Priority Number One! with Salty The Beast

A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN: Academy A-Bored

2012-02-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

For as good of a year as 2011 was for movies of all kinds, from the big summer blockbusters to award season contenders, I was extremely disappointed as I scrolled through the list of nominations for the 84th Academy Awards on my (currently beaten and bloodied) computer [pictured above]. I was disappointed at how neutered, clawless and uniformly routine most of the nominations were. Almost nothing for “The Ides Of March?” No “Source Code?” No “Hanna” for Best Original Score or Best Editing? And absolutely NOTHING for “Young Adult” or “50/50,” two of my favorite films of the year? And yet, what did the Academy decide to acknowledge this year?

“War Horse,” a Spielberg film set during World War I about a boy and his horse. Typical. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” a tearjerker that uses 9/11 as a major plot point. Of course. “The Help” and its telling of the racial struggle during the Civil Rights era. These are all such safe choices. There aren’t any cool wildcards to be found in the entire deck. Hey, I wasn’t a big fan of “Drive” myself. But just about every other critic in the world loved the hell out of it, and it would have been an interesting choice to place in several categories. Yet all it was recognized for was Sound Editing. What gives, Academy? You missed so many opportunities to show that you’re totally "with" the current generation of moviegoers, and you blew just about every single one of them by reinforcing your cute and cuddly sensibilities. I’ll destroy you with my bare hands. Look out!

Meh. I’m just not all that ecstatic this time around. But because the world simply cannot live without me having to elaborate in detail my thoughts and opinions…well, I did so on this stupid blog post. Here are my detailed thoughts and opinions on each and every one of the categories that the Academy Awards has to offer. Agree? Disagree? I don’t care, because I know that I’m right and everyone else has inferior thoughts by comparison. Ha ha, suckers! Let's commence this thang:

BEST PICTURE
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight In Paris
Moneyball
The Tree Of Life
War Horse

“The Artist” practically has this race in the bag. It doesn’t get anymore easy than that. And don’t get me wrong, I think “The Artist” is a great film and I’m happy for it and everything. But for me, there are other movies in this category that I believe would be more deserving of this honor. “Moneyball,” “Midnight In Paris,” “Hugo,” and even “The Descendants” would probably sooner nab a vote from yours truly if I called the shots around this place. But I don’t. So there.

And while I have not seen “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” for myself, there is not a soul I know on this planet who thinks this was worthy of receiving a Best Picture nod. Not only that, but critical buzz hasn’t been all that strong either (RT has it at a 46% as of today).

BEST ACTOR
Demian Bichir (A Better Life)
George Clooney (The Descendants)
Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

Unless “The Artist” proves to be an all-out juggernaut and wins all the awards it’s nominated for, it is a pretty safe bet that ol’ Clooney is a shoo-in for the Best Actor race. And rightfully so. He is absolutely terrific in “The Descendants,” which also happens to be one of the better films to come out last year. Pitt and Dujardin did commendable work in their respective roles, but Clooney owns it big time.

Gary Oldman is kind of an odd inclusion for his work in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” And I am willing to bet that close to nobody has seen “A Better Life,” or even has the slightest clue about who Demian Bichir is or what he’s doing here. Couldn’t they have replaced him with somebody a tad more contemporary? Someone along the lines of Ryan Gosling or Leonardo DiCaprio or Michael Fassbender? Get the hint yet?

BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)
Viola Davis (The Help)
Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

The Best Actress category is looking like a neck-and-neck competition between “The Help’s” Viola Davis and frequent Oscar contender Meryl Streep, who is up for her seventeenth nom for her portrayal of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. And if it had been any other movie, I would probably be on the side of Meryl Streep. But from what I hear, she is just about the only thing that is pitch-perfect in the otherwise mediocre “The Iron Lady,” and of course, you gotta have a firm foundation in order for me to give a crap. Besides, Rooney Mara is easily the most deserving competitor on the list. Even Moviefone agrees with me that her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” was the best performance of the year. But we all know that a win for her will never happen. At least not right now; she’s gotta make a greater name for herself in the movie industry before the Academy will finally recognize her talents. In which case, I am championing a dark horse victory for Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn.”

But you know, I am also quite peeved that there is no love for Charlize Theron in “Young Adult.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn)
Jonah Hill (Moneyball)
Nick Nolte (Warrior)
Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)

Best Supporting Actor, otherwise referred to as the “old man award.” If there’s an oldie in any of these five positions, he is destined for an easy win. In the case of the 2012 Oscars, three of the nominees are well past seventy: Nick Nolte (71), Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow (both 82). Though Sydow is the oldest nominee by just a gray hair, Plummer is looking like the current favorite. And if his acceptance speech is as awesome as it was earlier this year at the Critics’ Choice Awards, I’d be cool with that outcome. As much as I admired the incredibly sympathetic role for Nolte in “Warrior” and was glad to hear that his work didn’t go unnoticed, a win for him does not look especially promising.

What drew attention in this category was the inclusion of Jonah Hill for “Moneyball.” Now all sorts of advertising agencies can use the phrase “Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill” when piecing together the trailer for the next R-rated Judd Apatow comedy. But the real sacrilege here was that the Academy neglected to mention Albert Brooks for his sinister turn in “Drive,” a role which most speculators thought might’ve placed second after Plummer. Mr. Brooks, I think it’s time you whip out those razor blades you had in the film and perform a little “slashy-slashy” action on all those old voters and demand your respect.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Berenice Bejo (The Artist)
Jessica Chastain (The Help)
Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids.” That’s…questionable to say the least.

Octavia Spencer is clearly the favorite here, and for once, I wholeheartedly agree with this jurisdiction. She is the best woman in this category…yeah, nothing much else to say about this award.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
A Cat In Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss In Boots
Rango

Really? Did everybody get a lobotomy immediately after the screening of “The Adventures Of Tintin” or something? Not bloody likely, considering they still had fond enough memories to recount the March release “Rango,” which is likely to win Best Animated Feature. But hey, look. No “Cars 2” in sight. So Pixar really DIDN’T bribe the voters. And I never heard of “A Cat In Paris” or “Chico & Rita”...but something tells me they aren’t gonna win the heart of Oscar. No “Arthur Christmas” either…that kinda sucks. *frown*

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Artist
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree Of Life
War Horse

A toss-up between “War Horse” and “The Tree Of Life,” though if you ask me, “The Tree Of Life” is a no brainer. While “War Horse” is vast, dreamlike and expansive, “The Tree Of Life” is all-encompassing. It is an experience like no other, and if it loses to “War Horse,” heads will roll…that is, when I roll each voter up in a rug and kindly ask them to hand their movie credentials in to me for their crimes against all that is cinematically right with the world.

BEST ART DIRECTION
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
Hugo
Midnight In Paris
War Horse

“Hugo.” That hyperrealism is magnificent and incredibly beautiful.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.

“The Artist.” Although “The Help” would have probably gotten my vote had it actually been nominated. Sigh, the one occasion when it could have actually shined also happened to be the one moment the Academy overlooked it.
BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
Martin Scorsese (Hugo)
Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris)
Terrence Malick (The Tree Of Life)

I find it quite amusing that Hazanavicius probably has the greatest chance of winning, even though he is the filmmaker with the least prominent reputation. The only other features he’s directed are the “OSS 117” films. But look at the other people up for the award: Alexander Payne, Terrence Malick, Woody Allen. Martin Scorsese, basically the god amongst mere mortals of cinema! Eh, whatever. I’m cool with it, I s'pose.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Hell and Back Again
If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

BEST DOCUMENTART SHORT
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

BEST SHORT FILM
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Bullhead
Monsieur Lazhar
A Separation
Footnote
In Darkness

Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Animated Short, Best Short Film and Best Foreign Language Film…otherwise known as the categories nobody cares about. Yeah, go cry me a river. I’ve seen absolutely none of these, I know nothing about them, I haven’t heard any strong buzz. The most definitive thing I can say is that, judging by the overwhelmingly strong critical praise, I’m sure that “A Separation” will take home the gold for Best Foreign Language Film. Other than that, I’ve got nothing. Sorry!

BEST EDITING
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball

“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” Easy.

BEST MAKEUP
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
The Iron Lady

I dunno. The only one I’ve seen is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” so I cannot give much of an answer. Although for some reason, I have an inkling that one of the two other films will triumph.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Adventures of Tintin
The Artist
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse

I have a few problems with this particular category. 1) The inclusion of “The Artist” as Best Original Score. As a few of you might have heard recently, Kim Novak made a big issue out of the fact that “The Artist” incorporated a small bit of the score from “Vertigo,” a film which she had a major starring role in. She went as far as to declare the song's placement in the film a form of rape. Hyperbolic as it may sound, the “Vertigo” excerpt should automatically keep it out of the running. In 2008, the Academy excluded “There Will Be Blood” for Best Original Score because Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist of Radiohead and the film’s composer, sampled a guitar lick from one of his own songs. Make your decisions consistent, guys.

2) No score for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” which was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I guess they didn’t want to be boring and nominate the same composers for two consecutive years in a row. Unfortunately, they made little effort to mitigate the boredom in all the other categories. 3) No “Hanna” score by The Chemical Brothers?! I know that came out all the way back at the beginning of April, but seriously, nothing has stuck around in my subconscious like their pounding electronic soundtrack.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Man Or Muppet” – The Muppets
“Real In Rio” – Rio

“Man Or Muppet.” Done deal. Case closed. Finito. And the song totally deserves it. After all, I predicted that it would garner some attention around award season in my initial review
BEST SOUND EDITING
Drive
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
War Horse

It would be nice to see “Hugo” take this prize…that’s all I have to say.
BEST SOUND MIXING
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
War Horse

As much as it pains me to say it… “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.”
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

‘Tis quite a tricky category to gauge. If “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” has any potential to win an Oscar, it would most certainly be through its absolutely stunning special effects and its bag of awesome visual tricks. But then again, “Real Steel” had some of the most convincing, fluid and life-like robot animations I’ve ever seen (way superior to “Transformers”). That’s a tough one.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides Of March
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Faithful readers know that I am a sucker for the dialogue that Aaron Sorkin is able to write, and quite frankly, I am absolutely jealous of his ability. “The Social Network” is in my opinion the most expertly written film I have critiqued since I began blogging about movies, and it still continues to amaze me in new ways every time I re-watch it. So yes, while all of the other movies may have very praiseworthy scripts written by a bunch of talented people, my vote goes with Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian’s inspired and impeccable screenplay for “Moneyball.”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight In Paris
A Separation

This is the moment when I knew that “The Artist” was a force to be reckoned with. The screenplay is exceedingly sparse, and just about all of the dialogue appears on inter-title cards. It STILL gets a nod for screenplay.

“Bridesmaids” is an interesting choice, but “Midnight In Paris” is obviously gonna win. This is Woody Allen’s best screenplay in quite a long time, as well as one of my personal favorites of the year.

And wow, “A Separation” gets a nomination? But it’s a foreign language movie at the Academy Awards. That’s like booking an English rock band like the Rolling Stones to play at the Superbowl…oh wait, that’s actually happened. Yikes.

************************************

The 84th Academy Awards will be televised Sunday on ABC. I’m desperately hoping for some shocking upsets, but from a distance, it is looking as predictable as the last couple of years. Boo!

And if anyone was wondering, I am hoping to finish reviews for "The Descendants" and "War Horse" before Sunday. So you also have that to look forward to.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Artist

2012-02-21T18:35:00.004-08:00

If Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” was a loving history lesson about cinema in one of its earliest eras, “The Artist” is a direct visual homage to the films of that time period, as well as an example of filmmaking in its most basic form. It is the type of movie you suspect stumbled out of a time capsule from the early 1930s. Its only colors are black and white, there is virtually no spoken dialogue or sound effects save for a few strategically placed bits where it breaking form, it is not presented in widescreen, and the piano score sounds like it has taken a few notes from Disney cartoon shorts. Even the stately opening credits preserve the classic style and presentation that a lot of people just aren’t used to seeing in a lot of mainstream movies. It is even kind of a jump scare when a song with lyrics begins to play. But even though it is very different, you are making a big mistake if you avoid it for those reasons. “The Artist” is one of the more amusing and accessible films to come along in a good while, despite it being both a silent film and a foreign film (it comes from France, but silent comedy is universal).

“The Artist” begins at the time in which silent films were at the peak of their popularity, or perhaps it is on the outset of their foreseeable demise. One of the most prominent stars of cinema at the time is George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), whose movies consistently brought in large crowds. And always with George (both on and off screen) is a sensational canine sidekick named Uggie, though frankly, that puppy has a tendency to outshine the owner. Dujardin’s appearance strikes just the right note of a silent movie star, from the timing of his comedy to his dashing and confident smile to his physical elegance akin to Gene Kelly.

Silent actors, especially of the physical comedy variety, are quite skilled and highly commendable performers in my opinion. Surely the subtle and nuanced performers in this current generation of filmmaking deserve a lot of respect as well, but you’ve gotta hand it to people like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. In addition to the obvious truth that they had to convey the stories and situations entirely through mugging for the camera, they also had to perform the most outrageous stunts, keep composure in the middle of all the craziness happening around them, and still be able to keep the audience hanging on every bit of it. If one were to go back and watch the Buster Keaton film “The General,” it is still pretty astounding to watch the actor accomplish the daunting feats of wonder he did on that moving train.

Things are looking pretty great for George in the year 1927 at the premiere of his latest movie. The crowd is going absolutely nuts, gasping and laughing boisterously as they watch the actor and the dog get themselves out of a sticky situation on the massive projection screen. They are equally entertained when George walks out from stage left and starts grandstanding like he has the audience in the palm of his hand. And to be sure, he does. Outside of the theater, he poses and beams at the cameras with pride while dozens of screaming fans (Well, I assume they’re screaming. This is a silent movie after all) request an autograph from their favorite star.

Amongst this large assembly of fans is a beautiful young woman by the name of Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who is just as starstruck as anyone else by Valentin’s presence. The odds are certainly in her favor when she drops an autograph book in the crowd, reaches down to pick it up and bumps into the movie star by accident. The next day, Peppy’s face is on the cover of Variety. Not long after the incident, she auditions as a dancer at Kinograph Studios, the same movie studio that employs Valentin. Of course, the two get involved in a few projects together and Peppy gradually becomes a successful young starlet.

Meanwhile, Kinograph Studios is switching the gears of their business in the next couple of years much to George’s dismay. The studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) presents a sound test to the resistant silent movie star, saying that the institution of sound is the next big step in cinema and silent movies are old hat. George refuses to believe that it will catch on and he doesn’t want any part of it. A few years later, Kinograph releases the announcement that they will be developing talkies exclusively, which means that an inevitable canning is in George’s future. But for up-and-comer Peppy, this signifies only the beginning of her rise to stardom.

Not only are the careers and personal lives of Peppy and George moving in the exact opposite directions as the film progresses, but both of them are influential forces in shaping the future of the other person. George turned Peppy into an overnight tabloid subject at his premiere, offered her a role as an extra on the set of one of his films and drew in a little beauty mark on the actress’s cheek to give her a distinguishing characteristic in the biz. Kind of like a welcoming tip that stuck with her well after she became a household name. When Peppy finally earns a starring role in a Kinograph talkie, it just has to open on the same night as George’s independently financed silent movie. Throw in the stock market crash of 1929, and you’ve hammered the final nail in the coffin that initiates the actor’s long fall from the top.

Movies like this about show business and making the shift from one technological paradigm to the next have been done before. Take for instance the classic Gene Kelly musical “Singin’ In The Rain,” which also dealt with the transition period between the silent generation and the talkie generation in Hollywood. And yet, “The Artist” still works. It is still a highly entertaining piece of cinema. Whereas “Singin’ In The Rain” was mostly a light comedy for all intents and purposes, “The Artist” begins in that direction but eventually gets rather realistic and dramatic about its subject matter. Some performers were able to sustain relevance after the innovation of sound, but the careers of many silent film stars went kaput when their preferred art form became obsolete. George sadly fits the bill for one of those people whose untouchable status crumbled as soon as sound took over.

French director Michel Hazanavicius, whose best known work prior to “The Artist” were the series of action spy parodies titled “OSS 117” (in which Dujardin was cast in the lead role as a James Bond-style secret agent), does a magnificent job of keeping the film firmly tailored to the themes and tropes that make a silent movie, and yet he also has fun playing with them and providing new spins on familiar elements. For example, most of the exchanges and dialogue appear on inter-title cards to allow the audience to get a clue of what the characters are saying, much like a lot of films made prior to the 1940s. I won’t reveal exactly what happens, but there is a great trick that happens with one of those cards that (I kid you not) was able to make most of the audience gasp at the same time, or even fall completely silent because of what had just happened. However, Hazanavicius also smoothly integrates sound and dialogue in with the narrative. Take for instance the scene in which George is exposed to the clear, crisp tones of the natural world for the first time. It all begins when he sets his beverage down and hears the distinct noise of the glass coming in contact with the desk. That’s strange. Then he wanders outside and hears a group of ladies walking and laughing. Even a feather gently touching the concrete can produce the explosive bang of an atom bomb, but when he tries to speak or shout, not even the faintest noise escapes his lips. It is all foreign to him. Unfortunately the sequence is short-lived, but I might have also enjoyed seeing a movie in which George also had to adapt in this new audible landscape where he is now the odd man out.

“The Artist” may only be using the stylistic gimmick to appeal to the sensibilities of the older Academy voters, but you know what? The gimmick works very well at the end of the day and functioned in service of a great film. As anticipated, a number of people will shun “The Artist” when it comes to a theater near them, spouting off a bunch of nonsense about how they dislike silent movies, they don’t know anybody in the main cast, or they won’t be able to follow what’s going on without being spoon fed all the exposition. The experience will likely vary from person to person, but in the theater I was at, I could tell that this was one of the better crowd-pleasers to come along in recent memory just by the delighted reactions of the audience members.

VERDICT:

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BRÜTAL SØNG OF THE WEEK: February 20th, 2012

2012-02-20T11:44:00.001-08:00

Brütal Søng: The Murmaider Saga (“Murmaider” and Murmaider II: The Water God”)
Artist: Dethklok
Album: The Dethalbum, The Dethalbum II

The song is called “Murmaider”…it’s about mermaid murder…do I even need to elaborate as to why this song is so brütal?

Me being quite a passionate metalhead at heart, you could imagine how stoked I was upon hearing the news that an animated show about a gargantuan death metal band was gonna hit [adult swim] back in the summer of 2006. A show about a gargantuan death metal band being supervised by Brendon Small no less, who previously worked on the quietly brilliant “Home Movies” and performed all the music for the show. Turns out Mr. Small himself is a huge fan of heavy metal music and studied at Berkley College of Music prior to working in comedy.

And boy, the first time I watched “Metalocalypse,” my brain exploded. Not only was it hilarious is hell, but it may have also been the single most demented and wicked show I’ve seen on basic cable. It was hyperbolically brutal, and I mean that in the literal sense. Each fifteen-minute episode had an immeasurable body count, the concerts put on by the band were bona-fide death traps, and the graphic violence was the most over-the-top and macabre since the days of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” In short, it was a complete departure from anything “Home Movies” had to offer.

But perhaps an even bigger surprise to me was how incredible the music itself was. Though I was big into Metallica and Iron Maiden by this time, I had not yet listened to much death metal or black metal or any other subgenre of metal that originated in or around Scandinavia. But even I was knowledgeable enough to know that the stuff that Brendon Small composed for the show was outstanding. It managed to get me interested in a bunch of other death metal acts that I might not have been interested in otherwise. I could not wait for Dethklok’s first full-length album to come out.

And of course, The Dethalbum was a great album all the way through. At the time of its release, it was the highest charting death metal album ever (I know. That's not saying much, but still.). And the song to kick off the album was “Murmaider,” a smaller song in the show that became one of the more impressive standouts on the entire release. I love that they included the fact that the pickups on Toki Wartooth’s Gibson Flying V are strong enough to project the ambient sounds of the sea and all the various ocean inhabitants. And that solo…is freaking impossible to play.

A few years later when The Dethalbum II came out (the CURRENT highest charting death metal album in history), “Murmaider II: The Water God” managed to blow my expectations out from the depths of the Mariana Trench as well. In my humble opinion, this continuation of the Murmaider saga surpasses the original in quality. In fact, this entire album is even greater than the first. When watching the episodes that season two of “Metalocalypse” had to offer, I didn’t think there were any songs that sounded as iconic or memorable as “Murmaider,” “Thunderhorse” or even “Hatredcopter.” I was dead wrong.

“Bloodlines,” “Burn The Earth, “Black Fire Upon Us,” “Comet Song.” It was as if all the songs in the show were given a facelift, a foot massage, a month-long gym membership trial and some good ol’ fried ice cream at the end of the day. However, “Murmaider II: The Water God” aroused my suspicion the most. It wasn’t heard in any of the episodes, and it shared the same name as my favorite song on the previous album. But all doubt was immediately thrown out the window as soon as I gave it a listen. It is a longer, beefier, better written, better structured and more epic sounding track. There is something about the staccato rhythm of the song that makes me think of pirate ships and nautical iconography. The kind of stuff that comes to mind when you’re watching “Spongebob Squarepants,” or playing “Donkey Kong Country 2” on the SNES. To this day, “Murmaider II: The Water God” may be my personal favorite Dethklok song. But the whole saga is about as brütal as you can get.

Also, here’s a video I uploaded of me trying to play “Murmaider” a few years ago. Seriously. Impossible solo.

-STB

MOVIE REVIEW: Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

2012-02-18T22:15:00.003-08:00

"I made a deal with the devil," says Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) in the opening moments of "Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance," accompanied by some admittedly cool stylized graphics to visually illustrate the backstory of his alternate persona, the Ghost Rider. From what I can vaguely remember about the original "Ghost Rider" film, Blaze bartered his soul to the devil in exchange for his father's life, the devil disobeyed the blood treaty and killed the father anyway, he approached Blaze again years later asking him to defeat a young demon who was looking to dominate the world, and then bestowed upon Blaze the curse of an ancient demon. A curse that causes his motorcycle wheels to burn, his face to disappear until it's just a bare skull, the leather on his jacket to bubble up like a third-degree burn, and his deathly stare to send victims into an irreversible state of suffering. I'm surprised the film doesn't come with a credit reading "based on the personal life of Nicolas Cage." I wouldn't doubt he's been into these kinds of situations.

But let us not beat around the bush here. If "The Grey" was like a spiritual nirvana and "Chronicle" was like an exciting vacation to the Universal Studios theme park, "Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance" is the cinematic equivalent of jet lag. You feel as though more than a couple of hours have been abruptly yanked away from your biological clock, your head feels lighter than a helium balloon and, in some cases, the whole experience can cause insufferable physical illness for long after. Its entire 95-minute running time is like spending an eternity in a blazing inferno, it is noisy and abrasive like the sound of the longest, loudest fingernails scratching away at the stiffest chalkboard in the universe, and it is so sickeningly mind-numbing as to make the brain as soft and malleable as Silly Putty. This is a thoroughly dreadful experience from top to bottom.

Which is really too bad, because this dismal sequel to an already mediocre Marvel comic book property is directed by modern-day schlock-maestros Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (or as they are singularly credited, Neveldine/Taylor). This twosome has previously made good use of their qualified eyes and ears for all things trashy with the enjoyably exploitative "Crank" movies starring Jason Statham. Those films are like B-action movies in the most unrestrained form possible: fast-paced, stylish, politically incorrect and completely aloof in terms of realism and logic. None of that fun is present here. Let's just say that if you thought "Ghost Rider" was a bore, its sequel makes its precursor look like "Iron Man" or "Spider-Man 2" by comparison.

This time around, Johnny Blaze is requisitioned by a commune of devout monks somewhere in Eastern Europe to protect a young boy named Danny (Fergus Riordan) from falling into the clutches of The Devil (Ciarán Hinds). The prince of darkness is plotting to diabolically occupy the kid's body as part of a twisty, turny conspiracy that is difficult to wring any sense out of. Begrudgingly, Blaze accepts the offer extended to him by one of the religious official named Moreau (Idris Elba), if only because the gig may finally do away with this Ghost Rider curse once and for all. No more urinating streams of scorching plasma for this guy anymore.

Violante Placido, the Italian actress who was quite good in the very underrated "The American," is utterly wasted playing Danny's mother (or as Nic Cage once refers to her, "the devil's baby mama"), whose sole function is to look gorgeous when in danger. Cage has the occasional descent into full-on bonkers mode, but is forced to utter the most ridiculously atrocious dialogue even by HIS maniacal standards ("It was a bee…I thought it was gonna…sting your face."). Johnny Whitworth plays one of the Devil's mercenaries who is transformed halfway through the film into a cadaverous freak with the ability to make things perish with just a gentle touch. Everything he comes in contact with immediately grows moldy and rotten, except when it comes to nature's tasty, preservative-loaded confections, Twinkies.

So basically, this is a disastrous rendition (though I would call it a rip-off) of the superb story that was told perfectly fine already in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." Come to think of it, whenever the Ghost Rider's skull became engulfed in a smoldering flare, I could not help but think of it as a calcium-based version of the T-800's metal endoskeleton. It may only be February, but is it too early to declare "Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance" the worst movie of 2012?

VERDICT:

Zero Stars

A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN: Sit Down & Shut Up

2012-02-15T16:51:00.002-08:00

Good God, the current state of theater etiquette really grinds my gears into a big mess on the floor (then again, what doesn’t these days?). Every effin’ movie I go to, there’s always at least one person there to thoroughly annoy every fiber of my being. Whether they are texting, talking loudly, taking time to answer their cell phone, or flashing their backlights to aid them in searching for their class ring that fell underneath their seat, they do so without any regard for their fellow theater-going patrons around them. The rudeness! The audacity!

The message that appears at the beginning of movies informing viewers to silence their cell phones (preferably to turn them off all together) is becoming even more superfluous and unnecessary than the safety disclaimers at the start and end of “Jackass.” Neither of these will deter the people who are stupid enough to think it’s no big deal. In fact, “jackass” sounds like a more than appropriate term to describe these types of people.

And to be sure, I have made a jackass outta myself on a number of occasions at the movies. Sometimes having great company along for the ride can handicap one’s ability to conduct oneself or use common sense. Also, I recognize that not everybody is a film critic like myself, and they are simply looking for a good diversion. Trying to abolish the essence of what makes film experiences fun is not my intention; in fact, I want to somehow enhance the overall experience for the good of everybody else. So with that said, I have outlined some of my particular gripes about what I’ve seen take place at the theater recently. Let’s get the ranting started:

1. Answering the phone.

Do. Not. Answer. Your. Freaking. Phone. While. The. Movie. Is. Still. Playing. You. Moronic…um. Moron. Under any circumstances, as I always say. In a perfect world, everybody would already fully understand this concept as a tacit rule of good manners, and even in this terrible state of theater etiquette, I think most still regard that as a big no-no. Yet I still FREQUENTLY encounter these simpletons who answer their phones in the middle of movies FAR too often. If the ringtone tone is on, that’s bad enough. But when somebody actually answers as if they’re not already pinching the nerves of everybody in attendance by then, that is like brandishing a giant middle finger in all of their faces. As if to flippantly say, “Yeah, someone’s calling me. What’re you gonna do about it?” If I had my way, I would make you swim painstakingly through a river of your children’s blood. But thankfully (at least for your sake), the law prohibits that kind of thing from happening. You win this round, cowards. I don’t care if it’s an emergency of biblical proportions. Your mother MADE that deal with the devil, so therefore it is her own fault if she gets robbed of her soul. If worse comes to worse, walk out of the auditorium and take it up in the lobby. NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION.

2. Texting.

Clearly, you can see I rarely take my phone into the theaters. Slightly more forgivable than flat out answering the phone during the poignant part of the movie where George Clooney and his kids gracefully disperse the deceased mother’s ashes in the water (yes, I still hold a grudge, thanks for asking), texting can still be rather distracting to the people around you. The backlight comes on, and everybody’s eyes immediately gravitate toward the mysterious illumination in the room. And even speaking on a general level, texting is a clear sign that the movie isn’t doing anything to satisfy you. Whatever happened to those good old days when everything happening on the silver screen was intended to dazzle, entice and capture your attention? While watching “Hugo” a while back, I yearned fondly for that era when moviegoers actually watched the movies, soaking in every frame that passed before their eyes. I thought the whole point of movies in the first place was for people to relinquish all the burdens of life and momentarily enter another world, or perhaps a surprisingly similar world with surprisingly similar people that resemble reality. And people STILL prefer to text…why is that?

3. Running conversation.

It is one thing to quietly whisper something amusing or insightful into the ear of the person sitting next to you. It is another thing entirely to constantly talk with everybody in your big group of obnoxious frat boys or bratty, overly loquacious girlfriends. I can remember vividly the night I went to go see the M. Night Shyamalan-produced thriller “Devil” with some friends who had seen it already. About thirty or forty minutes in, we see a motley convoy of young teenagers (I’d estimate thirteen or fourteen years old) who strolled in like they owned the place. They proceeded to yammer away, laugh out loud, get up to go to the restroom, trip over their shoelaces, and most annoyingly, break my previously outlined number one and two rules. And it was at night when we saw the movie. That means they paid the full price of about $9.75 per person. All that money wasted so they could just sit around and talk. They can do that ANY NUMBER OF PLACES other than the movie theater where other people were hoping for a relaxing evening. I desperately wanted to walk up to them after the movie was over and give them a pop quiz about the events that took place in the film, but frankly, that movie was pretty forgettable in the first place.

4. Running commentary.

This one is a very specific and personal nitpick, for I was once in a group that would not stop following up every line of spoken dialogue in the film with the first stupid comment that entered their disputably unoccupied heads, laughing like Beavis and Butthead after their statement reached everybody’s ears. Save your jibber-jabber for the DVD release, when you can watch in the comfort of your own home. You can invite a bunch of friends, buy a bunch of beer and go at it on a bad movie (or even a good one if you’ve seen it). But listen: this ain’t Mystery Science Theater, RiffTrax, Cinematic Titanic, Master Pancake, or any other variety of comedic commentary shows. This is a (probably) populated theater. Shut up. And you’re not funny. You’re bothersome. Get outta my face. Stop breaking all my other rules.

5. Laughing, screaming, jumping, etc.

I’m not typically a picky guy when it comes to natural responses for movies (with the exception of my next rule). If you’re watching a comedy, it is appropriate to let loose a laugh in the designated areas. If you’re watching a Holocaust documentary (or “Up”), it’s appropriate to weep at a reasonable volume to yourself. If you’re watching a slasher flick, I can dig it if you feel the need to liberate your built-up tension in the form of a timely gasp or a short scream. However, what will get under my skin during a scary flick is if you feel the need to outwardly express your nervous tension in every step of its development. “Oh my God, something bad is going to happen. I’m so scared. What’s that guy doing back there? Don’t go in that door! Agh, when will it stop! OH MY GOD, ARE YOU AN IDIOT, LADY? I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO IN THERE! NOW YOU’RE DEAD! I’M SO SCARED!!!!!111”

The sad part is that I’m not exaggerating one single bit. I once spotted a friend in the theater attending the same movie and decided out of general kindness that I would sit with them and keep them company. Throughout the film, they would utter these kinds of sentiments at nauseam, extinguishing any mild sense of terror I might have felt otherwise. Thanks to them, I will never, ever, ever, ever make that same mistake again.

6. For goodness sake, accept what you’re getting into.

I avoid all trailers the best I can. This way, my expectations are locked in check and my viewing experiences are as objective as they can be. Trailers are the devil, and the devil lies like nobody’s business. They can set unrealistic expectations, ruin the best parts of the film, and even present it as an entirely different film altogether. You wouldn’t believe how many people were so shocked to realize that the unconventional action film “Haywire” was paced (gasp!) like a Steven Soderbergh art movie. THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS A STEVEN SODERBERGH ART MOVIE, NUMBSKULL.

But even so, accept what you’ve paid for. Movies are all about taking risks, gambling on what you want to see. If it comforts you, research what you’re getting into beforehand. I wish I could have pulled a Kyle Reese, gone back in time and told these middle-aged ladies that “The Tree Of Life” wasn’t going to be the safe, cuddly, easy-to-digest film that they were probably led to believe due entirely to the star power of Brad Pitt.

7. Take it away, Mastodon (in concession food form)…

BRÜTAL SØNG OF THE WEEK: February 13th, 2012

2012-02-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

Brütal Søng: “November Rain”

Artist: Guns n’ Roses

Album: Use Your Illusion I

Sticking to my one-year-old tradition of paying tribute to a special Brütal Ballad in honor of Valentine’s Day (last year was “I Remember You” by Skid Row), I chose to talk about one of the several ballads to appear on the Guns n’ Roses double album Use Your Illusion (specifically in this case, volume one). Some music lovers proclaim that this epic nine-minute symphonic opus is the best power ballad to be released throughout the whole hair metal era of the 1980s and early 1990s. I am not quite sure if it’s THE best…but it’s pretty close.

I love how eloquently and serenely it begins with the piano and sweeping orchestral arrangements in the vanguard of the track. The conventional hard rock inventory including guitars, bass and drums are tucked low in a restrained position for the time being. When those instruments do show up, they are integrated seamlessly in with the grand and majestic sounding string instruments. By the time that incredible solo comes around, it feels natural to the progression of the song. I mean, come on. You can’t deny the mighty power of Slash. Everybody in the world wants Slash to play at their weddings…and their birthday parties, too. And their bar mitzvahs.

Rumor has it that none of the members of the band (besides Axl Rose, who wrote a large majority of the “November Rain”) were all that eager about it and favored the more straightforward rock n’ roll tracks like “Shotgun Blues.” That reminds me of how Slash went on the record for saying he completely hated “Sweet Child o’ Mine” from Appetite For Destruction when it was in the writing process. Dammit Slash, it’s a great song. So is this one. I’ve got a lot of people to back me up on this claim. Look, I understand that Axl is probably not that great of a guy to work with and that you hate his guts and everything…but he knew good music. Key word: ‘knew’ (Yeah, Chinese Democracy pretty much sucks).

As far as 80s metal ballads go, it’s hard to hold a candle to good old “November Rain.”

It was a close call for this year’s Brütal Ballad, but this one had to take the proverbial Cupid's arrow to the knee.

- STB

MOVIE REVIEW: The Woman In Black

2012-02-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

“The Woman In Black” takes place near the end of the Victorian era and tells the story of a man who is assigned to take care of business at a creepy estate that may be haunted by some kind of spectral presence. The road leading up to the estate is narrow, usually empty, and is hardly an inch away from being submerged in the surrounding marshland. But while watching this film, something funny occurred to me: most protagonists in horror movies can handle themselves remarkably well when faced with impending peril. If I started hearing footsteps in that locked room upstairs or saw a cadaverous woman standing erect outside my window like Michael Myers, there is no way in hell that I would muster up the courage to see what all the commotion was about.

Daniel Radcliffe tries to break free of his “Harry Potter” niche as he stars in this serviceable horror movie based on Susan Hill’s novel, which also inspired a stage play and a television film adaptation. I heard through the grapevine that Radcliffe’s attachment to the project alone was able to pique the interests of several younger Potter aficionados, send them running scared out of the theater and prompt a few of their angry mothers to post all over forum boards about why the film isn’t suitable for kids. I’m shaking my head at this. Does it say anywhere on the poster that the full title is “Harry Potter and the Woman in Black?” No. The logic here is a complete joke. That’s like a bunch of eight-year-old kids who line up to see “Sweeney Todd” on the grounds that it features a face-off between Captain Jack Sparrow and Severus Snape.

Radcliffe plays not “the boy who lived come to die” this time, but is instead cast as a young lawyer and father named Arthur Kipps. Arthur is rapt in an extended mourning period following the tragic death of his wife, who passed away while giving birth. At four-years-old, their offspring Joseph (Misha Handley) is beginning to pick up on his father’s grief; his crude crayon drawings of Arthur always depict a man with a frowning face and a woman situated peacefully in the clouds above. Radcliffe (twenty-two years old as of this review) in a role that requires him to play father to a young child strikes me as jumping the gun just a little prematurely. Though I think he has less facial stubble here than he had in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” Just saying.

Experiencing tough financial troubles and heightening the risk of unemployment for himself, this lawyer from London is stuck with the task of traveling to the lavish estate yuckily titled Eel Marsh. This place was once occupied and owned by Alice Drablow, her husband, son and sister. After a troubled life, the woman finally passed away not long ago and Arthur is there to rummage through her legal papers and clear up all of her leftover affairs.

Arthur does not receive much of a warm welcome upon arriving in the faraway town near Eel Marsh. Just about everybody stares at him blankly as if he is Dom Cobb infiltrating somebody else’s dream. Fortunately, one of the townspeople Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) thrusts himself forward by cordially offering Arthur an amiable friendship, a hot meal on his first night in town and transportation to the mansion in this newfangled contraption called an “aw-to-mo-beel,” I think it was. His wife Elizabeth (Janet McTeer), however, is considerably more off-kilter; she is sent into hysteria whenever a conversation switches to the topic of children.

Not only are the people in this town weird and unreceptive, but the children all have a disturbing inclination toward suicide. The first scene in the film shows three little girls that abruptly stop playing with their dolls to jump out the second-story window of their house in unison. The townspeople fear that the culprit provoking all of these deaths is a mysterious woman in a black dress. Legend has it that she kills children out of revenge for her own son’s demise. So, pretty much a Victorian age female version of Freddy Krueger…sort of.

The star here is neither Radcliffe, nor is it Hinds, nor is it even the story or script. Instead, what makes “The Woman In Black” pretty enjoyable as an above-average horror movie is its refreshing Gothic atmosphere. The film isn’t so much scary or terrifying as it is unsettling and effectively chilling; a prolonged demonstration of that sense of paranoia you get when you’re trying to sleep but your mind decides to play tricks on you. You think you hear noises coming from all over the place, or you see a shadow standing in the corner that looks like a person. I love the kind of fear that makes you question your own judgment.

The mansion is one of those decrepit buildings with the architecture and artwork that immediately reminds you of haunted houses, like the one in “Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.” The claustrophobic camerawork gives both the viewer and the protagonist limited perspective, the haunting imagery is resonant, and the sound editing proficiently uses dead silence to its advantage (though a few too many unnecessary blasts of orchestra music for my tastes). Included somewhere in the middle is a long stretch which begins with Arthur falling asleep in a chair, ends with him scared wide awake, and is filled with a whole lot of ghastly disturbances that happen in nearly every room of the mansion. The sequence is twenty minutes of nonstop anxiety.

The director James Watkins previously wrote the script and directed the highly underrated British horror film “Eden Lake” in which a couple played by Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender were mercilessly tortured and maimed by a bunch of sadistic teenagers while on their romantic vacation. Watkins is working with considerably different material this time around, both in content and tone. “Eden Lake” is exceedingly bloody, gruesome and visceral, while this film is brooding and plays more with perception and images. However, “Eden Lake” and “The Woman In Black” share common ground in that they take conventional horror ideas, run with them and establish a final product that is much better than it probably ought to be.

VERDICT:

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MOVIE REVIEW: Safe House

2012-02-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

Supposedly it is gauche and improper for a critic of any kind to read the reviews written by other critics in their respective line of work, as it could muddy the waters of individual thought, so to speak. This practice has the ability to sway the reader’s opinion and lead to second-guessing, or even plagiarism for the reader. Call me unprofessional if you must, but I was skimming through the recent critiques of “Safe House” (after I actually saw the film, of course) and found that the reception was almost perfectly mixed; people either thought it just barely made the cut, or just fell short of earning a recommendation. But those who defended the film and even a few stragglers on the opposite side of the fence professed admiration towards the main cast, including Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga.

Sure, those are all very talented performers when they are in their element and, in most other cases, they might have been able to elevate lousy material to a level of tolerability. Rarely is there ever a moment in “Safe House” where any of these people are permitted to showcase the full extent of their acting chops, and when those moments do show up, most of them come courtesy of the untouchable Denzel Washington. But the tremendous waste of true talent is just one problem amongst the myriad other misdemeanors: the plot is derivative, the execution is humdrum, the action is lackluster, the characters are boring, the dialogue is beyond perfunctory, the visual aesthetic is drab and ugly, and it places zero chips on the table. And boy, is it instantly forgettable. In case you cannot already tell, this will be a negative review.

A bad imitation of a bad Tony Scott action flick, “Safe House” casts Washington as the notorious Tobin Frost, a name which also serves as the most memorable aspect about the movie. Tobin Frost is a cunning man who used to be employed as an agent for the CIA, but went rogue long ago and now makes a living by selling imperative secrets to America’s enemies. Having been on the lam for years now in four different continents, the man suddenly hands himself in to an American embassy after a botched transaction goes down in the South African city of Cape Town. Frost is quickly transferred over to the nearest agency safe house for questioning (and a water-boarding treatment).

This safe house in South Africa is guarded and patrolled by a rookie operative named Matt Weston (Reynolds), who is dissatisfied at his current post. He believes that he could be a valuable asset to the CIA if his superiors ever allowed him to spread his wings and take on more advanced assignments once in a while. The opportunity almost instantaneously presents itself to him when the safe house’s perimeter gets breached and ambushed by a group of terrorists, encouraging him to flee the scene with Frost. This leads to a car chase in which Denzel Washington breaks perhaps the number one rule of transportation etiquette: Never hit the driver while he’s driving!

Brendan Gleeson plays Weston’s boss who tells him no dice on the higher job position he requests, and this guy should really have a big tattoo reading “spoiler warning” across his forehead. Vera Farmiga plays a woman back at CIA headquarters who is tracking Frost and Weston’s progress as the film moves along, and she basically sums up any new developments whenever she’s onscreen. Sam Shephard’s character is...yet another uninteresting person. Other than that, the remainder of the film switches to autopilot as one chase leads to a gunfight which leads to another chase, switching back to a gunfight, and so on. Of course, there’s some mystery as to who the rebels are working for and the kind of intel that Frost has in his possession. But these additional threads are nothing too special if you ask me.

My eyes may have been directly perceiving all the gunshots, car chases and quick camera edits that were being projected up there in the auditorium, but my mind must have wandered at least a dozen miles throughout the course of the film. The narrative, though not terribly original, could have been substantially beefed up in some way so that the audience might anticipate the would-be twists and turns or analyze character motivations and allegiances. But no, this movie is the bare bones of some delicious ribs: there is no food for thought to be found.

Now I confess that the night I saw the film, I was probably more than a little deficient on sleep and the showing was late at night. After I got back home and saw the ratings that other critics had bestowed upon this film, I briefly considered the probable explanation that I wasn’t in the proper physical condition or state-of-mind to have judged the film on a fair scale. After all, my attention span drifted often and I would come back to consciousness feeling as though I missed out on something crucial. Maybe I was overlooking some important stuff in between that could have warranted a higher opinion of the film.

But as I write this review today, I pulled up the Wikipedia summary for the film. I know, I know, this is also considered another big no-no in the world of film criticism, but let’s just call everything that I do for this review a freebie, alright? Anyway, as I read through the complete and thorough summary of events that went down, I realized that I had understood it for the most part and hardly missed a thing, despite my uncertainty. And for the aspects of the story I didn’t pick up on were mostly unimportant to the final outcome. Not even the commendable ensemble cast is safe from the sub-mediocre fiasco that is “Safe House.”

VERDICT:

MOVIE REVIEW: Chronicle

2012-02-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben once famously stated in the first “Spider-Man” movie, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Never have truer words ever been spoken in a superhero origin story. Once the main character is endowed with a neat set of skills, remarkable physical strength or a useful peculiarity, evil will naturally manifest itself in the form of a big bad archenemy (generally equal in power to the good guy) and the hero must rise to the occasion and fight for the greater good.

But of course, attention spans are no longer what they used to be, and are supposedly declining by the day. The incontrovertible truth and nuance of Uncle Ben’s famous quote was probably lost on the three teenagers in “Chronicle,” who must have been texting or getting some popcorn when those words were spoken. Instead of using their brand new telekinetic abilities in a positive or productive way, they giggle giddily like pre-teenaged boys in sex education class when experimenting with what they’ve got: they manipulate baseballs as they hurtle through the air, connect LEGO pieces, pop Pringles into their mouth hands-free, use a leaf blower to send a gust of air up a cheerleader’s skirt, and mentally control a teddy bear to scare the ever-loving crap out of an innocent young girl in a toy store.

The biggest strike against “Chronicle” is that it’s being released at a time when people everywhere are growing weary of the abundance of found-footage films hitting theaters one after another. “The Blair Witch Project” is the landmark film that popularized this style, and the success of the first “Paranormal Activity” is what opened the floodgates for a superfluity of knock-offs and imitations hoping to attain even a fraction of that movie’s financial success. But the quality of these pictures has been sliding down a steep slope as of late. “Paranormal Activity 3” was disappointing, “Apollo 18” made little use of its promising idea, and “The Devil Inside” was an unspeakable travesty that provides a lot of entertaining fodder for me to channel my seething rage.

Well fear not, young readers, for “Chronicle” is a movie that punches a pathetic weakling like “The Devil Inside” in the sternum and reminds us what a good movie looks like by sticking an adrenaline needle squarely in the heart of the dying subgenre a la “Pulp Fiction.” This is an splendidly assembled film that is essentially what would happen if a science-fiction thriller, a superhero origin story, a coming-of-age tale, a character study of a tormented high school student, and “Cloverfield” all fell into a blender at the same time. It sounds crazy in theory, but in reality, the combination is like two scoops of awesome.

The three high school kids who suddenly obtain telekinesis show great promise for the talented young actors that play the parts. The audience witnesses the direct account of Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) and Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), three completely different personalities who are brought together at a local rave. In a placid meadow nearby, they detect a tunnel burrowed deep into the earth that looks quite conspicuous. They dive right in for a closer examination and reach an abnormal-looking crystalline monolith that gives off radiant lights and responds to stimuli (is it alive?). Before you know it, the boys are videotaping juvenile stunts to test their telekinetic skills. It all looks like a ton of fun.

Telekinesis, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as “the supposed ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other non-physical means.” And you know the saying “the brain is a muscle” (technically, it is an organ). Just as one gradually builds up muscle strength and endurance by exercising, the boys continue to utilize their skills and become more capable with each passing day. Today, they can manipulate small objects. Tomorrow, they can hover in midair for extended periods of time.

And because of the extraordinary talents that each of them possess, they create their own social clique that nobody else can possibly enter. They become friends with each other, start hanging out after school, arrange secret rendezvous' for training and grow to care for one another. Steve is the VIP who is friends with just about everyone, does well in school and is running for class president (y’know, no big deal). Matt is a cool kid who likes to have fun and go to parties, but still gets a tad tongue-tied when trying to impress the girl he wants to date.

However, the most complex and intriguing character of the bunch (as well as the videographer for most of the film) is Andrew, who also happens to be Matt’s cousin. Andrew could not possibly lead a more tragic life even if he were born without a head. He spends most of his time cooped up in his bedroom, his mom is slowly deteriorating from cancer, his father (Michael Kelly) is an abusive drunk who rails against him, and he is the preferred punching bag of the popular douchebags at school. Matt wants to help him broaden his horizons, but his efforts to do so only make Andrew more miserable and introverted than before.

Out of all the genre threads that the film weaves together, I believe that the examination of Andrew’s lopsided psychological wellness was the most fascinating and fleshed out. In fact, his struggles are the focal point of the narrative. The first act shows him getting beaten down (physically and emotionally) both at school and at home before he is granted access to those astonishing powers. In the second act, his powers give him a newfound sense of confidence that he has never felt before, but the first taste of self-assurance is perhaps too sweet for his own good. I won’t spoil what happens in the final third, but never has so much havoc been wreaked upon Seattle since the emergence of grunge music in the 1990s.

Though I was pleasantly content with the film as a whole, the conclusion arrived a bit too quickly and I left the theater feeling slightly unfulfilled in regards to certain things. It leaves a number of open-ended questions and never explained the mysteries in which I had been waiting patiently for concrete elucidation. However, the ending is not a total bust. Unlike every single other found-footage movie ever released, “Chronicle” actually resolves the principal issue at hand rather than cutting to black at the pinnacle of the climax. And thank God, because that tired old ending sucked. It’d be like if I ended a review in the middle of

VERDICT:

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A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN: Once More Into The Fray... (WARNING: SPOILERS)

2012-02-08T21:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I went to the theater to go see “The Grey” again, this time with my father. Aside from just being nice to my dad by escorting him to the theater in hopes of quelling the resentment he felt toward me for seeing it without him, I had been thinking about the film all throughout the week at school. It resonated unusually strong with me since the Friday it was released, and it made me ponder long after the credits rolled and the theater employee with the big sweeper came in to…eh, “clean up” the place for the next showing. A second viewing was inevitable. I wanted to support it and spread word of its goodness far and wide, but I also wanted to see if it was as potent on a second go-around.

And sure enough, the “wow” factor remained equal to, if not greater than, seeing it for the first time. If you are one of those meticulous types who catch my every activity on the blog, you might have noticed yesterday that I revised my original verdict from a three-and-a-half star rating to a four-star-rating, the highest possible honor I can bestow on a movie. This is a flawless movie for me. It is hardly even the second month of 2012, but I am fully willing to extrapolate that “The Grey” will stick around until my annual Best of The Year list. It is exciting, tense, violent and dark, but it is also endlessly thought-provoking, heart-wrenching, intelligent and expertly executed. Especially when considering how modest the premise is that we have to work with (Liam Neeson and others crash in the snow and have to survive and not get ambushed by rabid wolves. GO!).

Yet there are still a number of people I talk to who said that they couldn’t quite get with the direction it went in the final five minutes. I could take the easy way out and simply say these people are morons (come on, I’m kidding!), but so much of the film’s perfection lies in its ending. With that said, here is my interpretation of the end, as well as a few other things I picked up on. It should be a given that this will be a very SPOILER-centric episode, so if you have not seen “The Grey” and do not want important plot points disclosed, read at your own discretion (meaning: click out of this window, go see the movie right now, and come back). If you do choose to read ahead without having seen the movie…seriously, shame on you. You deserve to have a hungry pack of wildebeests sadistically descend upon you and swim in the blood of your children.

----------SPOILERS BORDER----------

Is everybody gone now? Good. So the first time I saw “The Grey,” I watched it as I would any other movie for the first time: it was an experience of discovery. I was anticipating the surprises around every corner and marinating in the film’s unwaveringly chilly atmosphere. The second viewing was completely different. Of course, I knew now what was going to happen to people by the end, but I felt more a sense of mounting dread and despair than before. This is one tragic survival story made all the more tragic by the inclusion of highly fleshed-out characters who are not just broad types.

So let’s get into what the big audience controversy has been all about: the ending. If you’ve already seen the movie, you know that Liam Neeson’s character John Ottway is slogging through a snowy wasteland all by his lonesome, the other six survivors of the pivotal plane crash having been engulfed by the hostile environment and the numerous hazards it had to offer. He knows that defeat is slowly peeking its head from around the corner and staring him down until he finally concedes to its bloodthirsty desires.

This is already kind of strange that he is still trying to stay alive. The night before he boarded the plane to transport the petroleum refinery employees to Anchorage, Ottway was contemplating suicide, even to the degree that he composed a death note and physically placed the barrel of a shooting rifle into his mouth. He was almost certain that he no longer had a purpose in this world after his wife left him. Memories of her continue to haunt every waking second of his consciousness, and her parting words replay over and over in his head: “Don’t be afraid.” The final scene reveals a memory in which the woman is connected to an I.V. at the hospital. She didn’t leave Ottway so much as God (the same God whom he cursed just moments before this recollection) had to take her away from the world.

In the single most poignant scene in the movie, Ottway falls to his knees, reaches into his knapsack and takes out all of the wallets he had been gathering from the crew as they bit the dust one-by-one. As he opens each of them one at a time, he mournfully observes the photographs in each. He sees men he once knew. He sees these men smiling, enjoying their lives. For how few words were exchanged while everyone was still alive, it doesn’t take long for Ottway to realize that these people had things worth living for. In the pictures, they have wives, sons, daughters and relatives, to whom they surely meant the world to.

As he lays each of the wallets in the snow, he hears sounds coming from all around him; the Alaskan wolves have him cornered from every angle. As he points out, he is in the middle of their den, of which they are incredibly territorial and unforgiving towards any poor creature that dares to tread on their turf. A black wolf, presumably the alpha, appears at the top of a hill overseeing Ottway, who is now gearing up to battle to the death with the animal opponent. He has a knife tethered into one clenched hand and some broken miniature bottles in the other. He lunges forward, and…cut to black, followed by a few dismayed groans from certain members of the audience.

These are the same unanimous reactions I heard after seeing the contemptible found-footage horror flick “The Devil Inside” just a few weeks prior. Groans akin to waking up in the late afternoon to the most debilitating hangover following a killer kegger the night before. I cannot say I was shocked by this general response, but I was indeed disappointed with what I was hearing. Think about it: we just spent an agonizingly brutal two hours watching people go through the arctic equivalent of Hell, desperately hoping to find civilization. We were put through the wringer when we realized “Damn, these characters will never see their loved ones again.” We watched as these poor, hopeless men got torn apart limb from limb by wild animals, drowned in the freezing river, and even died from the level of oxygen at the given altitude. THE FREAKING AIR WASN'T EVEN ON THEIR SIDE!!! And you guys were STILL holding out for a pay-per-view spectacle of Neeson vs. the wolves?

You see, the difference is really quite simple to draw between “The Grey” and “The Devil Inside.” After all, there is QUITE a difference between 1) lazily slapping together a cop-out ending that solves nothing and sticks a big middle finger in the face of everybody who paid their hard-earned cash hoping to see at least a PASSABLE exorcism movie, and 2) wrapping up a film at its most logical conclusion…can you guess which category “The Devil Inside” falls into?

No, the supposedly climactic duel between man and beast is not directly resolved, nor does it need to be. That is not the focus of the film. Instead, the REAL resolution is that we have just witnessed a suicidal man whose trials and struggles have caused his outlook on life to perform a complete 180. With the death of his wife, he was willing to throw away everything he ever had. As far as he knew, he had no purpose mingling with the scum of the earth any longer. But when his plane crashes in the snow, he rises to the occasion and becomes the alpha of the small convoy of leftover employees. Suicide is no longer on his mind. In fact, he guides these men to safety as far as he possibly can before they inexorably become doggy chow. To the best of his abilities, he is saving lives instead of ending his own. By the end, he comes to the conclusion that the gift of life is a gift worth fighting for, even if circumstances seem utterly hopeless (and boy, do they seem hopeless). As the wolves circle in on him, he firmly decides that if he is going to die at this moment, he will die a noble and courageous death. Something I noticed is that he also wore a watch/GPS device of some kind that one of the other guys carried on the arduous journey. Along with the wallets carefully arranged in the snow, I got the impression that Ottway wasn’t the only person he was fighting for; he was also defending the legacy of everybody who was present on the plane that fateful day. He is fighting for their families. For their kids. For all the people that will never see any of them again.

It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses. For it is the last good fight he’ll ever know.

But this leads to an even greater question about the final five-second stinger that appears after all of the credits have rolled. The shot briefly shows the alpha’s chest as it breathes an exhausted breath. The back of Ottway’s head is shown resting on top the wolf’s stomach as it exhales. This has led to a number of possible theories about how the fight turned out. Perhaps Ottway defeated the alpha and now the rest of the pack won’t mess with him. Perhaps he killed all of the wolves single-handedly (I don’t want to think that; it just wouldn’t gel with the rest of the movie). Maybe the alpha didn’t die and it is only a matter of time before he snaps and really lays the smack-down on Ottway.

However, I am of the opinion that Ottway squared off against the alpha, both were equally matched and both defeated each other. The alpha is breathing just like the wolf Ottway killed at the start of the film, so it will presumably die shortly thereafter. And Ottway’s head does not move at all while positioned on its stomach, so if he is by some miracle still alive, he probably suffered enough to where he cannot possibly last for much longer. It may not be a happy ending, but not every movie can warm your heart like butter on a biscuit. The fact that this one shot has so many people debating and sharing their thoughts on the matter gives me hope. It means that the film is surely doing something right.

Either way, “The Grey” is perfect in my eyes from start to finish. I will probably see it several more times before the year is over. Rumor has it that it might get redistributed in theaters in late fall or early winter to get a little push during awards season. Could this get nominated for an Oscar come January 2013? I would love to think so, but my guess is no. For as intelligent and brilliant as the film is, it just strikes me as something too gloomy and too discouraging for the Academy’s traditionally warm, cuddly and play-it-safe sensibilities. It is just too early to predict right now. After all, “The Silence Of The Lambs” was released at the beginning of 1991 and dominated the Oscar race. I’ll be the one guy championing a Best Actor nomination for Liam Neeson.

BRÜTAL SØNG OF THE WEEK: February 6th, 2012

2012-02-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

Brütal Søng: “The Blister Exists”

Artist: Slipknot

Album: Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)

No stranger to both the Brütal Søng of the Week archive (I talk about “Dead Memories” right here) and my album reviews (my critique of Iowa can be found here), Slipknot is one of my favorite metal bands to come along in recent memory. They encompass the no-frills vigor of Slayer and Pantera, while capturing the tight songwriting chops of Metallica. They’re a total package.

And Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) has to be the most underrated album they have released to date; it is my second favorite after their masterfully savage self-titled debut Slipknot. While everybody was busy salivating over Iowa (the one album of theirs I believe is overrated), fans were initially disillusioned by the band’s third outing. Where were the excessive f-bombs? The violent intensity in each note? And is that harmony I hear? And an acoustic guitar? What is this filth? I want my Maggot money back!

Yeah…just shut up now. Before I beat you with the nearest blunt object I can find.

I could have easily picked any one of the album’s fourteen tracks: the bipolar jam “The Nameless,” the crowd pleaser “Pulse Of The Maggots,” the somber metal ballad “Vermillion,” or its acoustic brother “Vermillion, Pt. 2.” But I am going with “The Blister Exists,” because it essentially sums up the sound of this entire album in little over five minutes. Perhaps more so than “Pulse of the Maggots,” this is THE anthem that nearly everyone knows about and is THE song to witness live. And that snare drum hook? Classic.

It wouldn’t be difficult to just write these guys off as a bunch of dudes who wear masks and perform wild antics on stage to divert peoples’ attention away from their lack of real musicianship. But for Slipknot, that just isn’t the case. They might lure people in with the masks, the jumpsuit getup, the album artwork, the Parental Advisory stickers, and the stage theatrics, but what really keeps fans on their toes is the music itself. Heavy, aggressive and lurid, Slipknot’s music speaks to the irate sociopath in all of us.

And for added fun, here’s Bart getting in trouble with The White Stripes. Kills me every time.

- STB

MOVIE REVIEW: The Grey

2012-01-28T10:36:00.000-08:00

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is an anguished loner employed as a marksman for a petroleum pumping facility somewhere in the north; his primary function is to shoot down any wild animals that appear around the station. He and a few other nondescript employees board a small plane to take them on leave, when suddenly the plane begins to rumble so violently that it just has to be more than mere turbulence. Yes, something goes incredibly wrong with the airliner causing it to crashland, depositing its passengers into the middle of the snowy Alaskan wilderness.

Ottway awakens to realize that he survived the traumatizing experience, as well as a half dozen other factory employees not that far from where he is. Sure, they are all still alive, but what can these people possibly do? The plane’s phones are no longer in operational condition, food is sparse, the temperature is subzero, human civilization is nowhere in sight, and perhaps the most life-threatening of all, they appear to have hurtled into the wrong part of Alaska; a territory entirely populated by vicious wolves with an voracious hunger for human meat. This sounds like the very definition of a ‘deadlock.’

Judging by this concept and the promotion ads for the film, one might expect it to be a run-of-the-mill action flick “for manly men” pitting “Taken” star Liam Neeson up against a ravenous pack of wild animals for two full hours. While that is at least partially true, I think that would be severely trivializing the beauty, brilliance and profundity that “The Grey” has to offer. It is not just a good movie, it is a GREAT movie. One that revels in the essences that make up compelling action thrillers, but one that also poses some pretty challenging questions about life, loss, spirituality and death. Simply put, it is the antithesis to Joe Carnahan’s previous directorial work, which included such mindless drivel as “Smokin’ Aces” and “The A-Team.”

First off, allow me to get this out of the way upfront: this is most likely NOT the type of movie you might expect it to be. If you walk in hoping for some cool face-offs between Neeson and the wolves…well, there are a few, but probably not enough to meet expectations. This is neither “Taken” in the snow, nor is it “Unknown” with wolves. If I had to approximate the ballpark that this movie necessitates, its closest thematic equal would probably be 2009’s “The Road,” an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel about a father and son struggling to survive in a barren and decadent new world after an unexplained cataclysmic event takes place and wipes out most of the world’s population and resources.

This comparison isn’t all that much of a stretch, as the whole film works in itself to be a parable about survival and perseverance in the face of imminent doom. Ottway and the other six men must use any means necessary in order to defeat both nature and beast, which essentially comes down to the basic wilderness explorer strategies taught in cub scout training…only elevated to the single most extreme scenario possible. Ottway takes initiative as the leader of the convoy, as he knows more about the habits of the crazed behemoths they are up against. He tells his men that the creatures will be less likely to strike them if they are below the tree line, so naturally under his jurisdiction, they laboriously journey through the seemingly endless desert of snow toward the forest.

The wolves themselves are formidable opponents to be sure. They are endowed with razor sharp teeth ideal for cutting flesh, their beady eyes glow radiantly and forebodingly in the night, their pitch-black fur acts as natural camouflage, and they always arrive just in time to catch their prey with their pants around their ankles (literally in one case). They lack the discernment and compassion of humans, and their malevolence knows no bounds; if they are hungry (which is apparently all the time), they’ll have no reservations about eating you right up. Wisely, the director keeps these malicious entities mostly in shadows, silhouettes or in the distance where they can vaguely be seen, leaving the viewer’s imagination to fill in the blanks. In fact, sometimes “The Grey” struck me as sort of a slasher movie when the wolves would descend viciously upon their victims, systematically killing them off one by one.

In any other case, I might’ve included the names of the other six men who survived the plane crash and the actors that performed these roles. But honestly, these guys are placed in a life-or-death scenario where knowing each other’s names is the least of their worries. None of them ever communicated with each other while on duty, and conversational dialogue is still relatively curt and sparse between them even when they are all they have left. Their one and only priority is to stay alive and not get devoured. Quite literally, it is more than halfway through the movie before any of them exchange anything resembling a formal introduction with one another.

Yet the film grants these characters individuality. Though they are ultimately striving for the same goal, they are their own people. They have emotions, problems, fears, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, outlooks on life, and families of their own. All of them came from somewhere, which makes it even more tragic when the audience is forced to watch them become engulfed by the wolves or suffer from any number of other unfortunate circumstances organic to their location. But never is the violence excessive or exploitative. It is inherent to the story and is devastating to watch. A tense, thrilling, absorbing and sometimes unnerving viewing experience from start to finish, “The Grey” is as stark and uncompromising as the icy terrain it takes place in.

Listen, it is January. January is notoriously regarded as the worst month of the year to release films, besides a few last minute award season contenders. There are never that many passable movies to come along during this month of cinematic bowel evacuation. We’ve already witnessed the unbridled idiocy that was “The Devil Inside." Though once in a while, there will be one diamond in the rough that will outshine all the others in terms of quality, vision and scope during an otherwise dreadful month at the movies. “The Grey” is not only a surprise; it is practically a blessing in disguise. Please go support it at the earliest possible convenience.

VERDICT:

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MOVIE REVIEW: Haywire

2012-01-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

If there were a type of movie that has been the most consistently difficult for me to verbally articulate my opinions towards, it would almost certainly be several of the works directed by Steven Soderbergh. Lots of critics and film buffs absolutely adore Soderbergh’s work, which is why it is practically suicide to utter anything disapproving or even lukewarm about the director or the movies he makes. But the guy’s movies just don’t to do that much for me, with only a few exceptions (the most notable being his Academy Award-winning “Traffic”).

Granted, I never walk out of his movies feeling angry or annoyed or ripped off. Just at a complete loss for words about how to express my feelings toward the film I just witnessed. Hell, sometimes I cannot even identify whether or not I liked the movie in question. Even with the movies that I do like, such as the corporate satire “The Informant!,” it takes a second viewing for me to draw a final opinion. It is rare for a movie to stump me so badly that I can’t even differentiate between the concepts of like and dislike, but just about all of his films have this bizarre effect. Having said all of this, I did not enjoy “Haywire” all that much…at least, I don’t think I did.

But in many ways, this is a movie that is much simpler to appreciate than it is to enjoy. It is at least admirable to know that Soderbergh has complete creative control over his projects that don’t begin with the word “Ocean’s." It is an action film unlike most others; grimy and thrifty in its presentation, yet stylishly made and deliberately paced as if it came straight from the mind of an inspired filmmaker. In typical Soderbergh fashion, the cast list is large enough to rival “New Year’s Eve” (only this one’s filled with SKILLED actors) and the locations seem to jump all around the globe at a moment’s notice.

The biggest draws here are the spasmodic bursts of hand-to-hand combat, which are all first-rate. They are not filmed or edited in the gaudy, excessive way like “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon” or “I Am Number Four,” but instead mostly happen in single long-shots with each opponent planning their moves in the heat of the moment. Each of these parts are viscerally intense and feel grounded in reality, an allusion which is no doubt enhanced by the 4K resolution of digital film and the absence of musical accompaniment.

29-year-old Gina Carano, who has made a name for herself as a highly accomplished fighter in the mixed martial arts circuit, makes her big screen acting debut playing the female protagonist in the film. Though Carano is now retired from MMA, Wikipedia tells me that she was once touted as the “ #3-ranked 145-pound female fighter” in the Unified Women’s MMA Rankings. Impressive. So where would that place her in the overall hierarchy of women’s MMA? And how many pounds is the highest ranked female fighter in the sport? Interesting questions this movie raises.

Carano plays the heroine Mallory Kane, a freelance covert operative for an underground organization regulated by the U.S. government to carry out the dirty work on assignments that other government agents would rather not involve themselves in. And throughout the course of “Haywire,” it becomes clearer and clearer to Mallory that she would be foolish to place her trust in anyone. Hot off of carrying out a rescue mission in Barcelona, she is hired for yet another task. This time, the location is Dublin and she is to pose as the significant other to a British agent named Paul (Michael Fassbender).

But it’s not too long before she realizes that she has been set up, as the Grateful Dead would sing, “like a bowling pin.” This whole operation (which was advertised as a “paid vacation” for her in the job description) was concocted so that she could be killed for whatever reason. Now I might have just simply missed something (I tend to do that), but what dunderheads agreed to performing a stunt like this? With the sweeping set of skills Mallory has acquired and mastered, she is a valuable asset to the firm. Not to mention, if their plan ever hits a snag and she manages to find out that she is being targeted, she will use those skills to tear each of her betrayers a new one. Everybody might as well be writing their wills and forming a line in front of the church confessionals.

As Mallory slowly unravels this coiling narrative, she narrowly escapes person after person who wants to kill her. Just a few of the people who deceive, double-cross and/or work to capture Mallory: Aaron (Channing Tatum), a fellow freelance functionary who worked together with her in the Barcelona mission; Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), the girl’s ex-boyfriend and the secret firm’s administrator; Coblenz (Michael Douglas), a government agent and Kenneth’s superior; Studer (Mathieu Kassovitz), an associate of Paul; and Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas), a bearded fellow who organizes assignments with Coblenz. Confused yet? Well, so is the guy to whom Mallory is telling this long-winded jumble of names, places and other assorted nouns.

Which circuitously leads me to the opening scene, in which Mallory is sitting in a coffee house somewhere in upstate New York. Her former work partner Aaron finds her taking a seat peacefully in one of the booths, and he calmly asks her to get into his car. She responds insubordinately, and before you know it, the scalding black coffee hits somebody in the face and an impassioned mano a mano suddenly transpires that the average Denny’s restaurant is probably used to by now (though I would say the number of gunshots fired is a little lacking compared to Denny’s). I pity the poor soul of the unlucky busboy who is chosen to cater to the smeared blood on those barstools.

Mallory (as expected) gets the upper hand in this physically demanding squabble. Using her time effectively, she yanks one of the diner’s patrons out into the parking lot, demands his car keys and takes the unsuspecting hostage along for the ride. He is a 19-year-old kid named Scott (Michael Angarano), and for a guy who just watched this girl brutally incapacitate a man in the restaurant, hijack his car and nonchalantly give him step-by-step instructions on how to fix her arm while she takes the wheel, he takes his current situation pretty well. Actually, his biggest concern is the condition of his automobile (“I just bought it about a week ago!”).

In theory, “Haywire” seems like the kind of movie I would go nuts for. Heavy on breviloquent passages of dialogue? Check. Expertly filmed action scenes? Check. An awesomely jazzy soundtrack courtesy of Northern Irish musician David Holmes? Check (seriously, the music is iPod-worthy). So why then did I not get a kick out of the film? Some people would say it is because I am an uncultured punk who can’t appreciate Soderbergh’s brilliant filmmaking, but I think the problem once again lies in the characters. I could never invest myself in their antics or the complex web of deceptions they were knotting themselves into, no matter how much combative action and visual style Soderbergh brought to the table. Taken as it is, “Hawire’s” action just feels like…well, haywire action.

VERDICT:

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69th Annual Golden Globe Awards Winners List

2012-01-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

The Descendants

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

The Artist

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

George Clooney (The Descendants)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

Octavia Spencer (The Help)

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

BEST SCREENPLAY

Midnight In Paris

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures Of Tintin

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

A Separation

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Artist

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“Masterpiece”- Madonna, W.E.

MOVIE REVIEW: Contraband

2012-01-13T20:19:00.000-08:00

“Contraband” is the very reason for that saying ‘in one ear and out the other.’ For as much potential enjoyment value (or in my case, indifference) it provides the viewer as they watch it happen onscreen, I doubt many people will anticipate watching it a second time through (at least not for a long time). There are neither very many good things to say in its defense, nor all that many bad things to run it into the ground. Nothing here elevates the routine material past being a generic heist picture. But then again, nothing makes it a bad heist picture. Oh joy, these kinds of movies are my absolute favorite to critique.

This American remake of the Icelandic heist movie “Reykjavík-Rotterdam” is directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the lead actor in the original film, making his Hollywood directorial debut. Mark Wahlberg now takes over as Chris Farraday, a former “world-class smuggler,” as one person puts it. However long ago it was, this man made a determined effort to retire from his criminal past. Since his departure from smuggling, he’s gotten married, has had a few kids and works a nine-to-five job in New Orleans. But of course, one can only stay away from old habits for so long before something comes up. Something that forces them to once again become reacquainted with their former lifestyle.

His relapse into the smuggling game begins with a kid named Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), his troublesome brother-in-law. Andy is responsible for royally screwing up an important drug trafficking operation, an unfortunate incident which makes his superior, the loathsome crime boss Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), very very very upset. Andy will surely be killed if he is unable to repay a massive $140 million debt to Briggs. Chris approaches this drug lord in hopes of settling this debacle, even defeating him in a round of fisticuffs in front of the guy’s young daughter. But Briggs won’t wait around for his reimbursement: X amount of money in X amount of time or else he’ll off every last one of them, including Chris’s wife and children. And of course, that means war. Nobody talks to Mark Wahlberg like that.

So that’s when he devises an elaborate contraband job in which he, Andy, and a few other assistants will make their way onboard a cargo ship headed by J.K. Simmons (with a strange southern-esque drawl to his voice), which is making its way toward the port of Panama City. There, they will seek out a sketchy warehouse and procure more than a few carefully arranged heaping piles of counterfeit hundred dollar bills.

Putting aside the obvious question of how these guys will transport several square feet of that Monopoly money from the warehouse onto the ship, how will they go about stashing the loot, or as one of team players candidly puts it, “How we gonna steal that much sh*t?” Chris has that covered, too. As it turns out, there is a spacious hidden compartment located behind the ample tool board on the ship’s walls. If there were ever an award to be given for Aquatic Vessel Most Suited for Covert Operations, this cargo ship would certainly take home the gold.

Meanwhile, the wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and the two kids remain at their home in New Orleans, vulnerable to danger. Early on, their place gets stormed by Briggs and his henchmen who verbally threaten them and even shoot a bullet to tacitly imply that they mean business (don’t worry, it is only a feather pillow that gets shot). This prompts an old family friend named Sebastian (Ben Foster) to swoop in and save the day by offering his protection and allowing them to crash at his quarters. Ben Foster has a build and appearance similar to Ryan Gosling, though there always seems to be a more devious nature lurking beneath his cool surface.

The problem with “Contraband” is that it exhausts all of the familiar plot elements and clichéd tropes found in just about every other kind of heist movie. A supposedly retired veteran of a trade who is reeled back in to prove himself one last time? It has been done to death, not to mention it’s been done better. And the operation itself? It is essentially “Fast Five” all over again, only not as many muscle cars and a graver, grittier attitude, which inadvertently makes it even sillier to suspend disbelief with all the outrageous stunts that go on. Mark Wahlberg plays his character with his trademarked stone-faced intensity (hey, he’s good at that), but that one look does not guarantee that the character will be engaging or riddled with depth. Though Ribisi and Foster do some commendable supporting work, everybody else seems to lumber lethargically through stale characterization. Though it doesn’t help that the script never offers its performers to do much other than deliver lines of exposition.

It took me about half an hour to warm up to the film’s tone and story. For a little while, I was mildly entertained, if a little disillusioned by the commonplace plot. Then a shootout over a painting takes place, the police get involved, and I was lost. Just before the team got the fake cash onto a cargo container, my attentiveness began to wane. Somewhere in the middle of the third act when surprises and twists start appearing left and right, I checked out. I did not care about who has the money, where it was, or what would happen to it.

VERDICT:

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Critics Choice Awards 2012 Winners List

2012-01-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS 2012 WINNERS

BEST PICTURE

THE ARTIST

The Descendants

Drive

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

War Horse

BEST ACTOR

GEORGE CLOONEY (THE DESCENDANTS)

Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar)

Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Michael Fassbender (Shame)

Ryan Gosling (Drive)

Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

BEST ACTRESS

VIOLA DAVIS (THE HELP)

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene)

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin)

Charlize Theron (Young Adult)

Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn)

Albert Brooks (Drive)

Nick Nolte (Warrior)

Patton Oswalt (Young Adult)

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (BEGINNERS)

Andy Serkis (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Bernice Bejo (The Artist)

Jessica Chastain (The Help)

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)

Carey Mulligan (Shame)

OCTAVIA SPENCER (THE HELP)

Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)

BEST DIRECTOR

Stephen Daldry (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)

MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS (THE ARTIST)

Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)

Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Steven Spielberg (War Horse)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Descendants

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

MONEYBALL

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Artist

50/50

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Win Win

Young Adult

BEST ART DIRECTION

The Artist

Drive

HUGO

The Tree Of Life

War Horse

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

THE ARTIST

The Help

Hugo

Jane Eyre

My Week With Marilyn

BEST EDITING

The Artist

Drive

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Hugo

War Horse

BEST SCORE

THE ARTIST

Drive

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Hugo

War Horse

BEST SONG

"Hello Hello" - Elton John, Gnomeo & Juliet

"Life's A Happy Song" - Jason Segel, Amy Adams and Walter, The Muppets

"The Living Proof" - Mary J. Blige, The Help

"Man Or Muppet" - Jason Segel and Walter, The Muppets

"Pictures In My Head" - Kermit and the Muppets, The Muppets

BEST SOUND

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

Hugo

Super 8

The Tree Of Life

War Horse

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Hugo

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Super 8

The Tree Of Life

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures Of Tintin

Arthur Christmas

Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss In Boots

RANGO

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

In Darkness

Le Havre

A SEPARATION

The Skin I Live In

Where Do We Go Now

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Buck

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams

GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Project Nim

Undefeated

BEST ACTION MOVIE

DRIVE

Fast Five

Hanna

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

Super 8

BEST COMEDY

BRIDESMAIDS

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS

Asa Butterfield (Hugo)

THOMAS HORN (EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE)

Elle Fanning (Super 8)

Saoirse Ronan (Hanna)

Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

The Artist

Bridesmaids

The Descendants

THE HELP

The Ides Of March

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Artist

Drive

Hugo

THE TREE OF LIFE (tie)

WAR HORSE (tie)

BEST MAKEUP

Albert Nobbs

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

The Iron Lady

J. Edgar

My Week With Marilyn

THE TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2011 [Part 2]

2012-01-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the second half of my countdown of the Top Ten Movies of 2011 (first part found here). First off, let me apologize for taking so long with this. I’ve been receiving complaints for not posting this like a week earlier, or whenever it was scheduled to go up. Second…well, I guess I don’t have a second point to make...yeah...

Like I said in the first part of my list, I would love to hear feedback. With that said, here’s numbers five through one.

5. HANNA

““Hanna” is both the accomplished thriller that “Salt” wanted to be and the kick-butt female empowerment action movie that “Sucker Punch” should have been. Like the design of a rollercoaster, scenes continue to build and build only to cap themselves off with a thrilling, satisfying payoff each and every time.”

Like Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Volume 1,” “Hanna” isn’t much more than a director’s exercise in style and cinematic flair…but oh my goodness, this is an action film that MUST be seen. The story is entrancing, the actors hit all the right notes and each scene demonstrates how first-rate filmmaking is done. It is frenetic, exhilarating and fascinating, and needless to say, I loved every second of it. Who would have thought that Joe Wright, best known for adapting elegant and sophisticated literature like “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement” to the big screen, could double as a masterful action director?

Saoirse Ronan plays the sixteen-year-old title character Hanna Heller, who has been training in a snowy Finland environment with her father (played by Eric Bana) for her whole life. She has developed a set of skills that would put five Jason Bournes to shame, including hand-to-hand combat, defense, stealth, quick reflexes and hunting. She can also speak fluently in several languages, has memorized entire encyclopedia entries, and has established fake identities and backgrounds for herself. “Adapt or die” is the phrase spoken between the two characters, which basically means that if you cannot prepare yourself for any potential bind you might get caught in, you are screwed.

So what is this “home-school program” preparing Hanna for? Well, it is all part of an elaborate mission conceived by her father, the intricacies of which I will not spoil. I will say that this dicey operation is initiated with the simple flick of a switch, which triggers a radio signal, catching the attention of a cunning CIA agent who recruits several allies and takes countless measures to guarantee that she retrieves Hanna and her father before they complete their mission. Like with most ingenious thrillers, “Hanna” is filled with all sorts of surprises and twists that are better left a mystery. Lots and lots of chaos ensues in getting from point A to point B.

The film is a masterpiece of technical prowess. The action scenes all have a special kind of artistic craft to them that makes each thrilling to watch, while the original score composed by The Chemical Brothers is a stimulating tour de force in its own right. Of course, the film has fun with the fact that Hanna is a girl who has been deprived of human contact all her life, as in a brilliantly staged scene where she becomes exposed to modern technology for the first time. She is frightened by all sorts of commonplace advancements, such as a flickering fluorescent light, the sound of a television and the whooshing of the blades on an overhead fan. Instinctively, she regards all of these foreign objects and utilities as threats and the film does a terrific job of illustrating the degree of sensory overload she is experiencing at that moment in time. “Hanna” is a nearly perfect thriller.

4. HUGO

“Ultimately, the film is Scorsese’s love letter to film. Being his art form of choice, he has a special appreciation for the one-of-a-kind effect that the cinema can have on everybody’s lives.”

Martin Scorsese? THE Martin Scorsese? Arguably one of the greatest American directors of all time? Whose career has spanned over four decades now? The guy who helmed “Mean Streets,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Departed,” “After Hours,” “Gangs Of New York,” “The King Of Comedy” and “Shutter Island?” And he’s making a FAMILY film in 3D? This is the general reaction everybody had upon hearing that the acclaimed director was adapting the bestselling novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. But surprise surprise, “Hugo” still ends up being one of the best films of the year. No, there aren’t any sequences of mob violence, gunfights, challenging questions about morality, or other gritty tropes and features common to the typical Scorsese picture here. Yet, it remains a true work of genius and one of the most unconventional, inspired and insightful family films to come out in a very long time.

It follows a young boy in 1930s Paris named Hugo, who lives and works inside of the maze-like network of clocks in a train station after his clockmaker father dies in a museum fire. Though the boy spends most of his spare time stealing food from the train station services and avoiding capture from a bumbling inspector, he is also smart and resourceful, possessing an incredible mechanical expertise and a gift for invention inherited from his father. He is driven to repair his father’s two-foot-tall mechanical automaton, which may or may not hold some kind of secret message.

In hopes of making progress, he swipes gears and spare parts from a furtive old man’s toy shop. One day he gets caught red-handed and the old man snatches the lad’s notebook full of designs and engineering notes for the automaton, threatening to burn it when he gets home. Young Hugo befriends the man’s goddaughter, the verbose and fanatical Isabelle, and the two begin to investigate whether or not the given state of affairs are more than what they seem.

Part of the film’s splendor lies in just how unpredictable the story is. Unlike many trailers and TV commercials, the ones for “Hugo” gave away very little about the film’s secrets outside the basics. Perfect! This is the kind of movie that REQUIRES the audience to approach blindly. It begins as a compelling, Dickensian-style mystery drama with the two children embarking on their own detective adventure to put together the scattered pieces of a backbreaking puzzle. The long riddle is intriguing and every new discovery is a surprise. However, the second half is something even greater as it reveals itself to be a film ABOUT films and the magical impact they have on the world.

It is hard to imagine in this age of CGI explosions and millions of dollars in production values, but silent movies were once equally capable of thrilling audiences and taking them to worlds far, far away. The more I think about it, this is also a sad reflection on just how spoiled moviegoers are now. Every time I go to see a movie, people are checking their cell phones, talking out loud like they are at home, and just all around not paying attention to what’s happening onscreen. In “Hugo,” the moviegoers of the 1930s are on the edge of their seats as silent movie star Harold Lloyd helplessly dangles from the hands of a clocktower high above ground. They jump and scream in alarm as a train rushes into the foreground in the Lumiere brothers picture titled “Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat.” It’s practically inconceivable to picture such reactions to movies nowadays in an age where attention spans are at their absolute shortest and the demand for cheap thrills, instant gratification and lazy sequels is through the roof.

The film chronicles the innovation of “true” movie studios where filmmakers could shoot extravagant projects, the idea of injecting color into the average black-and-white silent picture, and essentially the pioneering of special effects as we know it. There is admirable craftsmanship in the early, now cheesy looking visual tricks seen in classic films. “Transformers” would no doubt be nonexistent without them. An enchanting visual experience and a thought-provoking look at the history of film, “Hugo” is a great work of art that could have only been done by a great artist like Martin Scorsese.

3. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

“Despite using a sort of time-travel mechanism as a plot element, the film has a timeless quality that is largely absent from modern cinema; it may work just as well in the 90s or the 80s as it does in current day. All up until one point when a character mentions the year 2010, I completely bought in to that illusion.”

76-year-old Woody Allen has released a LOT of movies throughout his career, and a lot of great ones at that. “Midnight In Paris” is like a pleasant little charmer that stepped out of a time machine from the 1970s or the 1980s when some of his best movies were made, including my personal favorites “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” With a flawless script and gorgeous cinematography, this is trés magnifique in my book.

Owen Wilson gives an endearing performance as Gil Pender, the imperative Woody Allen-type character, a hack screenwriter on vacation in Paris with his fiancée Inez and her parents. The man is on a mission to finish up a novel he has been working on about a nostalgia store owner who yearns to have been alive in France during the 1920s, the very definition of a ‘golden age’ in his mind. Of course, this pipe dream is not all that distant from Gil’s own mindset. He is a classic kind of guy; a romantic who loves to absorb the beauty of his surroundings in Paris (I don’t blame him), dislikes pedantic pseudo-intellectuals, and doesn’t appreciate being the outcast of the group. Inez, on the other hand, is on the different end of the spectrum entirely. All she sees in Paris is another place to shop heavy and eat fancy.

However, Gil is granted the opportunity to experience the golden age for himself when the clock chimes midnight on the Parisian streets. He gets whisked away by a mysterious vintage automobile and is taken to a different time or place, where art icons such as F. Scott Fitzgerald (and his wife Zelda), Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Gertrude Stein all seem to coexist, converse and attend roaring parties every single night. How does Gil stumble into this world? Is it time travel? An alternate dimension? An alcohol-induced figment of his imagination? It is never quite clear, but that doesn’t mean our hero can’t learn a few things from each visit. Of course, wherever learning is involved, there is likely to be a number of challenging trials and tribulations to inspire such epiphanies.

The cast is uniformly excellent here. Owen Wilson puts his own spin on the Woody Allen character mold, Marion Cotillard is radiant as the lovely Adriana who is irresistible to every man in the 1920s, and Rachel McAdams departs from her niche as a plucky leading lady in her role as Inez. “Midnight In Paris” is a dazzling piece of American filmmaking that acts as a meditative and poignant glance at why no time period will ever perfectly meet expectations, because as Gil says, “[the present] is a little unsatisfying because life is a little unsatisfying.”

2. MONEYBALL

“While I was watching, something about the film’s placement of the human drama and intellectual discipline in the center reminded me of a little film from last year called “The Social Network.” […] Imagine my surprise when I stayed through the end credits and noticed that Aaron Sorkin, the penman for “The Social Network,” was listed as co-writer on this project.”

Must I reiterate that when it comes to sports of any kind, I am about as knowledgeable as a dead squirrel? I haven’t the faintest knowledge of the rules, regulations, statistics, records, players, teams, etc. of any sport in particular. And in the state I live in, people would likely go as far as to say my ignorance of America’s pastime is downright un-American. Yet, here is just how powerful an impact “Moneyball” had on me as a film critic: I willingly paid to see it again. And if I weren’t on such an urgent, no-pay schedule, I probably would have seen it a third time. I love this movie.

Sure, most sports movies don’t even center on the sports themselves; they are more obsessed with their characters than they are with competitive action. But “Moneyball” is surely not your average feel-good baseball movie. Instead, it concentrates on facts and figures, applied data used for business strategies, the savvy language of the head honchos in charge and the overall business approach to the game.

Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane in a performance that is destined to earn him an Oscar nomination. Beane is a former ball player who lost his skill and self-assurance when the moment came for him to transition into the Major leagues. Now divorced, this man presides as the general manager for bottom tier Major League baseball team, the Oakland A’s. The team has one of the smallest payrolls and most conservative budgets of any professional sports team. This poses a major problem when three of the star players’ are lost to higher-paying teams and Beane must fill their slots with new players.

However, a momentous visit to the Cleveland Indians introduces Beane to a bright but timid Economics major from Yale named Peter Brand. Though this kid’s number-crunching, glasses sporting image doesn’t immediately register as ‘sports intellectual,’ he has developed an unconventional but theoretically brilliant strategy based in the concept of sabermetrics that may benefit Beane in preparing a full line-up for next season. So Beane hires Brand to become assistant general manager to the Oakland A's. Scouting agencies like to hone in on player imperfections, including their personal lives, addictions and physical irregularities. Brand, however, turns Beane’s attention to on-base percentages. With this tactic in mind, Beane makes the most of the small budget he is working with, much to the uncertainty and flat-out opposition of specialists, including team manager Art Howe. Everyone thinks this risky team arrangement is like “buying a ticket on the Titanic,” but Beane is so extremely driven by his desire to win (or even more by his hatred for NOT winning) that he is willing to see Brand’s gameplan through to the end.

Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network” writer) and Steve Zaillian (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” writer) teamed up to adapt the sports geek stats book of the same name by Michael Lewis into the most impeccably written screenplay of 2011. It is pure perfection, intuitively written to where even I can instantly understand the geeky facets of sports culture being discussed. Yet the movie isn’t dumb about its subject in the slightest. It is intelligent entertainment infused with heart and sharp wit. Pitt is mesmerizing and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand proves that the actor can effectively branch outside of the Judd Apatow circle of comedy and hold his own in his first big dramatic outing. Everyone involved truly hit a homerun with “Moneyball.”

1. 50/50

“Sure, “50/50” is funny at times, and Seth Rogen is undoubtedly funny in it. But the way it handles the sensitive topic of cancer is so profound and so unbelievably honest that I feel almost hard-pressed calling it a dramedy, as that word implies a lighthearted treatment of a big issue. Director Jonathan Levine has no problem laying on the thickness and addressing the touchy issue head-on with reverent solemnity.”

I know for sure my number one pick will come as a shocker to just about everybody. Sure, a lot of people really liked this movie, but it didn’t end up on too many end-of-the-year lists and it isn’t a strong awards contender like “The Artist” or “War Horse”. To be honest, I am just as surprised that it topped my list as well. Upon leaving the theater after initially seeing “50/50,” the words ‘number one movie of the year’ never crossed my mind. But now that a few months have passed by, I think back to which movies have stuck with me the most. I think to the movies that have resonated with me after months of reflection and analysis. I think of what movies got me the most emotionally involved. I think of the movies that changed my outlook on life, movies that made me ask myself questions about my friends and family, and movies that have allowed me to appreciate life a little more. All signs brought me back around to “50/50,” which I do believe is the best movie (in my opinion) to be released in 2011.

Adam Lerner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Seattle public radio employee who is a straight arrow if ever there was one. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, he exercises regularly, he isn’t promiscuous. He doesn’t even own a car or a license, as he believes driving is pushing the boundaries of what qualifies as ‘safe’ with him. So how could a guy like this not be shocked to hear the news that he has somehow contracted a cancerous tumor in his spine?

According to an informational website, his chances of beating his particular form of terminal illness are 50/50. And over the course of a few weeks, Adam goes through all the normal stages one might go through upon hearing such tragic news, beginning with denial and making its way to anger and depression.

Adam’s best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) attempts to console him by taking his crisis and spinning it into something positive. He says it’s a sure-fire opportunity to meet some fine ladies at the bar out of sympathy. It’s the last thing Adam wants. To help Adam interpret his thoughts and anxieties is a bright and affirmative young psychiatrist named Katie McKay (Anna Kendrick). She may have only had two patients before him and she is still working toward her doctorate, but she remains confident that she can somehow help him out. Psychiatry is the last thing Adam wants. And what’s worse, his exasperatingly worrisome mother (Angelica Huston) doesn’t react lightly to the news that her son’s days on the planet might be numbered. She relentlessly smothers Adam as if she is in a suspended state of denial herself. Smothering is the last thing Adam wants.

In fact, the only thing Adam gives a damn about anymore is his girlfriend, a painter named Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard). She seems nice enough, but sort of on the uneasy side. One day, she brings home an emaciated former race dog (lovingly named Skeletor), which she says will help him overcome these difficult times. Another companion is the last thing Adam wants.

In case you cannot tell, the film has less to do with Adam coping with cancer than it does with the miscellaneous reactions of everybody else around him, which different as they are, represent some form of personal grief for a loved one. In many films dealing with cancer, the character stricken with the disease is made out to be like some kind of blameless person, free of sin and immune to persecution. Adam, on the other hand, is surly, sarcastic, pessimistic and easily irritable. He would probably rather willingly die than go through each day in uncertainty about his condition. The character is a more flawed and frankly more realistic portrayal of a cancer patient.

It is in these dire circumstances that one gets a firm awareness of the people that truly care about them, and the results might come as a surprise when you get down to it. The film shrewdly and effortlessly earns its audience's sympathy rather than beating them over the head with sentimentality like the typical tearjerker. Screenwriter Will Reiser based this work upon his own personal experience of being diagnosed with a malignant tumor and seeking comfort in one of his close friends (who was indeed Seth Rogen in real life). I wasn’t prepared for a script with so much insight on human relationships of every kind, and how one person’s crisis can leave even larger impressions on the people surrounding them. “50/50” is a sweet, funny, and deeply moving film. One that remains relevant whether or not you've lived through a similar situation.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Devil Inside

2012-01-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

If the year 2011 proved anything to me, it was that the genre of “found-footage thriller” is suffering from overexposure and is losing its novelty more and more with each addition to the increasingly overstuffed library. With the disappointing sequel/prequel “Paranormal Activity 3” and “Apollo 18,” which could only dream of raking in as much money as the former, it seemed that the genre was on its last legs of vitality. If “The Devil Inside” proved anything to me, it is that the genre now requires life support.

I am so very, very, very tired of every single found-footage thriller having the exact same ending as the one before. How long have I been stressing my frustration about this particular problem? To my knowledge, the first time I mentioned this was in the review for the film “The Last Exorcism,” in which I noted, “the ending, just like all other thrillers of this genre, doesn’t give any sort of conclusive evidence; it ends abruptly and leads up to nothing satisfying.” In some cases, these endings can be effectively creepy. Just look at “The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield,” and “Paranormal Activity 2.” Other times it seems lazy, as if the filmmakers and screenwriters had no clue what to do for a wrap-up and turned in a final draft without a climax. Though I guess breaking convention would defeat the purpose of the footage being “found.”

There is absolutely no resolution. No answers, no clarifications, no payoff whatsoever for the eighty or so minutes that the audience wastes waiting for something to finally happen. But as much as the terrible ending can cripple the final product, it is possible to forgive the film if there is something to really like or appreciate about it. “The Last Exorcism,” which I still believe to be highly underrated, was fascinating because of its main character, a minister from the Bible belt of the south who went out to prove that exorcism is phony. The way he exploited the family’s faith by using tricks like smoking crosses and concealed speakers made viewers dislike him, and it was interesting to see him eat his own words when the girl turned out to actually be possessed by some supernatural force. “The Devil Inside” provides a few jump scares here and there, but is otherwise kind of lifeless and unnecessary.

The year is 1989, and a supposedly demon-possessed mother named Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) is having an exorcism performed on her. This assignment proves to be unsuccessful and she breaks free of the restraints holding her down, killing three people and laggardly ratting herself out to the authorities over the telephone. Strange, but I’ll go with it for now. Specialists arrive to investigate the murder suspect’s house, which is speckled with blood, dead bodies, religious paraphernalia, and a chair with a broken handle. The woman is found and is transferred to a psychiatric clinic in Rome.

Fast forwarding twenty years after the horrific incident (that’s 2009 for those keeping track), Mrs. Rossi’s daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) expresses interest in finding out just what happened to her mother, who she has not seen since before the exorcism took place. She, along with a friend who sticks behind the camera and must be wondering how to make it stop recording, flies out to Rome and briefly attends an exorcism class where the clergy attendees debate the symptoms of true possession. It is in this scene where they mention the concept of demons switching from one human host to another. I wonder if that will be of importance later on…

So Isabella gathers together a couple of ordained priests to help her better understand her mother’s clinical condition. One of the priests (Evan Helmuth) has a background in medicinal practices and thus the mindset of both a religious man and a pragmatist. He says that there is a line where science ends and where indescribable abnormalities begin. The two priests also specify with certainty that one is able to learn more from witnessing a mere five minutes of a live exorcism in progress than any class can possibly teach. With the Catholic church’s resistance to involve themselves in any circumstances unless demonic possession is a sure thing, these three engage in a number of exorcisms without approval. Going rogue like this is incredibly compromising to their integrity and could get the two priests excommunicated from their duties, but then again…the world MUST know about the footage Isabella is capturing.

At one point, Isabella goes to the asylum where her mother is being treated. She is allowed to enter Mrs. Rossi’s room, but the officials inform her not to mention anything relating to religion, as it will send the lady into a frenzy of hostility and aggression. The woman is haggard and gaunt, preserving a vacant look upon her face, repeating strange phrases to herself, and jumping between accents. She has made cuts on her own skin, as well as the inside flap of her lip, which resemble inverted crosses. The kicker is when she whispers for Isabella to come closer and yells in her face. Evil spirits are so rude like that.

What also seems to become abundantly clear with each of these movies is that demons really must hate handheld cameras and other recording devices. They sure seem to enjoy pouncing vigorously upon them, throwing their human hosts’ bodies at the lenses and causing the cameraperson to drop the device. Dude, demons…lay off the merchandise! It’s not the one pestering you like all the other humans. I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this is the reason why supernatural entities freak out with such heated anger in found-footage movies. My guess is camera shyness.

All of this leads up to an astoundingly unastounding anticlimax and a link to a website which leads to more information about the unsolved Rossi case. To further the allusion that the film is completely “real” and that it “actually happened,” it is introduced with a message stating that the Vatican objects to the filming of exorcisms in action, and therefore does not endorse this film and did not aid in its completion. I know this is just an extra tidbit to fool credulous people into thinking this could happen in the real world, but let us just assume for a moment that this was the case: I can think of countless other reasons why the Vatican would not want to be attached in any way to “The Devil Inside,” none of those reasons having to do with the provocative subject matter. Possibly embarrassment?

VERDICT:

THE TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2011 [Part 1]

2012-01-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

So the time has finally come. After exactly two blog posts about the worst movies of 2011 (part one here, part two there) and an unexpectedly long rambling about the movies that just barely missed the cut of my top ten list (yeah, all FOURTEEN came pretty close), it is time for me to talk in detail about the movies last year that I personally found to be the best of the bunch. The films that have stuck around in my head ever since I saw them and have left the biggest impacts on me as a film critic. As with my worst-of list, my picks will most likely cause a lot of controversy and some of them you will disagree with. I love hearing other peoples’ opinions and I always like a debate about movies, but like I said, this is MY list. Oh, and keep in mind I am the one guy in the world who didn’t lose my mind over “Drive” and I have not yet seen “The Artist” because it is apparently too artsy for the dinky, uncultured town I live in (sarcasm), so those won’t be included. If my list comes off as shallow or immature…I really don’t care. I like what I like, and that’s all that I like. So with that said, here are numbers ten through six of my Top Ten Movies of 2011.

10. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

“Will there ever be a more suitable time to say that I went bananas over “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes?””

I can remember back before “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” came to theaters and it seemed that not only was nobody excited for it, but everybody was downright slamming it into the ground before it was even released. I guess there was just one too many prepositional phrases in the title for people to handle. Besides advertisements that boasted the same visual effects team that worked on James Cameron’s “Avatar,” there wasn’t much else to draw in a mainstream audience. I heard everything from:

“A movie about monkeys? Lame.”

“James Franco? Isn’t that the guy that screwed up the Oscars?”

“The original “Planet Of The Apes” is overrated, so this one must automatically suck, too!”

But then people saw the movie.

And let me tell ya, in an already pretty stellar summer for the movies in general (“Horrible Bosses,” “Cowboys & Aliens,” “X-Men: First Class,” the “Harry Potter” finale), “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” caught a lot of people off guard. It was exciting, thrilling, dramatic, smart, sometimes frightening, and always enjoyable. It is that rare specimen of a prequel that engrosses the audience so much that it places them in the moment and temporarily makes them forget about how the story will end up later down the line.

The film begins as a low-key drama as Franco’s Dr. Will Rodman secretly takes home an infantile chimpanzee after his laboratory loses its funding for developing a cure for Alzheimer’s and all of the test primates are ordered to be put down. This one chimpanzee was birthed from a simian subject who was injected with a special vaccine, and therefore, inherits the mother’s DNA. Rodman raises the monkey as his own, names him Caeser, teaches him sign language and observes his amazing development into a civilized ape.

After eight years in the Rodman household, Caeser begins to acquire the kind of attitude that rears its ugly head around any species’ adolescent years. After a brutal act of physical violence on an unsuspecting human, Caeser is repositioned to a prison-like primate preserve with a wholly detestable staff that maltreats the animals. Finally, the film culminates with the apes breaking free from the preserve and launching a revolution against the human race led by Caeser.

Tom Felton (better known as Draco Malfoy in “Harry Potter”) portrays the punky young employee who inflicts abuse on poor Caeser and is the most direct cause for the schism between apes and mankind, as well as the one easy person to blame for the inevitable uprising. John Lithgow is sympathetic as Rodman’s father who suffers from Alzheimer’s. But the real star here is motion capture veteran Andy Serkis, who breathes life and humanity into a monkey for crying out loud! “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” is tremendous entertainment. No other movie I can think of this year has had a moment so heart-stoppingly intense that it was able to send the entire auditorium into deathly silence for a full ten seconds and then inspire an eruption of thundering applause immediately following the silence. If you don't know what I am talking about, go rent this movie right now.

9. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

“[W]ith an already commendable film effort out there, why did the world need a sure-to-be-bastardized reworking done by the remake machines themselves known as the American movie industry? […] And then it was announced that David Fincher was going to be director. Like magic, all uncertainty and skepticism suddenly vanished.”

Sure, I was already gearing up to like this movie based solely on the fact that David Fincher was in charge. There are few other contemporary directors I can think of who can get me as excited for a movie as Fincher is able to. His track record is practically flawless. It should come as no surprise that “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is greater than or equal in quality to the original Swedish film adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel, but what astounded me was the incredible star-making performance from Rooney Mara as the title character, Lisbeth Salander.

Mara totally immerses herself into this role with no reservations. She plays here a character with an aggressive, violent, unapproachable exterior, but also one who is vulnerable and clearly comes from a troubled upbringing. The actress is nearly unrecognizable underneath that face full of piercings and that permanent scowl that expresses utter contempt for mankind. The surly ex-girlfriend Mara portrayed in Fincher’s last film “The Social Network” looks like Cindy Lou Who by comparison. Yet somehow, the audience is able to become fascinated with her, attracted to her personality, squeamish at the punishment she is forced to endure against her will, and finally sympathetic toward her as she admits to her legal guardian that she “made a friend” with her work partner Mikael Blomkvist. The final shot is kind of heartbreaking the more I think about it. I sincerely believe she has given one of the best performances of the entire year. If she doesn’t get an Oscar nomination out of the deal, I’ll be sorely disappointed.

But aside from Mara’s breakout role, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is a tremendously engrossing and expertly executed thriller; clearly the mark of a Fincher film. Soon after Millenium writer and co-owner Mikael Blomkvist gets in deep trouble for publishing a libelous article about an industrial tycoon and loses his court case, he is hired by a retired CEO of Vanger Industries to 1) write his memoirs about the Vanger family, and 2) investigate a 40-year-old unsolved case on the murder of his great-niece, who was only sixteen. Blomkvist will need to study the members of the detestable Vanger family. Some of them had connections with the Nazi party, others are just seriously corrupt individuals.

All the characters are intriguingly disgusting and vile in their own ways. But what is at the forefront of the film is its labyrinthine mystery story. Even for a film that runs nearly three hours in length, it is densely compacted with information and answers that ultimately lead to more questions. The script written by “Moneyball” co-writer Steven Zaillian is filled with dialogue that makes this thriller taut and involving. It isn’t always pretty. In fact, it probably isn’t EVER an uplifting viewing experience. But “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is first-rate filmmaking at its finest.

8. YOUNG ADULT

““Young Adult” is a comedy in that there are laughs to be had at the expense of the certifiably delusional main character and just about everybody else around her whom she makes miserable, and a drama basically for the exact same reasons. It is humorous and heartbreaking in one fell swoop.”

Like Diablo Cody’s Oscar-nominated script for “Juno,” “Young Adult” handles its subject with sharp dialogue and real humanity. Unlike “Juno,” “Young Adult” is quite a sour little picture about high school nostalgia. Jason Reitman directs this dramedy that chronicles the exploits of an aggressively pathetic main character named Mavis Gary, who is played exceptionally well by Charlize Theron. Theron gives an unflattering and wholly unpleasant portrayal of a particularly heinous walk of life. Mavis was crowned prom queen back in high school, the place where she cavorted with all the other cool kids and was adored and encouraged in her narcissism and bad behavior. Nowadays, she is a self-interested ice queen who drinks Coca-Cola straight from the two-liter bottle, suffers from alcoholism and ghostwrites a young adult book series that is near the end of its popularity.

Could it be that all the admiration sent her way in high school shaped her this way? Could all of the excessive attention and compliments on her beauty have carried into her adult life? It certainly sounds like a possibility. From my perspective, this is also what obstructs Mavis from developing into a sane human being. I imagine this is the type of self-inflicted state of arrested development that happens to a lot of popular kids after they graduate from high school. The most tragic part about Mavis is that nobody cares enough to save her from crashing and burning, nor does she really care that she'll wind up that way.

To retreat from her most recent case of writer’s block, she pays a visit to her home town with one goal in mind: to get back together with her old high school boyfriend Buddy Slate. The catch: he is already married. Not only that, but his wife recently delivered a baby. Nevertheless, Mavis is dogged in her highly conceited ambitions. Providing counterbalance to her unpardonable schemes is the benevolently geeky Matt Freehauf played by Patton Oswalt. Mavis ignored Matt all throughout high school, but the two hit it off and sorta become friends due in part to Matt’s steadfast ability to provide booze. Just what she needs.

In any other mainstream comedy, a girl like this would be cheered on in her disreputable ploys to nab the man away from his wife. Reitman, however, presents the situation for exactly what it is: a social trainwreck happening in super slow motion. But for as rotten of a character as Mavis is, the audience has a strange relationship with her. We do not want her to succeed in her own selfish goals, but we want to see her do the right thing, whatever it may be. I think instinctively, we as moviegoers want to root for our film protagonists, even if the character in question is damn near impossible to root for.

I’ve heard plenty of people vocally expressing their anger towards “Young Adult” on the basis of its main character alone. I knew it would be a polarizing film. To me, it is a delightfully acerbic character evaluation. That, and it is also pretty funny to boot. Call me crazy, but I think “Young Adult” is a triumph on Reitman and Cody’s part, even if triumph sounds like an inappropriate word choice to describe a work that is such a celebration of human dysfunction.

7. SOURCE CODE

““Source Code,” just like “Inception,” is an excellent example of the thinking man’s blockbuster.”

Seeing the Duncan Jones’s thriller “Source Code” for a second time a few months ago was like seeing it for the first time all over again. And I am sure that the third time I see it will be just as fulfilling as the first two viewings. It is such a mesmerizing piece of work executed with grace and intelligence that even if you completely understand every last detail in it, you still somehow find yourself gazing in awe the second time around, as if you are a born-again virgin to this science fiction mindbender. At least I felt that way.

Jake Gyllenhaal is cast as a decorated airman named Colter Stevens who mysteriously wakes up strapped into some kind of contraption, dark and freezing, receiving instructions over a television screen by Vera Farmiga. She informs him with deadpan solemnity and businesslike urgency that he is the most important component involved in a computer simulation program called Source Code. The organization is using Colter under duress to identify the person responsible for bombing a commuter train in Chicago earlier in the day, which killed everybody. By obtaining such data, a future terrorist attack may be prevented and the criminal assailant will be detained by the authorities. But how will our hero gather up the facts?

This organization makes use of this unbelievable technology that allows test subjects to relive the final eight minutes of another person’s life. So Colter is repeatedly sent into the body of Sean Fentress, a man who happened to be onboard the train at the time of the explosion. He gathers clues and new developments with each venture into the parallel reality, and the large-scale story similarly reveals itself inch by inch, all through the eyes of Colter Stevens. And every time he is sent back, he sees a girl played by Michelle Monaghan who carries on casual conversations with Fentress, an indication that the two are well acquainted. After each experience in the simulation, Colter feels closer to this girl. He wants to save her, even though she has already been destroyed in the real world. So “Source Code” is essentially a cross between “Inception” and Harold Ramis’s comedy “Groundhog Day.”

The film is a continual experience of discovery from start to finish. Using Colter Stevens as the main character was probably the best decision that could have been made on a project like this, as the audience is usually just as puzzled as he is by what the heck is going on. How is he here? Why is he here? How did this organization find him? What happened to his job serving the country? The series of events is certainly complicated and the ending will probably leave most viewers asking questions, but it is a very good kind of perplexing. The kind where the viewer anticipates surprises around every corner. A deft fusion of science fiction, action, drama and romance, “Source Code” entertains the mind as well as the eyes.

6. THE IDES OF MARCH

““The Ides Of March” is a great consolation; the kind of picture that has the ability to keep the audience on edge throughout, even without having large amounts of gun fights, computer-generated explosions, swordplay and chase sequences that take place on the highway. Those types of movies can be fun and they generally make more money, but it takes greater skill to captivate people and yank their attention away just through conversations and dialogue. But the most impressive accomplishment is when the words that are spoken yield more lethal consequences than bullets or daggers. That’s when you know a thriller is doing its job right.”

Honestly, I walked into this movie kinda expecting to dislike it. I generally do not enjoy political thrillers as much as the next person, and I wasn’t as astonished by George Clooney’s previous drama “Good Night, and Good Luck” as most other critics were. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. It was handled intelligently and the idea of McCarthyism still remains embarrassingly relevant today (particularly in politics), I just didn’t love it.

But I digress. I don’t get serious political movies mostly because I myself am not a very scholarly person on the subject. Sure, I hold a certain set of beliefs and morals and I would even consider myself quite a passionate person in regards to some issues. But I hate the idea of anchoring myself to an exclusive way of thinking. Why do I have to belong to one party or the other? To me, every politician is as capable of screwing up in a big way, morals be damned. They are all human, flawed, placed in a position of considerable power and therefore bound to slip up sooner or later. No matter whether you to the left or right wing agendas, you cannot simply say that one side is perfect and the other side is evil. After all, every belief system needs the occasional moment of doubt.

Then comes along “The Ides Of March,” a film that manages to speak my language about the duplicity that inevitably lies beneath the surface of political campaigns. I would have never expected this kind of message from an outspoken liberal and humanitarian activist like Clooney, but even he acknowledges the amount of hypocrisy, cynicism and downright amorality that fills any and every political platform. It paints neither Democrats nor Republicans as the “wrong people,” but rather paints the whole canvas in a gooey, sordid layer of icky black sludge. The canvas resembles reality more than most people would like to think, and the goings-on depicted in the film are hardly exaggerated from the unflattering headline stories we see all the time about sex scandals, shady dealings, blackmail, press associations, and the crooked routes candidates will take just to nab a vote.

Ryan Gosling, who seems to be unstoppable this year, plays a junior campaign manager named Stephen Meyers, who is championing Mike Morris (Clooney), a liberal Pennsylvania governor, for the Democratic presidential primaries. Essentially what the race comes down to is who can get the popular vote from the state of Ohio, which can have a strong chance of influencing the outcome of the primary. Like Stephen states in the film, he is married to the campaign. He is dedicated to scoring a victory for his administration. Unfortunately for him, he seems to be the only optimistic soul in a sea of unbridled corruption and callousness. The audience views the competition through Stephen’s eyes, and let me tell ya, what this kid sees is not too pretty.

He gets approached by the opposing candidate’s slimy manager, who offers a more rewarding and successful job as strategist in his administration. He falls for a young intern, but later finds out that she is concealing a deep, dark secret about Morris. An inquisitive reporter bleeds him for new developments, but establishes just how futile friendships and close relationships are in the game of politics. Secrets are revealed, reputations are at stake and alliances are shattered. All the while, “The Ides Of March” is a well-written, well acted, extremely tense political drama that hits the nail on the head. The final ten second stretch of the film, in which the camera lingers on somebody’s face for an extended period of time, is one of the most chilling shots I have seen this year. To call this film a disparaging look at the world of politics would be an understatement.

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Part two of my list coming soon.

HONORABLE MENTIONS OF 2011

2012-01-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

Honorable Mentions of 2011 was originally going to be an extra section of my Top Ten list for 2011, but I ended up talking so dern long about these fourteen films that every reader would lose interest before getting around to the actual list (as if my blog wasn’t boring enough already). But you know what? This was a fan-freaking-tastic year for movies of every kind, and even though none of them were ever able to achieve a glorious Four Stars from yours truly, there were was no shortage of terrific films. I feel that some of them NEED to be addressed for how good they are. So many that not all of them could possibly be contained into a simple Top Ten list. So these are an additional fourteen movies (in alphabetical order, not arranged by preference) that just barely missed the cut.

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“A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” – I know this one in particular will cause a lot of people to immediately close their web browsers and continue scrolling the IMDb message forums or whatever, but hear me out. Sequels tend to be disappointing. Christmas movies mostly suck. The odds were certainly against these stoner buddies. But O Holy Crap, it must be some kind of Christmas miracle! The Harold & Kumar threequel hoisted the series out of the muck supplied by the repulsive second entry and brought it back on track with some of the silly, stupid fun that made “White Castle” such a cheerfully crass adventure. Some people might pooh-pooh the inclusion of this comedy on my honorable mentions list, but screw ‘em. I had too much fun with this movie not to include it. Their pot must be contaminated or something.

“The Adventures Of Tintin” – Just between you and me, I liked “The Adventures Of Tintin” more than “War Horse,” Spielberg’s other Christmas release that seems to be getting an awful lot of Oscar buzz. “Tintin” is a rousing animated tale that gives most modern adventure movies a run for their money. It indulges in the very essences that make top-quality blockbusters thanks to a creative team including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. These people communally love movies, respect movies, and have a sure idea of what makes great movies so darn great. I was captivated by the old-era look and feel, the stylish performance-capture animation and the mystery story, which slowly revealed itself inch by inch. This easily gets my vote for Best Animated Feature of 2011…

“Arthur Christmas” – …Though this animated effort was not too shabby, either. Two good Christmas-related movies in one year? 2012 surely must be the end of the world! But unlike “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas,” “Arthur Christmas” is an appropriately jolly animated Christmas adventure for the whole family to enjoy. It follows the gawky but good-natured and infinitely jovial son of Santa, Arthur, in his journey to deliver a present to the one child Santa missed in London before the dawn of Christmas day. The animation is speedy and meticulously detailed at times, warranting a play-by-play so that viewers can soak in everything that the animators snuck into the frame.

“Captain America: The First Avenger” – Critics may have been clamoring over “Thor” at the beginning of summer movie season, but whatever became of the God of Thunder’s reign as the year passed? I don’t seem to be hearing that much about him these days. Besides, I think the glory clearly goes to the other two Marvel superhero movies of the summer. Starting as a ninety-pound weakling in early scenes, Chris Evan’s Steve Rogers becomes the test subject for a special government serum that is intended to turn him into a super soldier, and is soon transformed into the brawny, patriotic, American flag-clad superhero. “Captain America: The First Avenger” boasted one of the coolest and most seamless special effects of the year, a properly evil villain so vicious that he is able to make NAZIS tremble in their boots, and a surprisingly serious royal treatment despite the admittedly absurd origin premise.

“The Descendants” – Tragedy is an inescapable life theme that everybody must eventually face. Some would also say that family and heritage is something that one cannot run away from. “Sideways” director Alexander Payne directs yet another tragically endearing comedy-drama with “The Descendants.” George Clooney is cast as the lead character Matt King, a Honolulu resident and one of the descendants of some of Hawaii’s first white land-owning families. The film follows the conflicts simultaneously occurring in Matt’s life at the moment, including a business deal where he and the King family contemplate selling large tracts of Hawaiian land to real estate developers (hey, they need the money), his wife landing in a coma following a boating accident, the hospital having to pull her from life support, the dark secret that she kept from Matt until her unfortunate mishap, and Matt’s upbringing of his rebellious daughters Scottie and Alex. These all seem like a bunch of disconnected events, but they all relate to one another somehow and even have a tendency to resolve each other in some way, shape or form. “The Descendants” is a beautifully moving picture.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” – Perhaps my toughest cut from my main top ten list, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” closes out the beloved saga with a bang. And what a big bang it is. The final duel between Harry Potter and the dark lord Voldemort is held at the prestigious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, once depicted early in the series as a spry, colorful and magical dreamscape ideal to every child’s imagination and a safe haven for the title character. It’s looking all the more ominous by the second. The conclusion is bittersweet, as it is not only the close to a great series of films, but is also the close to an entire era of fantasy filmmaking. A Little Piece of Heaven about Harry Potter.

“Horrible Bosses” – Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis are three discontent workers who are fed up with taking sh** from their equally despicable employers and hatch a scheme to systematically murder them. Sounds easy enough, but I loved “Horrible Bosses” a little bit more just for the sheer inanity of these three main characters. There is a bizarre science and cleverness employed as these guys get way over their heads in one situation after another. It is rare for an R-rated comedy to be concerned with its plot (see “The Change-Up” for a bad example), but this riotous dark comedy delivers an interesting premise executed greatly with a steady equilibrium of slapstick and subversion. It is a smart, biting, cynical, expertly dirty comedy that I absolutely loved. Extra points for outstanding performances by Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston as the bosses who make the three main characters’ jobs a living hell.

“Insidious” – In this day and age, I have been hard-pressed to find a horror film that truly generates nervous tension within me, let alone scares me. But “Insidious” was perhaps the biggest surprise all year. I loved this unexpectedly scary venture into the haunted house film category, which used strategically placed jump scares, deceptive imagery and eerie worldly sounds to create its chilling atmosphere and stir up psychological torment in the viewer’s head. It doesn’t rely on excessive quantities of blood and guts to get its point across. Instead, it relies more on the cerebral perception of the audience.

“Limitless” – Neil Burger’s “Limitless” was a huge breath of fresh air to the thriller genre near the beginning of this year. It is an ingenious fulfillment of an ingenious premise: what if human beings could access one-hundred percent of their brain at any given time through some kind of miracle drug? What kind of amazing accomplishments, discoveries and advancements could be made possible by this medical breakthrough? How would their body react to this kind of exhaustive punishment? Could one become addicted like with any other drug? To what extent would people go to get their hands on just one capsule? Burger films “Limitless” with a perceptive, kinetic, sometimes wholly disorientating visual style that occasionally borrows from David Fincher, Danny Boyle, and Stanley Kubrick, yet the end result stands on its own as first-rate entertainment. It is smart, original, well acted, well executed and, most importantly, thrilling.

“The Muppets” – Why is it that I am able to care more about a bunch of inanimate sock puppets than approximately ninety-six percent of all lead characters in modern romantic comedies? Well, the answer is really quite simple: the Muppets are not merely a couple of rag dolls. They have personalities, quirks, attitudes and emotions. They resemble humanity more than most live-action performers. Thanks to the most memorable characters in puppet history including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear and Animal, “The Muppets” is a cheerfully silly, subversively funny and sometimes emotionally resonant romp. I dare you not to be moved by the time “Rainbow Connection” hits your ears.

“Super 8” – Even though J.J. Abrams directs “Super 8,” this project feels patently Spielberg, who acts as the film’s producer. From the era it takes place in, to the styles and trends present, to the young children at the center of the conflict (“The Goonies,” anyone?), to the bright color palette, to the brazenly sentimental family themes, to the mysterious monster that reveals itself more and more as the film continues, this is an homage to the days of Spielberg blockbusters like “E.T.” and “Jaws.” Admittedly, the last five minutes are a real letdown, but it is hard to deny the sense of discovery, suspense, exhilaration and enjoyment one can receive while watching this for the first time. It has the ability to hit even the hardest cynics in the nostalgic part of their heart, whether it be for 70s/80s Spielberg classics or for their own childhood.

“The Tree Of Life” – Some will hate me for including this at all, and everyone else will hate me for not placing it in one of the top ten positions. But this is my list, so I could care less what others think. Like withdrawn visionary director Terrence Malick’s 1998 film “The Thin Red Line,” “The Tree Of Life” is a film with no concrete beginning and no clear end. The structure is deliberately shapeless and breaks the convention of what a narrative is expected to be. Malick’s latest is a challenging, audacious and incredibly ambitious piece of cinema that conveys so many unexplainable sensations and convictions through symbolism and music. Some see the film as a boring and pretentious exercise, but I couldn’t resist soaking in every moment of outstanding artistry on display here. It will reach people in all sorts of different ways, and for me, it is elegant, symbolic, spiritual, existential and beautifully poignant visual poetry. This is truly a cinematic experience like no other.

“Win Win” – I don’t know too many people who actually made an effort to go out and see “Win Win,” and that is really too bad, because I absolutely loved it. In fact, it came dangerously close to cracking my top ten. It has a nice humanist streak in telling its story of a money-challenged lawyer who volunteers to become legal guardian to an Alzheimer’s patient, double-crosses the courts by placing the guy in a nursing home, unjustly accepts the money out of the deal, and unexpectedly takes on the baggage of the old man’s troubled but gifted grandson. This movie has some of the most fleshed out characters of the year, and the performances by Paul Giamatti (does this guy ever give a bad performance?), Amy Ryan, and newcomer Alex Shaffer are beyond superb. It is charming without being frothy, sentimental without being sappy, and independent from mainstream cinema without coming off as artsy or inaccessible. This is an accomplished dramedy that lives up to its title.

“X-Men: First Class” – After two consecutive missteps in the X-Men film franchise, the series has finally been restored to its smart and stylish roots with “X-Men: First Class.” Being a prequel to the main series, any fan will know that things are going to drastically change before this is all over with. Yet, I was still invested. Each individual story for all the different mutants is fascinating and well-acted. The way they all converge in the middle is marvelous. In tradition of the previous entries in the series, “X-Men: First Class” has quite a penchant for social commentary: Xavier’s idealism, Magneto’s desire for human genocide, allusions to real-world civil rights, racism, conformity, and being “cured” in order to be accepted into a normal society. This scrapes the edge of being a great film.

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I promise. My Top Ten Movies of 2011 is coming soon. Don’t worry, friends.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST CINEMATIC CRAP OF 2011 [Part 2]

2011-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the second part of my list of The Absolute Worst Cinematic Crap of 2011. If you haven’t seen numbers ten through six, you can find the first part right here. If you have, let us get back to this hateful hellride. Five through one, mother nature!

5. SHARK NIGHT 3D

“[T]he opening credits have an effect overtop of them where the ocean is completely red thanks to coloring filters. It is almost like a tease to the audience, as if to say “brace yourself, this is the kind of bloody, brutal shark-related havoc that you’re NOT gonna see throughout the entire film.””

I could have predicted the fundamental problem with “Shark Night 3D” even before having seen it: it is a PG-13 movie about SHARKS, those animals with numerous rows of sharp teeth and an insatiable thirst for human blood. The amount of evisceration in the film doesn’t get much more graphic than a pool of blood rising up to the surface of the water. This plays like a neutered, made-for-TV shark movie, but that is not what makes it horrible on a transcendent level.

Maybe it is the fact that every young actor is a personality-devoid teenager (or, at least they’re PLAYING teenagers) whose only star quality is that they look attractive as they continually flee from being eaten alive. Maybe it is the fact that the characters they play are all types; broad cardboard cutouts of something resembling reality. Maybe it is the disorientating 3D technology that feels especially terrible when the camera is placed under the water. Maybe it is because the movie is teeming…TEEMING…with cheap inconsistencies that anybody who cared about the movie could have spotted.

Scratch that line about “anybody who cared about the movie”…I noticed the inconsistencies and I wouldn’t mind if the film for “Shark Night 3D” was melted down and repurposed for molding heels on women’s shoes.

4. ABDUCTION

“Not only does Lautner fail to shine as an archetypal leading man (surprise, surprise), but the entire cast (full of highly skilled performers, I might add) seem to get buried under all the muddled confusion and cannot salvage the film for even one minute. What’s worse is that this mess fails at doing anything that makes a thriller exciting. The plot is needlessly difficult, the dialogue is beyond stale, the twists and turns are boring and the action sequences are incomprehensible. It only adds to the frustration that the characters taking part in the action scenes have no emotional connectivity and might as well be a couple of personality-deficient squirrels struggling over a nut.”

Here is the full extent to which I am a movie critic who shows no bias and no shame in sharing my opinions. One of my sister’s good friends is the manager of a little band from Seattle called Hot Bodies In Motion, who was hired by Lionsgate to record original music for this Taylor Lautner star vehicle. Everybody, including my sister, was flown out to LA for the premiere of the movie. On that basis alone, I was at least a little interested in seeing what kind of project they were getting involved with. Upon seeing the final cut, I assume the actual screening of “Abduction” must have been the most depressing moment of the business endeavor.

As much as I label him as the poster child for bad acting, I have nothing against Lautner or the movies he stars in. I want to see a film someday where this actor takes me by surprise. And the most crushing part is that he isn’t even in the top five things that make the film an insufferable two-hour action movie purgatory. The writing is entirely soulless and unfeeling considering the main topic involves a protagonist who may or may not know who he is, where he came from, or who his real parents might be. The story is incomprehensible. Great actors turn in unbelievably lame performances.

It is essentially the teenage version of “The Bourne Identity,” written with the level of brain power that could only possibly entertain the indiscriminate teen demographic. Even then, I still think a good amount of people in that age group would be smart enough to spot a bad movie when they see it. I never thought I’d say it, but Taylor Lautner can no longer say that “New Moon” is the worst movie of his career.

3. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE)

“Sorry to ruin everybody’s fun, but there is not a single solitary cell in my whole entire body that received enjoyment from a single frame in “The Human Centipede 2.” Now if that sentence managed to either offend you or further goad you into writing incendiary comments about this review, I implore you to reconsider your idea of fun.”

It might come as a shock to some people that this particular piece of utterly depraved filth did not make the number one spot. After all, this is the first movie ever to be awarded the dreaded Zero Stars rating from yours truly. I still stand by my verdict. However, there is one factor that prohibits “The Human Centipede 2” from being placed at the top of my worst-of list, and it is that the filmmakers know exactly what they are trying to make: an all-out endurance test to see how much sick torture a midnight movie audience can take. Their intent was to make the lowest form of art possible; something that is offensive in every way possible. And by those principles, it succeeds. I was offended.

But to not include it as part of The Absolute Worst Cinematic Crap of 2011 would be categorical sacrilege, so it stands at number three.

There is not a single redeemable moment of quality in the entire picture, it is horrendously ugly to look at, it is passionless in its excessiveness, it isn’t all that frightening or gruesome, and it seems a little overconfident and vainglorious about itself. The sequel to “The Human Centipede” (which is not that good of a movie to start with) forgets about all of the psychological terror and artful execution employed in the first and goes straight to making a fetish out of all things disgusting. The taboos touched upon in the first were merely the beginning in a grand excursion to the pantheon of bad taste. Not to mention, I find it a little pompous that director Tom Six has essentially made a film that celebrates the cultural impact of his first film.

It made me wonder whether or not being stuck in the middle of a human centipede would be preferable over watching “The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)” ever again.

2. THE CHANGE-UP

“[I]t disappoints me that this further illustrates the fact that gross-out, scatological, shock value humor has become the rule to making the profitable comedy and not the exception.”

Looking back upon my initial review, I realized that I was waaaaaaaay too nice on “The Change-Up.” I detest it with every fiber of my being to the far reaches of the universe, and my hatred only grows stronger for this stupid would-be comedy with every passing day. The more I think about it, “The Hangover” seems like a fluke with every fleeting weekend in which an R-rated comedy is released. That movie was so funny and so deceptively intelligent and noble in what it was trying to do. “The Change-Up,” along with most other comedies riding on the Wolf Pack’s coattails in hopes of nabbing a piece of the “Hangover” pie, is an affront to the very idea of “naughty comedy.”

It begins suitably (or is it unsuitably?) with an unsavory projectile baby defecation gag that sets the course for what is to come. The humor gives the irksome impression of the belligerent young teenager who tries to act mature by being as vulgar as humanly possible, which makes him about as appealing as super-abrasive fingernails on a chalkboard to your doom. Effective comedic concepts such as setup, timing and delivery all seem foreign to the filmmakers. The characters are destructively stupid human beings whose social conduct and discipline are in competition with six-year-olds (and THAT is an insult to six-year-olds). And what seems more and more like an obligatory theme in dumb raunchy comedies, it ditches its shallow and puerile roots and goes for phony, insincere sentimentality toward the end.

“The Change-Up” was released in theaters at the beginning of August, sandwiched between the release dates of two other R-rated comedies. The first was “Horrible Bosses” and the second was “30 Minutes Or Less.” In other words, crude humor and cheerful vulgarity CAN be done properly. Those other two movies are living proof. “The Change-Up” is a dismal crater in the genre.

1. EVERY. HAPPY. MADISON. PRODUCTION.

Okay, this is kind of a stretch to place four movies in the number one position. But trust me, this list would be super boring if I separated each of these. Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison is not traditionally well known for quality entertainment (even though some of them can be harmlessly stupid fun), but 2011 has easily been the single worst year for Sandler and company…shoot, what am I talking about? They don’t care if they made anything truly endearing or funny. Everybody’s laughing all the way to the bank, leaving the moviegoing public in a slightly dumber condition than before. Each movie is bad, but they kept getting worse as they went along.

JUST GO WITH IT

“In the end, I believe the film DOES work as a farce. It is so obviously satirizing the awful career choices of George Simmons, the main character in the Judd Apatow directed Sandler vehicle “Funny People” from two years ago. I think I am starting to see the parallels between the fictional character and the fact.”

Released in February, “Just Go With It” is like a lousy extended sitcom with stupid characters. You can predict the final outcome way too far ahead of time. In fact, everything could have been wrapped up at sitcom length if the characters took the time to breath and calmly discuss things over tea and crumpets. This is an adaptation of the 1969 satire called “Cactus Flower,” which won Goldie Hawn an Oscar for her role. I can guarantee that version did not include unimaginative jokes about the initiation a certain bodily function being referred to as “taking a Devlin.”

ZOOKEEPER

“[T]here has got to be a less humiliating way for Kevin James to pay the bills.”

Kevin James can be funny and I think he will have a respectable film role in due time…but not if he keeps working for his good buddy Adam Sandler and taking thankless roles like these. “Zookeeper” not only commits the heinous crime of being a laugh-free comedy, but it is not even all that interesting. Even “Just Go With It” is part of that special level of ‘bad’ where you want to see how far they will go with a paper-thin premise. This is purely unexciting. The jokes ALWAYS come in two different but uniformly unfunny varieties: 1) “Ho ho, it’s so funny that Kevin James is a clumsy, awkward fat man” and 2) “Ho ho, those zoo animals are just as savvy as the normal American teenager.” The story is wholly predictable without even the slightest hiccup or deviation from convention. Maybe very young children will be interested, but to everyone else, I say avoid “Zookeeper” at all costs.

BUCKY LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR

“I may feel sick to my stomach if I am ever called upon to endure this miserable tragedy again.”

I never thought I’d say this, but Nick Swardson DESERVES better than this. Every person in the cast warrants a better use of their talent (even Pauly freaking Shore). Bucky Larson is a character that the film somehow wants us to empathize with and concurrently point our fingers and laugh at, though I don’t remember ever identifying with him and I CERTAINLY didn’t do any laughing during this movie. I hope you like jokes about buck teeth and small parts of the male anatomy, because the film has no shortage (ahem!) of those. And it has perhaps even more moments where Bucky vapidly responds to questions with the innocence of a child:

“I thought you had some sort of macaroni and cheese fetish.”

“Oh, I don’t use feta. Only cheddar.”

Bucky Larson is a born devastation.

JACK AND JILL

“I did not need to see “Jack and Jill.” The world does not need to see “Jack and Jill.” But at the cost of lowering standards for what can be considered comedy and lowering the intellect of the general moviegoing public, it is also a film I firmly believe the world should not HAVE.”

Somebody once asked me what kept “Jack and Jill” from earning a Zero Star rating. I sat there and asked myself, “was there anything redeemable in this movie?” Frankly, I couldn’t think of a single thing.

“Jack and Jill” unquestionably IS the worst movie I have seen throughout the entire year of 2011, and judging by a Tomatometer rating of 4%, I think most people would agree with me. This is the worst project that Adam Sandler has ever associated himself with, and keep in mind this is the guy who participated in such dismal abominations as “Little Nicky,” “The Waterboy,” “Mr. Deeds,” “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.”

Unlike other Sandler pictures, this one has just a PG rating. This means that the entire family will be all the more inclined to check out this atrocity, desperately hoping for some entertainment. Alas, this is a film just as juvenile and repugnant as any of his other efforts, only nobody throws out an f-bomb to push it into PG-13 territory. But that doesn’t explain why the gang gets away with Jewish stereotyping, the loudest diarrhea scene in history, having a character call two women ‘hookers’ for no reason whatsoever, mean-spirited pratfalls, and vulgar jokes about gender confusion. Y’know, for kids.

And just like the above mentioned “Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star,” the script flip-flops with the audience about the Jill character. Most of the time, she is being humiliated and viewers are expected to laugh and point their fingers at her for being such an ungainly human being. She is mocked for being fat (when she really isn’t that big), for saying the wrong things at the wrong time, for her grating voice, for the nasty sweat stain she leaves on the mattress, for being single, and for screwing up a blind date just for being herself. Then…out of NOWHERE…the film wants us to SYMPATHIZE with the same person who, moments ago, the film wanted us to belittle. Nothing about this sudden need for sentiment seems sincere.

Al Pacino is in this…oh, how the mighty have fallen.

How many times can Adam Sandler get all of his buddies together, take them on some sort of luxurious vacation trip, make a fool out of everyone involved, and rob people of their ten bucks passing this crap off as valid entertainment? When will people wise up? If you come across a copy of “Jack and Jill” on DVD, burn it. Burn it good! Then burn down the establishment in which you found this useless merchandise! ANARCHY!

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So, yes. “Jack and Jill” sucks, and that concludes my list of The Absolute Worst Cinematic Crap of 2011. My best-of list is coming soon, and here’s hoping that 2012 won’t have as much mind-numbing tripe to deal with. That’s me being optimistic. Don’t get used to it.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST CINEMATIC CRAP OF 2011 [Part 1]

2011-12-29T08:40:00.000-08:00

Why is it that just about every critic I know of absolutely loathes the task of making lists at the end of the year? Is it because they know a ton of people will disagree with the order of their list? Because their lists will cause controversy and debate amongst fans and casual readers?

Well…duh.

Of course not everybody will dig a list that is based entirely on subjectivity. It is all a matter of opinion and the selling point is how well you can explain yourself. I don’t know if I was just born with a different set of genes than other critics, but I absolutely love lists. I like writing them, I like sharing them, I like debating with people about them, I like exchanging my lists with other people’s lists. I love the whole process.

While there have been a surprisingly large number of great movies over these last twelve months (more like the last ten months, because I only gave one recommendation throughout January and February), the amount of super-crapola has also been through the roof. “Green Lantern,” “Sucker Punch,” “The Rite,” and the THIRD “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie were all unpleasant experiences for me, but none of them managed to make my list. I could go for the easy targets like “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon,” “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn,” “Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” and that forgettable Nicolas Cage movie that came out early in the year, but that just wouldn’t be fair. Those AREN’T the worst movies of the year (though if you’re curious, “Pirates” is pretty close). No, you have to dig deep to find the truly repugnant movies. That is just what I did. So without further adieu, I give you number ten through six of The Absolute Worst Cinematic Crap of 2011.

10. THE ROOMMATE

““The Roommate” borrows so liberally and so shamelessly from “Single White Female” that it may as well be titled “Single White Female.””

Taking a hint from aintitcoolnews.com’s critic Massawyrm and reserving the number ten slot for a movie that is so bad that some kind of entertainment value can somehow be drawn from it, I choose “The Roommate” as my number ten. This is one of the most ineptly made thrillers I have seen in quite some time with perhaps the most laughably moronic climax ever. But there’s the key word: LAUGHABLY. Oh my goodness, was this movie hilarious. There is a pivotal scene in which the roommate’s mother asks if her daughter has been taking her medication on a regular basis. When the main girl rummages through her roommate’s drawers to figure out what the deal is, she discovers a full bottle of capsules. Instead of suspecting the worst, she immediately believes that the prescription was recently refilled and that her psycho roommate has been taking the pills all along. Clearly, we’re dealing with the most optimist horror movie heroine ever.

With unintentional laughs, bad acting, lame dialogue, a neutered PG-13 rating, TV sitcom production values and a performance by Billy Zane that makes his cameo in “Zoolander” look like digitized gold (and secretly, it is), there is no mistaking it…“The Roommate” sucks on a gargantuan level.

9. THE SITTER

“In “The Sitter,” you can predict the plot points as soon as they are introduced, you know exactly where each joke is heading, and you can just sense that a superficially sentimental ending will be forced into the last five minutes that will mean nothing to the audience who had been enjoying it up until that point. All the while, it just isn’t that funny.”

Now here’s one that most critics actually got just right in their Worst-of lists. Seriously, David Gordon Green. Whatever happened to making good movies? Sure, I wasn’t one to rave about “Pineapple Express” when it came out, but I will take that mildly entertaining effort any day over the unfunny trainwreck that is “The Sitter.” Just because preadolescent kids are saying vulgar phrases and using profanity does not automatically make it funny. Just because said kids are forcibly brought along on a decadent drive through New York’s seamy underbelly does not equal comedy. Children publicly urinating at a fancy-pants dinner party is not inherently funny (at least not for me). “The Sitter” tries to be a raunchy comedy one minute and a syrupy bonding story the next, but with some of the most maddeningly imprudent little brats ever put on screen, it is about as cuddly as a porcupine.

There is one ingenuous scene here when Jonah Hill’s Noah has a poignant talk with one of the kids about how he shouldn’t repress his latent homosexuality and that there isn’t anything wrong with the kid being himself. That’s noble and bold of you, film. Except you manage to soil that message within the next few minutes by introducing more than a few offensive gay stereotypes for the audience to point and laugh at. Bravo, oh hypocritical comedy. Dishonorable mention also by David Gordon Green: “Your Highness.”

8. THE DILEMMA

“Have you ever noticed when there is a scene in a movie that just feels completely out of place with everything else that is going on? Why was that part necessary? How exactly does it advance the plot? Am I supposed to laugh at what just happened or what? Well, now we have a film that is composed of at least 75 percent awkward moments like that with “The Dilemma,” an almost painfully unfunny comedy that never wastes an opportunity to squander its potential.”

The biggest dilemma here is how you can possibly recover from having wasted two precious hours of your fragile life from watching this movie. I hear some people say that this is straightforward comedy and others say that there is much drama to be considered. Frankly, I didn’t see much of either. The worst part about this failure is that, unlike “The Roommate” which rips off “Single White Female” or “The Sitter” which is essentially an R-rated version of “Adventures in Babysitting,” “The Dilemma” has a GREAT premise. How exactly does a man go about telling his best friend confidently that his wife is cheating on him without crushing his spirits or causing him to become angry? An idea like this could be a gateway for thought-provoking life questions about friendship, marriage, relationships and trust, while it could also explore the psychology of somebody placed in a precarious position.

Yeah, not much of that is present here. Instead we get Vince Vaughn falling into a patch of poison ivy and consequentially getting a bad case of Painful Bodily Function Syndrome. We get Queen Latifah’s unnecessary secondary character spouting lewd sexual remarks at business meetings. We get a burly guy like Channing Tatum crying like a schoolgirl. We get a completely offensive anniversary party for an older couple with Vaughn mouthing off to someone for no reason. With the exception of Jennifer Connelly, every character is so aggressively unlikable and the situations they get into are insufferably stupid most of the time. “The Dilemma” is too ugly to enjoy.

7. I AM NUMBER FOUR

““I Am Number Four” is one of the most offensive things to at least two of your five senses. The only thing I am thankful for is that it isn’t offensive in all three dimensions, as there will be no presentations in the 3D format. Congratulations, movie. You have one good thing to your name.”

Oh boy, where do I start? First off, let me address the lead actor. Alex. Mr. Pettyfer, sir. I know the lady-types swoon over you for being such a good-looking fellow, and I am sure your modeling career is working out well for you. Acting…is not your strong suit. I’m sorry, but it is true.

As for the rest of “I Am Number Four,” it ranges between two types of unbearable. The first type is the first two-thirds of the movie, which haphazardly ties together a graphic novel-sized story in with an unendurably routine origin story, tiresome high school drama and a romance-free romance subplot. Then in the final third, the true crappiness of the film really begins to show with possibly the most audience-insulting, excessive and idiotic finale since “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.” Yes, I mean that.

Explosions, bright colors, laser beams, handgun shots, ugly dog monster creatures, CGI disappearing effects a la Nightcrawler from the X-Men, piercing sound effects, an obnoxious utilization of a musical score, random occurrences that seemingly come out of nowhere. These are just a few of the torturous annoyances that come about during this time. It is no surprise that the cacophony master himself Michael Bay is executive producer to this abominable number two. Avoid it like a group of malignant Mogadorians.

6. THE DARKEST HOUR

“Somewhere around the time when the gang finally reaches the nuclear submarine and Emile Hirsch volunteers to go back and save a girl, I began to wonder if the local theater was employing brand new torture methods for critics like me.”

On one hand, I am so glad that I saw “The Darkest Hour” no more than a few days ago; this list of absolute cinematic crap would be nothing without the inclusion of this colossal bob-omb. On the other hand, I really dreaded everything else about the movie. This is being advertised as a high-energy action film in its marketing campaign, but I would be incredulous to find out if infants became frightened or thrilled by this tension-free, emotionally cold letdown. The idea of virtually invisible alien invaders isn’t even the worst of the films problems. No. Its worst problems would have to be the one-dimensional characters, nondescript acting, cursory dialogue, the unmitigated lack of spirit, useless 3D technology, and the film’s one-of-a-kind ability to figuratively diffuse the bombs before anybody in the audience starts to go nuts. Not to mention…it is booooooooooooooring.

I had no good material by the time I sat down to write my initial review. There was nothing interesting that went through my head and no fascinating observations I made. I spent a whole paragraph (out of a measly five total paragraphs) discussing an episode of The Twilight Zone that randomly popped into my head that also had to do with alien invaders. I had to REACH for something to talk about. The film certainly didn’t supply me with enough substance to run off on. A shameless rip-off of countless other movies and a complete bore from start to finish, “The Darkest Hour” is not even bad enough to poke fun at. It may be one of the worst uses of your money I can think of.

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Part 2 is coming sometime tomorrow.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Adventures Of Tintin

2011-12-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from my “Attack The Block” review posted on December 2^nd, 2011:

“As it turns out, [Joe] Cornish also collaborated with fellow Brit, Edgar Wright [...] to produce the script for the animated epic, “The Adventures Of Tintin,” which is due out in less than a month from the time I post this. With the creative minds of Steven Spielberg (as director), Peter Jackson (as producer), Edgar Wright and now Joe Cornish under one project, it had better be something great. Otherwise, let’s just say it won’t be the Block I’m attackin’.”

The time has finally come for me to critique “The Adventures Of Tintin,” an animated collaboration between a dream team comprised of Steven Spielberg (as director), Peter Jackson (as producer), Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (both writers). While the final result does not quite live up to the reputations of the brilliant people behind it (and it would be hard to), “Tintin” is still a rousing animated tale that gives most modern adventure movies a run for their money.

Frankly, the year of 2011 has been unusually slack in the area of animated films. Pixar suffered its first critical fall from the mountain of animation superiority with the disappointing sequel “Cars 2,” “Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil” proved to be somehow even less enchanting than its five-year-old precursor, and “Rango” wore out its welcome after the first act ended. Sure, Dreamworks has been at least somewhat consistent with “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “Puss in Boots,” but neither one, nor really any other effort this year, stood out to me as tremendous entertainment. My vote for Best Animated Feature come award show season easily goes to this one.

“The Adventures Of Tintin” is the kind of movie that mirthfully indulges in the essences that make top-quality blockbuster entertainment. No wonder. The project was assembled by a group of people that communally love movies, respect movies, and have a sure idea of what makes great movies so great. Steven Spielberg…like I even need to explain. The guy is THE filmmaking legend and basically the pioneer of modern cinema (for better and for worse). Peter Jackson is the genius behind the “Lord Of The Rings” franchise who faithfully captured J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth universe on film and reignited the public’s interest in fantasy adventure. Edgar Wright is an avid film buff, and has employed his far-reaching film appreciation in his works as writer-director, which include “Shaun Of The Dead” and “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.” Like “Super 8,” “Tintin” feels almost patently Spielberg…but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The title character Tintin (Jamie Bell) is an inquisitive young journalist who, along with his shaggy white dog Snowy, both investigates local criminal activities and covers them as news stories for the paper. While casually pacing the streets of a European street market, Tintin comes across a pristine model replica of a legendary ship called the Unicorn and purchases it at quite a bargain. But as Tintin soon finds out, just about every other shady-looking person in town expresses interest in the ship, some of them offering to buy it back from him at any price. Our hero resolutely denies all offers and merely wants to keep the priceless collectible as a nice centerpiece for his apartment.

The ship gets bent outta shape shortly after it is taken back home and a mysterious tube slips out of the mast’s clasp, sliding underneath a chest of drawers. Not more than a few days after, the coveted ship is stolen from Tintin’s lodging, his room has been broken into and ransacked from wall to wall and, weirdest of all, somebody is shot and killed right at the building’s doorstep (“Not again,” says the apartment lady). Fortunately, the robbers were not able to locate the missing tube from the mast, which Tintin comes across while perusing his looted quarters. Unfortunately, this is precisely what gets him kidnapped by henchmen of Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig), a suspiciously inquiring man who approached him the other day at the market.

Tintin is made an unwilling prisoner aboard the SS Karaboudjan, which the wicked Sakharine commandeers with an iron fist. Escaping the watchful eye of the ship’s bumbling crew, he finds another troubled soul being held as prisoner, the whiskey-swilling Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis). As explained in a sequence later on in the film, Haddock is the ancestor of the Unicorn’s old captain Sir Francis Haddock, who is known for blowing his own ship to high heaven just so that pirate invaders could not attain it from him. Lost in the wreckage was a bountiful treasure that sunk to the bottom of the sea, though legend has it that each model Unicorn contains a scroll that holds a clue to the whereabouts of the riches that WERE salvaged.

And big surprise, the scrolls are exactly what Sakharine and his men are searching for, while Haddock is forcibly kept onboard to crack the message scribbled on the pieces of parchment. But Tintin and Snowy will not be cooped up forever on the Karaboudjan. They bring Haddock along to escape the clutches of Sakharine (of course, not before raiding the requisite rum closet for necessary provisions). They escape on a lifeboat, and from there, the race is on to secure the other scrolls and reach the treasure.

The film is adapted from a franchise of comic books and serial strips by Hergé (yes, that’s his pen name) that have reached unparalleled popularity in France and other parts of Europe, though was never able to soar quite as high overseas in the states. Honestly, I had never heard of these stories and this was my introduction to the exploits of Tintin, Snowy and the rest of the colorful gang. As far as first impressions go, this film made me want to get better acquainted with this universe. I was positively captivated by the old-era look and feel, the stylish animation and the mystery/adventure story, which slowly revealed itself inch by inch.

Unlike the traditionally hand-drawn, unambiguously cartooney aesthetic of the comic series (which is cleverly alluded to in the first scene as a painter makes a portrait of the hero that looks just like the original illustration), the film is animated superbly in three dimensions. At times, the animation is so strangely realistic that it is almost does not feel like an animated movie. Other times, certain characters give the impression of sentient comic designs, as with the imbecilic detective duo Thomson and Thompson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, *squeal of happiness). Only seldom do the characters proceed into the uncanny valley of animation (it is mostly just a few facial expressions). In my estimation, this is perhaps the greatest marriage of motion-capture and performance-capture of an animated film to date.

The script by Wright (who I honestly believe is untouchable) and Cornish handles the intriguing story with assurance and poise while punctuating exposition with moments of dry wit and zippy spectacles involving planes, motorcycles, and even entire buildings. There is certainly never a dull moment in the film. Something I often criticize an action movie for is when it forsakes its story in the third act for redundant action setpieces that make for good trailer material. “Tintin” does resort to rapid-fire action at many points, but I’ll be shocked if the filmmakers don’t effectively integrate it in with the story. There is an exceedingly elaborate chase sequence that takes place in an Arabian village that has dozens of things happening all at once, but this scene is actually crucial to the story. The scenario has much at stake and every character action is highly important.

The story at times experiences the occasional lull in urgency, but for what it is, “The Adventures Of Tintin” is an immensely thrilling family adventure movie. The ending inevitably leads to the possibility of a sequel, which I hear is going to become a sure thing after Peter Jackson finishes up his work on “The Hobbit.” As long as the same people are involved the second time around, color me interested.

VERDICT:

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Darkest Hour

2011-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

“The Darkest Hour” is being advertised as a high-energy action film or a fast thriller of some kind in its marketing campaign, but I would be incredulous to find out if infants became frightened or thrilled by this tension-free, emotionally inept letdown. This is one of the most boring and tedious films I have seen in quite some time, no doubt thanks to one-dimensional characters, nondescript acting, dialogue that ranges from inane to insufferably cursory, an unmitigated lack of spirit, and the film’s one-of-a-kind ability to figuratively diffuse the bombs before anybody starts to go nuts. Most impressively unimpressive of all, it may have even usurped the unholy crown previously worn by “Clash Of The Titans” and “My Soul To Take” denoting the worst use of 3D ever in a motion picture. By the time I walked outside of the theater, I just naturally assumed the world had turned into an ugly, color-deficient wasteland and completely forgot about those stupid glasses that I still had on.

A small number of twenty-something Americans all find themselves in Moscow, Russia on trips ranging from business to pleasure. The leads are played by Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby and Max Minghella, though to say they lead anything here is giving them far too much credit. All of their paths focalize at a Russian nightclub, where they plan to unload and have some much-needed fun. But the power randomly goes out later that night, leaving the entire city in a state of near darkness. The only facsimile of illumination is located up in the sky, where there is a pattern that looks awfully similar to the aurora borealis if it were smeared with orange. These lights turn out to be foreign invaders, who infrequently emit strands of radiant orange energy.

Yes, the mysterious invaders are virtually invisible to the human eye. Not only that, but they are malignant entities and they have the ability to dematerialize any life form that dares to cross their path. The only indicator to the heroes that one of these creatures is in their midst is that they set off all lightbulbs, radios, cars and other electronic devices within a 5-yard radius of their position. We get a number of POV shots from their perspective, which visually resemble thermal cameras and detect electrical impulses and wave energy. The young actors and actresses find temporary shelter from the invasion by locking themselves in a storage pantry, and emerge a few days later to escape and make their way to the obligatory safe point: a nuclear submarine picking up survivors from the chaos.

Now before I go on, I can already tell that this review is going to be considerably sparse on details and tangents of interest, so now is a more appropriate time than any to bring up an episode of The Twilight Zone titled “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.” I first learned about this episode during middle school and it has stuck in my head for whatever reason since. Maple Street, a small suburb, has suffered an electrical disturbance of some kind, rendering all machines and utilities useless. Anyone might assume it is just a casual power surge, but the strange part is that not even the cars will start up. This incident is supposedly staged by aliens, but the humans on earth believe that someone among them is responsible for it. Tensions become unbearably high, fears and prejudices reach the surface and, needless to say, everybody turns on each other out of paranoia under the tightly controlled scenario. The humans are the real monsters. This must have been what happened in Moscow while the stars cooped themselves up in their safe room. It’s unfortunate that the filmmakers got stuck with documenting a considerably less interesting story.

For a relatively fresh take on the traditional “aliens invade earth” premise, the film sure rips off just about everything it possibly can. When these young tourists roam the desolate streets of Moscow after spending half a week in a cellar, all I could think about was how the outbreak survivors in “28 Days Later” uneasily strolled through an eerily unpopulated London. When the humans use homemade guns to stun these creatures, my mind immediately turned to the iconic proton packs in “Ghostbusters.” When it is revealed that the aliens descended upon earth to plunder its valuable resources, I just thought of how much better of a movie “Cowboys & Aliens” was. There is nothing for me to say except that “The Darkest Hour” is a film that manages to be both insanely boring and poorly made. I could not wait for it to be over. Somewhere around the time when gang finally reaches the nuclear submarine and Emile Hirsch volunteers to go back and save a girl, I began to wonder if the local theater was employing brand new torture methods for critics like me.

VERDICT:

MOVIE REVIEW: Young Adult

2011-12-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

“Young Adult” is a comedy in that there are laughs to be had at the expense of the certifiably delusional main character and just about everybody else around her whom she makes miserable, and a drama basically for the exact same reasons. It is humorous and heartbreaking in one fell swoop.

This marks the second film collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, the first being the wonderful 2007 dramedy “Juno.” Jason Reitman, who is the son of “Ghostbusters” director Ivan Reitman, has risen to prominence as one of the most dependable contemporary directors of this generation by churning out one great movie after another. First was his brilliant 2005 satire “Thank You For Smoking,” then came the delightful “Juno.” His third film was the superbly written “Up In The Air,” and now Reitman delivers yet another bittersweet effort and perhaps his most low-key film to date.

As for Diablo Cody, it seems that she has her fingers squarely on the heartbeat of those pesky high school years, or in this case, the reminiscence of those four years in life. Of course, the script for “Juno” confronted the dilemma of teen pregnancy, which seems to be an omnipresent issue in most high schools. Her next written work, the screenplay for “Jennifer’s Body,” was a campy “Lost Boys” wannabe horror-comedy about a possessed serial killer who conveniently happens to be a popular girl in high school (and who better for a popular girl than Megan Fox?). This time, she aims for the jugular with a script that successfully nails a particularly heinous walk of life with both sharpness and heart.

“Young Adult” chronicles the exploits of its aggressively pathetic main character Mavis Gary, played exceptionally well by Charlize Theron. Mavis is a kind of megalomaniacal thirty-something ice queen who is destined for a self-imposed state of depression somewhere down the line. She writes for a series of young adult fiction novels that are reaching the end of their popularity, she drinks Coca-Cola straight from the bottle like a child on a sugar-high, she suffers from alcoholism (and she knows it), and the closest thing she has to a life partner is a small dog. It makes it all the more dismal when it is revealed that she only ghostwrites the books and embezzles the words from overly-romanticized conversations between passing teenagers at the supermarket who have clearly been reading too much Twilight.

As icing on the cake, nobody is quite caring or concerned enough to save her from herself. She has a drinking problem? Big whoop. The worst part of it all is that she doesn’t care that she is driving faster and faster toward the inevitable brick wall she is bound to hit. To her, it is better she just crash and get it over with than actually pick herself up and get it together.

To retreat from the big city life and her most recent case of writer’s block, Mavis decides to pay a visit to her old hometown of Mercury, Minnesota. This is where she went to high school, was crowned prom queen, cavorted with all the other cool kids, and was basically encouraged in her narcissism and bad behavior. All those years ago, she had a long-term romantic relationship with one Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). And Mavis returns to this small town with one goal in mind: to rekindle the spark between she and Buddy.

Fair enough. I can get with that…if only Buddy were not already married to his loving wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser), and if only this couple did not just have their first beautiful child. Yet Mavis is still determined to get him back one way or another. She cleans herself up nicely, dashes her face in makeup, and even pulls a complete personality transformation when she is out with Buddy. Kind of like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario, only she proudly flaunts her bad side to the rest of the world.

To provide some much-needed counterbalance to Mavis’s unpardonable schemes is the benevolently geeky Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt). Matt and Mavis’s past likely go just as far back as she and Buddy’s, but Mavis must have been too preoccupied in her teen years to notice Matt. These two had lockers side-by-side, though chances are that neither of them exchanged more than a total of five words. Only after she notices his crutch and wonky leg does she recognize him as ‘the hate crime guy.’ Poor Matt was brutalized a long time ago by a bunch of jocks who accused him of being gay. The traumatizing incident forever crippled him in one of his legs, not to mention it did quite a number on his genitals. The two form a sort-of friendship due in part to Matt’s steadfast ability to provide booze. Just what Mavis needs.

What makes the movie so unmistakably good is how unapologetically and how rationally it plays these scenarios. It is a study of a girl who grew up being so beautiful and so admired that the excessive attention and compliments carried over with a vengeance into her adult life, and is the fundamental roadblock as to why she cannot develop into a sane human being. I don’t want to be so quick to judge, but I imagine this is the type of self-inflicted state of arrested development that happens to a lot of popular people after they graduate from high school. My mother informed me after watching the film that she knew people who DID turn out this way.

In most other mainstream comedies, a girl who would try to win the affections of a married man would be rooted for and cheered on in her disreputable ploys. Reitman presents the situation for what it is, while Theron fearlessly plays an unkempt Mavis coming loose at the seams. As members of the audience, we instinctively want to care about the main character in the films we see. For as terrible a human being as she plays in “Young Adult,” there is something strange about the ways we feel toward Mavis: we do not want her to succeed in her own selfish goals, but we want to see her do the right thing, whatever that may be.

This will probably be one of those polarizing films amongst audiences. Some will praise it as a delightfully acerbic character evaluation with a handful of laughs throughout. Others will simply say it is a flat story with a hateful leading character and no real resolution. The Ben Stiller vehicle “Greenberg” suffered from the same split decisions (and I actually didn’t like that one too much). Count me in on the camp that declares this another triumph on Reitman and Cody’s part, even if triumph sounds like an inappropriate word choice to describe a work that is such a celebration of human dysfunction.

VERDICT:

«««½

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