation.

For Hulk VS Thor, you get an introduction into Thor, Odin, Loki, and Asgard. After watching an extra on the DVD, it looks like there will be a Thor: Tales of Asgard series/movie coming out, and this may be that primer as well. But really, the focus is on the relationships in Asgard, how Thor is the noble son and crown prince, how Loki is the scheming half-brother, Odin is the badass ruler, Thor has some babes going after him, and lots of big monsters threaten their kingdom. Imagine He-Man but with brighter colors and a sweet-ass hammer. The story is good, a menacing Hulk is rampaging through Asgard and Thor must find a way to protect the kingdom during Odin’s absence. There’s still the nod to fanboys as well, when we see someone other than Thor trying to lift the mystical hammer, Mjolnir. Again, really good stuff, no real PG-13 violoence, mostly just Saturday morning smacks. But the fact that Thor and Loki go visit Hell and it’s ruler, Hella, to save a soul from eternal damnation, um, that’s kinda cool to know the producers weren’t backing away from the touchy stuff.

Overall, this was a very nice DVD set. I’ve avoided calling them episodes because these aren’t part of a series, nor are the shorts because they’re about 40 minutes long each. But they are a nice animated double-feature with lots of excellent animation, lots of cool characters finally captured onscreen, and very solid voice acting, dialogue, and plotting to make the features entertaining. Out of 6 adamantium claws, Hulk VS Wolverine gets a 4.5. Out of 7 days of Odin sleep, Hulk VS Thor gets a 5. As a full package, the Hulk VS DVD earns a hearty 8 out of 10 on the fanboy entertainment scale.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

Review by Loc

In the case of Benjamin Button, it’s not curiosity that consumes the film, but rather, time. Time, in the most literal sense: Benjamin Button ages backwards in a mysterious, unexplained way. Time, in the existential sense: how does one rectify the conundrum of love and loss? Time, in the sense of restlessness: it’s a three-hour movie! Quick hit: Benjamin Button is a solid flick, solid.

As you may have heard, Brad Pitt has the power to de-age in this film. As a newborn of the 1920s, Pitt is a wrinkly, ossified infant, one that doctors believe won’t survive too long. Yet, through little explanation and little exposition, Pitt slowly grows younger. First, as a tiny, chair-bound child who looks 80 years old to a crutch wielding adolescent who resembles a 70 year old. You can continue to play this game through Pitt’s 20s, 30s, and 40s, where he finally reaches the midpoint of his life and looks like Brad Pitt does today.

The story that follows along the special effects is nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, Pitt is growing up backwards, but his adventures are not all that notable. In his early adolescence, he meets a young girl named Daisy. Daisy would end up being an integral part of his life, semi-star-crossed lovers when age appropriateness takes place. Besides that, Pitt’s major life event is hopping on a tugboat and working through WWII as part of the crew. As he’s just entering his twenties, he looks 60, meets up with some characters, and learns the ways of life, as a naïve 60 year old. Eh.

The real core of the story revolves around Pitt’s love. As he finally reaches an age of maturity, his body also reaches a socially acceptable age, and he pursues the childhood love in Daisy. What follows is a plain courtship where Daisy’s own ambitions are stifled at the perfect time. With her dreams dashed, why not hook up with Brad Pitt? I know I would.

However, what should have been the major crux of the story appears late in the film. How does Pitt’s de-aging affect the life he can lead? Surely, he can fall in love and be a husband…for a while. But, can he be a father? And for how long? And what struggles will this cause for wife and baby? Ahh, the real questions, too bad they’re answered as simply as Pitt’s de-aging: not all that much. Sure, issues are dealt with, but we don’t see the true struggles to overcome these issues. And that’s a shame, because this is really where the story could have held a lot of weight.

Coincidentally or not, these issues are covered quickly onscreen. Is it because Young Brad Pitt is much harder to pull off than wrinkly Brad Pitt? Young Brad Pitt is always in shot in shadows or soft lighting. And the shadows are annoying as hell. Sure, a couple scenes may look moody and artsy, but every single face shot being draped in darkness sucks. I guess no matter how much pancake makeup you use, making a 45 year old look 25 is hard. However, spending 2 hours on Pitt’s first 40 years of life, then 30 minutes on the next 30 kinda sucks.

As Benjamin Button, Pitt is solid. I’m not sure how hard it is to speak in a creaky voice for over half the movie, and really, the body doubles and special effects do a remarkable job of bringing Benjamin to life. But this is the type of role that suits the compassionate, caring Pitt persona, and it works fine.

Cate Blanchette plays adult Daisy, and she does a very good job as well. She looks very legitimate as a professional dancer, at least from these untrained eyes. As she moves into her relationship with Pitt, there’s a noticeable distance that leaves the relationship a little less magical and moving. Maybe it’s the way we would all react, but it makes it less of a tragic fairytale if we can’t see the connection between the two.

Overall, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a mixed bag. It’s a solid story, but it’s a long movie to sit through. It’s paced extremely slow, which gives you time to embrace Pitt’s Benjamin, but leaves the more compelling aspect of growing young in old age as an afterthought. The acting is good, but they’re almost like individual performances and don’t offer true connections between the characters that the audience can gravitate towards. It’s pretty good and worth seeing, but it’s not necessarily astounding. Out of 88 years, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button grows up to 61 years old before running out of steam. It might win some awards, but there should be better stuff out there.

Year In Review: 2008

2009-01-04T23:00:00.001-08:00

By Loc

We saw some movies this year! Whoo hoo. Yeah, it’s time for a review in the year of, or more appropriately, a Year In Review! Every year we have some laughs, some tears, and most importantly, we spend some time together reminiscing of the year that was. We remember the good, we downplay the bad, and we let go of all that could have been, cause it hurts so much to know we made those horrible mistakes, the decisions that haunt our dreams and discolor our waking moments. The times when the wrong choice was more than a statement, it was a miserable experience that left nothing but emptiness and darkness in a vast abyss of nothingness. Oh the despair!

Moving on, as is customary, let’s take a look at the numbers. Of the top 10 movies, BMF witnessed a healthy 7, impressive in the blockbuster department. Stuff like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and WALL-E were must-sees this summer season. Others that were seen, even if bad for the soul, included Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hancock, and Quantum of Solace. And sneaking in as an above-average flick, Kung Fu Panda cracked the top 10.

For the top 20 movies, there was a bit of a BMF drop off. We checked in with 12, hovering at 60% with The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, and Tropic Thunder. Again others ended up making money and making our brains hurt at the same time: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Get Smart.

Overall, BMF sat in the theaters a grand total of 22 times, averaging one movie every two-and-a-half weeks. Not too bad, as that was close to years in the past. Except for last year, when we had the Summer Blockbuster Contest and we saw 22 movies in the summer weeks alone. But a couple movies per month isn’t too shabby. Some of the flicks that didn’t make boatloads of money but entertained nonetheless included: Role Models, Burn After Reading, and Slumdog Millionaire. Others that were a waste of time and money included Speed Racer and 21. And let’s not forget, The Wrestler squeaked in there with a pre-2009 viewing.

Some flicks that came out but will be lost in the abyss of “too late for last year and not eligible for 09” will be Benjamin Button, Milk, and some other Oscar flicks we won’t know about until they get nominated. Oh well, thems the breaks. On to the awards!

The We’re Screwed Cause You Saw That Stupid Movie Award: 27 Dresses

I would venture a guess that some actors don’t really act, they’re just playing themselves for all to see. Exhibit A: Michael Cera. He’s a goofy, awkward dude who plays…a goofy, awkward dude in…every single thing he’s in! Exhibit B: Katherine Heigl. She plays a semi-aloof, well-meaning but annoying, self-deluded, “empowered” woman. Behind the scenes on her TV show, she’s been portrayed as a…well-meaning, annoying, semi-aloof, self-deluded actor who demands better writing for her character. So she gets to have sex with a ghost now. Which is funny, but a bad omen, because, she’s also been relatively successful on the big-screen with Knocked Up and now with 27 Dresses. And that means we get more of that “empowered” star in our faces. Good job, all of you! I blame you, a lot.

The Robin Williams Successor Award: Step Brothers

Seriously, I guess the man-child act never gets old. And in this day and age, why settle for one when you can double the man-child quotient in one sitting? I give you Will Ferrel and John C Reily. And we all get a little dumber in the process.

The What the Hell Award: Beverly Hills Chihuahua

This movie was number one at the box office…for multiple weeks…I blame you again. People, it’s called taste, you should look into getting some.

The I Knew You Wouldn’t Let Me Down Award: Seven Pounds

Will, Willy, Willy-boy, you came through like a champ! Sure, you almost turned a corner with Hitch and I Am Legend. But I knew you’d come back stronger than ever, with a stupid, self-important role that showcases nothing. And you delivered, thank you sir. Your return to vapid stupidity warms my heart just a little bit. Quick PSA to the readers: if your head weights anywhere close to seven pounds, you won’t want to see this flick.

The ClusterF That Knew It Was A ClusterF Award: Burn After Reading

Hell, there’s a line in the movie where J. Jonah Jameson says exactly that: “this is a clusterf*ck”. It was mildly entertaining, but when you boil it down, it’s two hours of a random messes that intersect. If I’m gonna have random intersections, there better be racist bastards like Crash or dumb federal agents who say “Good job Javi-A” like Traffic. Otherwise, don’t waste my time with “quirky” comedy that really isn’t all that funny.

The There’s More Than Apatow Award: Role Models

Thank you Paul Rudd and Stiffler for delivering R-rated comedy that didn’t involve full-frontal male nudity and barely-funny jokes. Role Models was a kick in the pants, a straight-up foul-mouthed comedy that had the tiniest semblance of heart to make you feel OK about laughing at nut-punches and kids swearing. It’s good to know that I’m a decent person after seeing this.

The MTV Promo Might Be Better Than The Flick Award: Tropic Thunder
(2:45 in the clip above)

Don’t get me wrong, Tropic Thunder was pretty damn funny. Hats off to Robert Downey Jr, cause he was damn funny. And the fake trailers at the beginning were high-larious. But if you want to see some good stuff, I mean really funny stuff, take a look at the MTV awards promo for this flick. Robert Downey is awesome in the smallest nuances and Stiller makes a go at some funny lines.

The Are You Seriously Killing Another Franchise Award: Indiana Jones 4

Look, George Lucas goes and says, hey, I don’t care what people will say, they’ll always be negative, I know cause I experienced it after Star Wars. Memo to George, the “people” are negative cause you made shitty-ass movies! Shitty! Shit! And now you throw Indy in a lead refrigerator to escape a nuclear blast? Really? I don’t care if you’re making a family adventure, Shia swinging on vines like Tarzan is stupid. And it looked horrible too! You suck.

The Worst Movie of the Year:

I feel like I’ve been negative. But really, I’m only getting negative here. There’s a couple contenders for the coveted award. Narnia was really bad, but the random bear scenes made it laughably good. That bear steals the show, and you should rent it just to hear how stupid it sounds. Speed Racer was really bad and I was giving it all the benefit of the doubt. It’s the damn Wachowski Brothers for crying out loud, The Matrix minds! But Speed was horrid, with dizzying graphics and a plot that led to nothing. Mariocart is infinitely more entertaining.

Ah, but the worst movie of the year goes to 21. Who would think that a flick about gaming the system and taking down Vegas could be so horrible? First, you have Kevin Spacey acting like an asshole the whole flick, even though he’s supposed to be the cool-guy mentor. Then you have the lead guy acting like a whiny bitch, and he’s the protagonist? The worst was the time dilation, where you weren’t sure if the flick was supposed to be a period piece where dressing up like an stupid cowboy could trick Vegas computers, but then the kids are busy Googling crap and rolling into the newest casinos on the strip. I mean, you’re really gonna hide your money in the ceiling of your dorm room? And you’re surprised when it gets stolen?? I know kids show more initiative in hiding their porn than you did in stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Idiots.

OK, maybe I have been negative. On to the good stuff. Who made the cut for the best films of the year?

Number 3: WALL-E

I do love the Pixar and WALL-E was a ballsy flick. You start a kid-friendly movie with 45 minutes of nothing but silence and robot chirps? And you still pull off a stunningly engaging flick with heart and soul? Always awesome, Pixar delivered the goods with WALL-E. The environment-friendly message was a hammer on the head, much to the chagrin of many people watching. I didn’t mind it as much as the use of real people in the video sequences. Real people!? No, you’re a Pixar flick, only CGI is allowed. Nonetheless, this was a good flick.

Number 2: Iron Man

Kudos to John Favreau and Robert Downey Jr for making Iron Man a kick-ass comic flick. As we moved into the mainstream comic book movies, stuff like X-Men and Batman Begins told us that grounded-in-reality meant joylessness. But Iron Man took the mold and cut a different pattern. Fun and whimsy, but grounded in our reality, Iron Man remade a star out of Robert Downey Jr, who chewed up this role without hesitation. And even cooler, it set the stage for a true comic universe on the silver screen. Get ready for Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk to intersect with each other, eventually leading to an all-star comic caper in The Avengers. It’s a fanboy’s wet dream, and now it’s yours as well.

Number 1: The Dark Knight

Simply the best movie of the year. This was entertaining, thrilling, well-acted, big-budget goodness. Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan took the foundation from Batman Begins and cranked the amp to 11. Why? Cause 11 is more than 10 dammit. Everything fit well, the characters were brooding in a good way, and the weightiness to the action stemmed directly from caring about the characters. But really, the biggest hat goes to Heath Leger and his amazing take on the Joker. Look, when Jack took the character in 1989, that was cool beans. It was like answering the question: how would a primetime actor make that goofy TV show rendition into something awesome. The answer was Jack, onscreen with all the pomp and pizzazz needed. So when early word leaked out about how good Heath was, skepticism was the only recourse. Really, how much different can you make the joker? Uh, apparently a lot. Heath destroyed this role and made the Joker into a menacing tour-de-force. He stole every scene, manhandled it, spit it out, and kicked it to the curb. He was awesome, the movie was awesome, it was the perfect evolution of Batman onscreen. I recently saw it on DVD and while it was good, it wasn’t as grand. So if you missed it in the theaters, you really need to rent a movie-house and check it out. Cause this is a flick that needs to be seen in a way that only 50 feet of silver screen can deliver. It’s great!

And that’s all I have for you. This was a year of extremes, really good flicks and movies you wish you could kick in the pants. Surprisingly, the best flicks were also some of the best performing ones. And for that, I commend Hollywood on making good films for the masses. Enjoy and see you soon.

The Wrestler

2008-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Review by Loc

Ah, what good times we get at the end of the year. I’m not talking about mistletoe, stockings, and never-ending lines at Bestbuy. I’m talking about the “Oscar-contender” flicks that get super-limited releases to qualify for February’s big golden statue show. In years past, Brokeback Mountain, There Will Be Blood, and Capote were all released during this same time in previous years, much to the “delight” of audiences. After all, how can you enjoy quality top-notch flicks unless you get depressed from them? What about this year? Quick hit: The Wrestler is a somewhat compelling character study, but not all that enlightening if you’ve partaken in the glamorous world of professional wrestling before.

The Wrestler is Darren Aronofsky’s ode to wrestling. Starring Mickey Rourke as the aged living legend, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, The Wrestler spotlights the world of indy wrestling, showcasing the brutal lifestyle of a broken performer. However, the poignancy resides not in the wrestling antics, but in the examination of Rourke’s Robinson and how the reality of today is far from the glory days of the past.

Rourke turns in a great performance, both physically and emotionally. If you tune in to any wrestling show, you’ll see numerous guys who look just like Rourke. He must have spent quite a bit of time in the gym to get the beefy, brawny body of an fifty-year old former athlete. Physically, he looks amazing and embodies the role with genuine achy knees and bulging biceps.

On an emotional level, Rourke gives “The Ram” subtle layers of complexity, which are further fleshed out by good writing. Rourke’s Robinson is a beaten soul who finds self-worth in his fans. Yet, he’s aware enough to know that he performs at weekend shows in high school gyms and signs autographs for $8 a pop. The days of arenas and 20,000 cheering fans are long gone. It’s his self-awareness in the near-pathetic life he leads that makes his story more tragic. He aims to find a “better”, more normal existence: he angles to find steady work at a local market, he reaches out to his long estranged daughter, he hopes to find a meaningful relationship, and he even tries to let go of his wrestling life.

What follows is the journey of a broken man trying to mend himself. However, this is an Aronofsky indie-flick, and he’s the guy who brought you uplifting stories like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain. To say the journey is steeped in downer moments would be an understatement. Yet, it’s the realism that makes this a compelling flick.

As for the wrestling stuff, its relatively interesting if you’re new to the world of tights and squared circles. There’s a very particular angle that’s presented, the world of brutal, hardcore, glass-shattering indy-wrestling and the brotherhood of grapplers who love and bleed by each other’s sides. Yes, this world exists and probably dominates the majority of those trying to break into the big-leagues. However, the flick also leaves the wrestling audience to inhabit the role of blood-thirsty, entertainment-hungry barbarians who care not of the men in tights, but only for the visual sensations they bring. Honestly, anything we find entertaining can fall into this type of narrow-scoped view: we don’t see all the pain and ailments from our football players, we don’t focus on the grueling world of dancers, we don’t even care about the animals from the circus. Painting the picture of “Christians-to-lions” atmosphere in the wrestling world is a bit overstated.

Overall, The Wrestler is a good flick. It’s not particularly astounding, but it is pretty good at getting you depressed about life. And we all know that’s a key for Oscar success. Mickey Rourke absolutely deserves consideration for some golden statues, and Marisa Tomei’s aging stripper is very good in a supporting role. But, don’t get yourself all worked up for an eye-opening tour-de-force, it’s not. It’s good enough, but it’s not great. Out of 20 stitches to mend a nasty gash on the back, The Wrestler wins with a clean pin of 15 stitches. Ram jam!

Slumdog Millionaire

2008-11-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

Review by Loc

I miss Berkeley’s semi-vibrant Indy-flick scene. Back in the day, you could take your pick from 4-5 small, ghetto theaters to see flicks you only knew about because you saw another Indy-flick and saw the trailer months earlier. Stadium seating? No! THX? Doubly Surround? NO! Just a semi-serviceable screen, a ticket booth with country fair-style tickets, and a lot of Indy/liberal/old/”deep” people in the audience. Back then, the super-hyped, in-the-know flicks would have those four-city limited releases, and Berkeley was usually one of them. Nowadays, I’m surrounded by megaplexes, blue Slushees, and big blockbusters that draw $100M on opening weekend. So it was a bit of work to find the newest Indy-jewel, but find it I did. Quick hit: Slumdog Millionaire is compelling Indy-flick goodness.

Slumdog Millionaire is they somewhat romanticized, pseudo-scrutinizing look at India’s poverty-stricken slum class orphans. We follow Jamal Malik, a call-center assistant who finds himself in the improbable position of being one question away from winning the grand prize of 20 million Rupees on the Hindi version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Yet, a tea servant advancing so far in the game draws suspicion from the local authorities, and we begin the movie with Jamal being interrogated by the unsympathetic police captain.

What unfolds over the next two hours are a series of flashbacks, each explaining how Jamal’s unique experiences allows him to answer increasingly difficult questions on the quiz show. However, these are often haunting memories, ranging from the riots fueled by religious conflicts to the usually unseen nature of the children street-beggars. There’s very little Cinderella in these tales, and while some are played for minimal laughs, the prospect that these images reflect the current reality is disheartening and thoroughly depressing. At the same time, the very nature of Jamal’s life does seem comprised wholly of the worst possible existence known to civilization, and one wonders how much artistic license was used to dramatize this character’s life.

Throughout the flashbacks, we follow Jamal and his older brother Salim, as they somehow manage to survive. They also find a kindred spirit in Latika, a fellow orphaned girl who finds herself grouped into many of their adventures. Again, it’s compelling to watch how these children fend for themselves in an environment that has no interest in seeing them survive.

As the story unfolds, juxtaposing childhood memories with game show flashbacks and Jamal’s current interrogation, we see how Jamal’s motivation revolves around Salim and Latika rather than the possibility in fortune. And while this is often a recipe for success in storytelling, the concentration on the most important relationship seems to be missing something. There’s manufactured weight and substance, but the inherent heart is lacking. I’ve left this vague on purpose, as it’s not hard to figure out through the course of the movie, but you should experience it unfold for yourself.

Overall, Slumdog Millionaire is compelling. It’s not “entertaining” in the sense that this is far from a happy-ending, Cinderella makes good story. The hardships faced by an entire generation of orphans is mindboggling and wholly depressing. This doesn’t end with the audience in a feel-good state of mind, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it does end with a sweet Bollywood dance sequence, so stay for that. Out of 20 million Rupees, Slumdog Millionaire earns 15 million. Final answer.

Trailer Reviews!!!

2008-11-23T22:15:00.001-08:00

Maybe I have too much time on my hands. But really, if I can't review the previews, then this isn't America!

http://bmftrailerpark.blogspot.com/