Movie Title: Dance Flick (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
Ever since the emergence of that cross-culture “I will fulfill my dreams” genre of movies about becoming dancers against the odds (i.e. Save the Last Dance and Make it Happen, etc.), there has developed the need for satirical attacks against them. Who knew that a third-rate and mostly stupid film with the title Dance Flick would come along and fill the void? Upon seeing the title, I thought we had yet another lame-as-hell movie about dancers making it big. I was relieved to find out differently.
Yes, surprisingly, a film that has been nearly universally trashed by the critics steps up to yield an effective if corny satirical smashing of these lame “I’m going to be a star” films made for ignorant youthful audiences with too much energy and too little mind.
Scene after scene of exaggerated-to-the-point-of-absurdity dance maneuvers and asinine exchanges between the distinctly mapped-out characters will leave you saying, “Am I really watching this shit?” But none of that takes from the fact that the film does an actually good job of slinging the mud at two classes of characters that beg for the poopoo to be smeared in their nostrils.
The two classes are the big dreamers whom, in movies past, we were forced to watch go to the big cities, suffer a few rejections, keep on trying, before finally making it big so that we can see them set the world on fire with their then-unknown talent. Blah!
And then there were the street-hustling gang-bangers who hang with the wrong crowd and want a change for the better. A second “Blah” is in order. How many more films about talented underdogs are we going to be forced to endure? Delightfully, both classes are put down in some incredibly sharp ways.
The point of these old films was always: “I achieved my dreams, and no matter your circumstance, you can achieve yours too! Set your sights on the bright lights and the big city! Shoot for the stars! You can do it!” Spare me the crap.
Here’s something you should know about people who follow their dreams and “make it big.” Most don't. Of those that do, they decide on their own to do it. They won’t be deterred, and they don’t need movies to inspire them by showing only stories where the underdog inevitably makes it to the top. My hat goes off to the director and writers who bring to life the stories of giving it your best and still failing.
Directed by Damon Wayans and written by Keenan and Shawn Wayans, Dance Flick was never boring, but it was also never anything but stupid. You get to meet a steady influx of street dancers, “gangstas,” a mega-fat crime boss, a deadbeat father, and an expectedly cute white girl who tragically lost her mother and falls head-over-heels for a black man that no respectable parent would admire. Oh, and you’ll be delighted to meet “Miss Cameltoe”! The whole lot of them is being punched in the face, and that is the beauty of it!
There was just enough legit humor to allow its graduation from “In the running for the worst movie of the year” to “Well, heck, if I have nothing better to do and nothing else better is on to watch, then this one might be worth a shot.” It’s the unique genre that is filled that is the saving grace here. There just aren’t many movies lampooning gay-ass dancing flicks, and that sets this one apart.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Street dancer Thomas Uncles is from the wrong side of the tracks, but his bond with the beautiful Megan White might help the duo realize their dreams as the enter in the mother of all dance battles.
Director: Daman Wayans
Starring: Shoshana Bush “Megan,” Damon Wayans Jr. “Thomas” Essence Atkins “Charity,” Affion Crockett “A-Con,” Chris Elliott “Ron,” Christina Murphy “Nora,” David Alan Grier “Sugar Bear,” Amy Sedaris “Ms. Cameltoe,” Kim Wayans “Ms. Dontwannabebothered”
Genre: Comedy
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
103 Hard-to-Endure Minutes
Movie Title: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
Here’s an exercise for your downtime. Go back and re-watch a favorite cartoon of yours from your childhood, just one episode. I venture to say you’ll be amazed at the sheer level of badness of what you once thought was the coolest. Take an old favorite of mine, Thundercats.
Have you ever had the chance to go back and see one of these episodes? Oh…my…God! They’re vomit-inducing, partly because of that most annoying of all animated characters, Snarf. The creators of Snarf should be sodomized with the broken-off end of a broomstick handle.
Watching Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the sequel to Night at the Museum (2006), I kept saying to myself: “Wow! This is as cheesy as the first one!” The other thing that kept bombarding my mind was: “Who, besides sixth-graders, could possibly enjoy something like this?” For sixth-graders, this gets a pass.
Then I popped back into reality and reminded myself that the things people like are often cringe-worthy. But as far as cringe-worthy goes, this did the best it could possibly do. The actors took their parts seriously. The performances were crisp at every step.
Ben Stiller is back as Larry Daley, this time as a successful company owner. He’s made some changes in his life, but is set for a rendezvous with his ancient friends at the museum the moment he discovers that plans have been made to relocate his beloved pieces of history to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
In the impassioned process of trying to rescue Jedediah and Octavius, Larry discovers many other relics with active nightlives, many of them expectedly filling the antagonist’s role. One wonders when this started happening and how many other warehouses full of pieces of history come to life. You don’t need to reason to see a film like this—if you want to enjoy it, you can’t.
Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart and Owen Wilson as Jedediah Smith are welcomed faces, along with Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Hader as General Custer. But none of these presences take the show beyond its Maglite-wielding, thumb-twiddling, giddy-up of go-nowhere-ism.
The entire cast does as well as can be expected given the script, but for what? So that the Lincoln Memorial can get up and walk around and help the good guys win a fight? I’d have been bored out of my mind had the plot not progressed at the consistently fast jogger’s pace that it maintained.
The only funny part of the film was an appearance of Superbad’s Jonah Hill in the character of Brandon (insistently pronounced “Brundin”), a socially challenged security guard who has a run-in with Daley. The exchange is an eye-opening breath of funny-fresh air. Too bad it doesn’t last long enough.
Afterwards, your eyes sink back into your head, and from there, it’s back to the remaining hard-to-endure 103 minutes where singing, flying Cupids annoy you like three relentless mosquitoes, and a giant, thirsty Octopus fights on the side of those who give it water. And don't forget an image-conscious Ivan the Terrible who wants to set the record of his life straight.
The film’s lesson: Do what you love to do. In my case, that happens to be not watching this movie.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG
Summation: Larry Daley infiltrates the Smithsonian Institute in order to rescue his beloved artifacts.
Starring: Ben Stiller “Larry Daley,” Amy Adams “Amelia Earhart,” Owen Wilson “Jedediah Smith,” Hank Azaria “Kahmunrah / The Thinker / Abe Lincoln,” Robin Williams “Teddy Roosevelt,” Christopher Guest “Ivan the Terrible,” Alain Chabat “Napoleon Bonaparte,” Steve Coogan “Octavius,” Ricky Gervais “Dr. McPhee,” Bill Hader “General George Armstrong Custer,” Jon Bernthal “Al Capone,” Patrick Gallagher “Attila the Hun”
Genre: Comedy / Adventure / Action
Spoilers: No
---
Here’s an exercise for your downtime. Go back and re-watch a favorite cartoon of yours from your childhood, just one episode. I venture to say you’ll be amazed at the sheer level of badness of what you once thought was the coolest. Take an old favorite of mine, Thundercats.
Have you ever had the chance to go back and see one of these episodes? Oh…my…God! They’re vomit-inducing, partly because of that most annoying of all animated characters, Snarf. The creators of Snarf should be sodomized with the broken-off end of a broomstick handle.
Watching Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the sequel to Night at the Museum (2006), I kept saying to myself: “Wow! This is as cheesy as the first one!” The other thing that kept bombarding my mind was: “Who, besides sixth-graders, could possibly enjoy something like this?” For sixth-graders, this gets a pass.
Then I popped back into reality and reminded myself that the things people like are often cringe-worthy. But as far as cringe-worthy goes, this did the best it could possibly do. The actors took their parts seriously. The performances were crisp at every step.
Ben Stiller is back as Larry Daley, this time as a successful company owner. He’s made some changes in his life, but is set for a rendezvous with his ancient friends at the museum the moment he discovers that plans have been made to relocate his beloved pieces of history to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
In the impassioned process of trying to rescue Jedediah and Octavius, Larry discovers many other relics with active nightlives, many of them expectedly filling the antagonist’s role. One wonders when this started happening and how many other warehouses full of pieces of history come to life. You don’t need to reason to see a film like this—if you want to enjoy it, you can’t.
Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart and Owen Wilson as Jedediah Smith are welcomed faces, along with Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Hader as General Custer. But none of these presences take the show beyond its Maglite-wielding, thumb-twiddling, giddy-up of go-nowhere-ism.
The entire cast does as well as can be expected given the script, but for what? So that the Lincoln Memorial can get up and walk around and help the good guys win a fight? I’d have been bored out of my mind had the plot not progressed at the consistently fast jogger’s pace that it maintained.
The only funny part of the film was an appearance of Superbad’s Jonah Hill in the character of Brandon (insistently pronounced “Brundin”), a socially challenged security guard who has a run-in with Daley. The exchange is an eye-opening breath of funny-fresh air. Too bad it doesn’t last long enough.
Afterwards, your eyes sink back into your head, and from there, it’s back to the remaining hard-to-endure 103 minutes where singing, flying Cupids annoy you like three relentless mosquitoes, and a giant, thirsty Octopus fights on the side of those who give it water. And don't forget an image-conscious Ivan the Terrible who wants to set the record of his life straight.
The film’s lesson: Do what you love to do. In my case, that happens to be not watching this movie.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG
Summation: Larry Daley infiltrates the Smithsonian Institute in order to rescue his beloved artifacts.
Starring: Ben Stiller “Larry Daley,” Amy Adams “Amelia Earhart,” Owen Wilson “Jedediah Smith,” Hank Azaria “Kahmunrah / The Thinker / Abe Lincoln,” Robin Williams “Teddy Roosevelt,” Christopher Guest “Ivan the Terrible,” Alain Chabat “Napoleon Bonaparte,” Steve Coogan “Octavius,” Ricky Gervais “Dr. McPhee,” Bill Hader “General George Armstrong Custer,” Jon Bernthal “Al Capone,” Patrick Gallagher “Attila the Hun”
Genre: Comedy / Adventure / Action
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Package That Should Have Been Lost
Movie Title: Next Day Air (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
Next Day Air is a limp ghetto comedy that rarely gets things right. What humor it offers is slow to get to and doesn’t bring enough of an “oomph” to warrant the wait. Any appeal that the film has requires a very unique frame of mind to appreciate. Though I repeatedly find myself wondering why on evolution’s green earth this was ever given the go on production, there’s that old adage about different strokes for different folks.
So, with that in mind, I have put together a quiz to determine if this one is a “yeh” or a “neh” for you…
Do you love cocaine? Do you love it so much that hearing about it and seeing others go into euphoric trances over it floats your boat? Do you love weed? Does your love for it extend to seeing people who are supposed to be working smoking pot and sloughing off? Do you love hard drugs enough that it tickles you to see housefuls of losers sleep all day and otherwise do nothing worthwhile? Do you prefer your comedy laced with tongues being cut out, guns pointed in faces, severe beatings from merciless drug-lords, abductions, and fatal shoot-outs? Does the presence of a feisty and cute, although stubborn, Latina with a taste for garlic and an attitude beckon you to watch a movie?
If you answered yes to three or more of the above questions, then you might put this one on your list. But consider yourself forewarned about the long and humorless interludes, which are a thing to contend with.
As much as they are able to, the characters get it right. Everyone seemed as real as they were supposed to, groping in all of their loserdom and desperation and their desire to stay on their happy perch known to the rest of us as the lowest rung of human society.
Leo (Donald Feison) works for a delivery company, and to say that he doesn’t take his work seriously is kind of an understatement. Even with a mom who bails him out of trouble time and again at work, he’s headed downhill. Customer complaints and carelessness have him scraping bottom, but that bottom is about to get a lot lower. This overpaid, under-working pothead mistakenly delivers a shipment to the wrong address. That shipment (unbeknownst to Leo) was of cocaine.
Druglord Bodega Diablo (Emilio Rivera), furious that his package did not arrive at its intended destination, comes looking to get back what is his. Temperamentally distraught Jesus (Cisco Reeves) tries to make the best of a bad situation in working with Diablo to get back what is his (this he does to save his own neck!) He’s in for a surprise when he finds out that an apartment full of small-time criminals who intercepted the package think it to be a gift from God and are not anxious to give it up. Lives are changed for the worse the more unsavory characters get lumped in with this demure work of fate.
I’ll admit, there’s something funny about seeing senseless violence erupt from the rotten decisions of moral scoundrels who are responsible for their own peril. And there is good comedy in seeing two lamebrains sit around and suppose that God has blessed them by sending them an illegal, mind-altering substance. It’s about as consistent and as funny as rappers who thank God for their latest hit single: “Hoes Gettin’ F&cked N’ Da Mouth.” No, it’s actually funnier.
Such moral inconsistencies are to be found everywhere in life. Also common are comedy films that contain insufficient amounts of humor to get them off the ground, and the ground (in the gutter, actually) is where Next Day Air stays and belongs.
Having profanity and violence doesn’t ruin a movie, neither does gore and death. These can go with a movie that makes you think, with a movie that makes you question yourself and your beliefs. Any movie with a message that transcends itself can work. Next Day Air has none of those things. It’s the package that should have been lost in the mail.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Summation: All hell breaks loose at an apartment complex when a deliveryman delivers a shipment of drugs to the wrong address.
Director: Benny Boom
Starring: Donald Faison “Leo,” Mike Epps “Brody,” Wood Harris “Guch,” Omari Hardwick “Shavoo,” Emilio Rivera “Bodega,” Darius McCrary “Buddy,” Cisco Reyes “Jesus,” Yasmin Deliz “Chita,” Lobo Sebastian “Rhino,” Malik Barnhardt “Hassie,” Mos Def “Eric”
Genre: Comedy / Crime / Action
Spoilers: No
---
Next Day Air is a limp ghetto comedy that rarely gets things right. What humor it offers is slow to get to and doesn’t bring enough of an “oomph” to warrant the wait. Any appeal that the film has requires a very unique frame of mind to appreciate. Though I repeatedly find myself wondering why on evolution’s green earth this was ever given the go on production, there’s that old adage about different strokes for different folks.
So, with that in mind, I have put together a quiz to determine if this one is a “yeh” or a “neh” for you…
Do you love cocaine? Do you love it so much that hearing about it and seeing others go into euphoric trances over it floats your boat? Do you love weed? Does your love for it extend to seeing people who are supposed to be working smoking pot and sloughing off? Do you love hard drugs enough that it tickles you to see housefuls of losers sleep all day and otherwise do nothing worthwhile? Do you prefer your comedy laced with tongues being cut out, guns pointed in faces, severe beatings from merciless drug-lords, abductions, and fatal shoot-outs? Does the presence of a feisty and cute, although stubborn, Latina with a taste for garlic and an attitude beckon you to watch a movie?
If you answered yes to three or more of the above questions, then you might put this one on your list. But consider yourself forewarned about the long and humorless interludes, which are a thing to contend with.
As much as they are able to, the characters get it right. Everyone seemed as real as they were supposed to, groping in all of their loserdom and desperation and their desire to stay on their happy perch known to the rest of us as the lowest rung of human society.
Leo (Donald Feison) works for a delivery company, and to say that he doesn’t take his work seriously is kind of an understatement. Even with a mom who bails him out of trouble time and again at work, he’s headed downhill. Customer complaints and carelessness have him scraping bottom, but that bottom is about to get a lot lower. This overpaid, under-working pothead mistakenly delivers a shipment to the wrong address. That shipment (unbeknownst to Leo) was of cocaine.
Druglord Bodega Diablo (Emilio Rivera), furious that his package did not arrive at its intended destination, comes looking to get back what is his. Temperamentally distraught Jesus (Cisco Reeves) tries to make the best of a bad situation in working with Diablo to get back what is his (this he does to save his own neck!) He’s in for a surprise when he finds out that an apartment full of small-time criminals who intercepted the package think it to be a gift from God and are not anxious to give it up. Lives are changed for the worse the more unsavory characters get lumped in with this demure work of fate.
I’ll admit, there’s something funny about seeing senseless violence erupt from the rotten decisions of moral scoundrels who are responsible for their own peril. And there is good comedy in seeing two lamebrains sit around and suppose that God has blessed them by sending them an illegal, mind-altering substance. It’s about as consistent and as funny as rappers who thank God for their latest hit single: “Hoes Gettin’ F&cked N’ Da Mouth.” No, it’s actually funnier.
Such moral inconsistencies are to be found everywhere in life. Also common are comedy films that contain insufficient amounts of humor to get them off the ground, and the ground (in the gutter, actually) is where Next Day Air stays and belongs.
Having profanity and violence doesn’t ruin a movie, neither does gore and death. These can go with a movie that makes you think, with a movie that makes you question yourself and your beliefs. Any movie with a message that transcends itself can work. Next Day Air has none of those things. It’s the package that should have been lost in the mail.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Summation: All hell breaks loose at an apartment complex when a deliveryman delivers a shipment of drugs to the wrong address.
Director: Benny Boom
Starring: Donald Faison “Leo,” Mike Epps “Brody,” Wood Harris “Guch,” Omari Hardwick “Shavoo,” Emilio Rivera “Bodega,” Darius McCrary “Buddy,” Cisco Reyes “Jesus,” Yasmin Deliz “Chita,” Lobo Sebastian “Rhino,” Malik Barnhardt “Hassie,” Mos Def “Eric”
Genre: Comedy / Crime / Action
Terminator: In Need of Salvation
Movie Title: Terminator: Salvation (2009)
Spoilers Ahead: No
---
There is a sizable disconnect between the consensus of moviegoers’ reviews of Terminator: Salvation (T4) and those of professional critics. The former love it and the latter hate it and are telling everyone not to see it. I stand in between these extremes and I find the disconnect explainable. The latter category is made up of those who are regularly critical of science fiction, and as a result, are probably composed of loyal or semi-loyal Terminator fans, while the former, consisting of miscellaneous movie frequenters who perhaps don’t remember that much about the Terminator series, are not.
Average sci-fi lovers would do well to see it and would enjoy it while diehard Terminator lovers are only going to bother because they have to know what Hollywood did with their beloved machines that don’t feel pity or remorse. All in all, it was entertaining, but there’s no other way of saying it: the more loyal the terminator buff, the more disappointed one is going to be. As a Terminator fan myself, I stand disappointed along with the rest of the faithful, but mainly with the ending.
As is to be expected, I went in worrying: “Just how exactly are they going to mutilate the best killer robot series of all time?” Prequels and sequels are too often a cinematic throat-slashing. While that is a fact, it also happens to be a fact that this fourth addition to the Terminator series has phenomenal potential. T4 doesn’t butcher the plot, but it does dance on the dangerous minefield that the Star Wars prequels danced on, and you remember what happened. Being overdone and trying too hard to make a lasting impression, they sucked. Regrettably, T4 goes a similar route.
But T4 gets a lot right and manages to be almost groundbreaking. First, we have the portrayal of the resistance in 2018. Though humans are ants to the machines, remember that ants are ants to humans. We fight them and kill them with pesticides, but we can never kill them all. The machines have the same problem with the humans. Human intuition makes them a match for the cold, calculating, mechanical beasts they seek liberation from. In T1, we saw bits and pieces of a war-ravaged, Skynet-ruled future. In T4, we see a lot more of it, and the humans are holding their own. Not only has Skynet not won, the humans are gaining ground.
What has been touted as criticism by certain critics is the charge that the characters resemble “actors who look more like models than they do like people who’ve grown up in a radiation-ravaged world” where death and war conditions abound, but this is a strength and not a weakness. The fallout effects of radiation are not universal and not degenerative or fatal for every single person. Remember that in T1 Kyle Reese is sent back through time in the year 2029. He’s scarred up and tattered by then, but he’s older. Kyle and the human resistance now are younger. They are alive and haven't yet lost their health, coming from a pre-war time period. The years of hardship will yet take their toll. The film was accurate in not overplaying conditions of squalor. After a nuclear holocaust, it is more likely to die of anarchy and lack of food than straight fallout.
What T4 does do that deserves recognition is tread new territory. No more going back in the past. Screw that. The real fight is here with the generals and brave warriors who have looked hell in its red, cybernetic eyes and have chosen to sacrifice themselves for their species. The use of intuition, ingenuity, and charisma to beat the machines should be more appealing than pathetic nostalgia ploys and introducing new techno-gadgets and robots—it is to the more intelligent audiences. But this fight entails introducing new characters, and T4 gives them to us.
Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was an example of effectively covering new ground in an old story. The character was wrapped up in the story, and it worked. Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese was fitting. It’s 2018 and Reese is young. Some eleven years later, he’ll be sent back to 1984 by John Connor to safeguard his mother Sarah Connor, and John Connor will then be conceived. You get to see what makes Kyle Reese Kyle Reese, down to his references and tactics. Christian Bale plays a most charismatic and effective John Connor. Michael Ironside is an appropriate General Ashdown. I liked the performances—minus those meaningless nods between characters where better writing was called for to fill the air.
Aside from the compliments that can be paid to the plot, it still lacks the dignity to refuse giving the movie junkies what they want—senseless nostalgia. The machines, like the tech-effects, were amazingly done (though, to be honest, those snake-like water terminators were a bit much). “Too much” hit the fan when a computer-generated nude Schwarzenegger had to get in on the action and toss John Connor around like a rag doll. That’s nostalgia-appeal gone too far, and it is an unfortunate trademark of our time.
Thirty minutes before the end is where the bulk of points are lost. If Arnie coming back is not too much for you, then surely a conveniently placed tank of lava will be. If that doesn’t do you in, then humans stunning Terminators by hitting them in the base of the neck will. Prying off a T-800’s head with a steel bar…don’t even get me started! And I got news for you: if a terminator punches your heart (if it doesn’t carve through your chest), your heart is going to explode!
I don’t know why a director and writers who would make a big budget movie with something as beloved as the Terminator and not bother to use the brain cells to see to it that the physics lines up with what is expected. This is science fiction we’re dealing with. If the droids can’t punch as hard, if their armor doesn’t hold up as it should, if mission parameters are not executed properly, devoted fans are going to be all over stuff like that, and so they should.
(JH)
---
Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: John Connor leads the resistance in the battle against Skynet and the machines.
Director: McG
Starring: Christian Bale “John Connor,” Sam Worthington “Marcus Wright,” Moon Bloodgood “Blair Williams,” Helena Bonham Carter “Dr. Serena Kogan,” Anton Yelchin “Kyle Reese,” Jadagrace “Star,” Bryce Dallas Howard “Kate Connor,” Common “Barnes,” Jane Alexander “Virginia,” Michael Ironside “General Ashdown”
Genre: Sci-fi / Action / Thriller
Spoilers Ahead: No
---
There is a sizable disconnect between the consensus of moviegoers’ reviews of Terminator: Salvation (T4) and those of professional critics. The former love it and the latter hate it and are telling everyone not to see it. I stand in between these extremes and I find the disconnect explainable. The latter category is made up of those who are regularly critical of science fiction, and as a result, are probably composed of loyal or semi-loyal Terminator fans, while the former, consisting of miscellaneous movie frequenters who perhaps don’t remember that much about the Terminator series, are not.
Average sci-fi lovers would do well to see it and would enjoy it while diehard Terminator lovers are only going to bother because they have to know what Hollywood did with their beloved machines that don’t feel pity or remorse. All in all, it was entertaining, but there’s no other way of saying it: the more loyal the terminator buff, the more disappointed one is going to be. As a Terminator fan myself, I stand disappointed along with the rest of the faithful, but mainly with the ending.
As is to be expected, I went in worrying: “Just how exactly are they going to mutilate the best killer robot series of all time?” Prequels and sequels are too often a cinematic throat-slashing. While that is a fact, it also happens to be a fact that this fourth addition to the Terminator series has phenomenal potential. T4 doesn’t butcher the plot, but it does dance on the dangerous minefield that the Star Wars prequels danced on, and you remember what happened. Being overdone and trying too hard to make a lasting impression, they sucked. Regrettably, T4 goes a similar route.
But T4 gets a lot right and manages to be almost groundbreaking. First, we have the portrayal of the resistance in 2018. Though humans are ants to the machines, remember that ants are ants to humans. We fight them and kill them with pesticides, but we can never kill them all. The machines have the same problem with the humans. Human intuition makes them a match for the cold, calculating, mechanical beasts they seek liberation from. In T1, we saw bits and pieces of a war-ravaged, Skynet-ruled future. In T4, we see a lot more of it, and the humans are holding their own. Not only has Skynet not won, the humans are gaining ground.
What has been touted as criticism by certain critics is the charge that the characters resemble “actors who look more like models than they do like people who’ve grown up in a radiation-ravaged world” where death and war conditions abound, but this is a strength and not a weakness. The fallout effects of radiation are not universal and not degenerative or fatal for every single person. Remember that in T1 Kyle Reese is sent back through time in the year 2029. He’s scarred up and tattered by then, but he’s older. Kyle and the human resistance now are younger. They are alive and haven't yet lost their health, coming from a pre-war time period. The years of hardship will yet take their toll. The film was accurate in not overplaying conditions of squalor. After a nuclear holocaust, it is more likely to die of anarchy and lack of food than straight fallout.
What T4 does do that deserves recognition is tread new territory. No more going back in the past. Screw that. The real fight is here with the generals and brave warriors who have looked hell in its red, cybernetic eyes and have chosen to sacrifice themselves for their species. The use of intuition, ingenuity, and charisma to beat the machines should be more appealing than pathetic nostalgia ploys and introducing new techno-gadgets and robots—it is to the more intelligent audiences. But this fight entails introducing new characters, and T4 gives them to us.
Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was an example of effectively covering new ground in an old story. The character was wrapped up in the story, and it worked. Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese was fitting. It’s 2018 and Reese is young. Some eleven years later, he’ll be sent back to 1984 by John Connor to safeguard his mother Sarah Connor, and John Connor will then be conceived. You get to see what makes Kyle Reese Kyle Reese, down to his references and tactics. Christian Bale plays a most charismatic and effective John Connor. Michael Ironside is an appropriate General Ashdown. I liked the performances—minus those meaningless nods between characters where better writing was called for to fill the air.
Aside from the compliments that can be paid to the plot, it still lacks the dignity to refuse giving the movie junkies what they want—senseless nostalgia. The machines, like the tech-effects, were amazingly done (though, to be honest, those snake-like water terminators were a bit much). “Too much” hit the fan when a computer-generated nude Schwarzenegger had to get in on the action and toss John Connor around like a rag doll. That’s nostalgia-appeal gone too far, and it is an unfortunate trademark of our time.
Thirty minutes before the end is where the bulk of points are lost. If Arnie coming back is not too much for you, then surely a conveniently placed tank of lava will be. If that doesn’t do you in, then humans stunning Terminators by hitting them in the base of the neck will. Prying off a T-800’s head with a steel bar…don’t even get me started! And I got news for you: if a terminator punches your heart (if it doesn’t carve through your chest), your heart is going to explode!
I don’t know why a director and writers who would make a big budget movie with something as beloved as the Terminator and not bother to use the brain cells to see to it that the physics lines up with what is expected. This is science fiction we’re dealing with. If the droids can’t punch as hard, if their armor doesn’t hold up as it should, if mission parameters are not executed properly, devoted fans are going to be all over stuff like that, and so they should.
(JH)
---
Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: John Connor leads the resistance in the battle against Skynet and the machines.
Director: McG
Starring: Christian Bale “John Connor,” Sam Worthington “Marcus Wright,” Moon Bloodgood “Blair Williams,” Helena Bonham Carter “Dr. Serena Kogan,” Anton Yelchin “Kyle Reese,” Jadagrace “Star,” Bryce Dallas Howard “Kate Connor,” Common “Barnes,” Jane Alexander “Virginia,” Michael Ironside “General Ashdown”
Genre: Sci-fi / Action / Thriller
Friday, May 22, 2009
Angels and Demons...and a Raised Eyebrow
Movie Title: Angels and Demons (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
I have a small, dark-green army man toy that I carry in my front pocket while critiquing a movie. When things start to die down on screen, I take it out of my pocket and piddle with it. I might make up a quick story and “play” with it for a few seconds in my mind, depending on how boring the film I am watching gets. A completely enrapturing movie results in my never having to reach for it. Go on. Think I'm weird. That's ok!
While watching Angels and Demons, I went for it twice, but immediately put it back both times. As before in his direction of The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard shows his skill in making what would otherwise have been a conspiratorial cock-a-mimi plot fit only for New Age-y bookworms in some book club in the back of an obscure library somewhere into engaging viewing.
The stimulating quality of Angels and Demons is the message it bears about the eternal conflict between God and science, theism and atheism. The bias of the film is fickle, diving in and out between making strong anti-Catholic statements while emphasizing that the Catholic Church has a growing number of heretics, and today they are respected and welcomed with the title: “Progressives.”
There remains hope for a war-torn church that regrets her horrid past of setting heretics on fire in the streets for daring to defy the church's edicts, but there is also fear on the part of many…fear of progress, of change, of science, and fear that the next stone unturned by man’s intellect will rob the church of her sacred goods forever and put God out to pasture. These are the issues, both of the film and of our time. When man gets past his fear of letting go of God, we’ll look back at this film and it will be a landmark.
“Since the days of Galileo, this church has tried to slow the relentless march of progress,” says Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewen McGregor) while trying to find the reason for a highly unusual bomb threat against Vatican City that appears to be coming from an old enemy of the church’s past. A pope has died. Four cardinals have been abducted, and the weapon of retribution is based upon technology that pours salt in that old open wound of the question of man’s origins.
Having been denied access to the Vatican archives for his own research, Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is surprised to again find himself in the middle of a mystery of medieval proportions. He finds himself working with an attractive Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), a physicist who is responsible for the intel on the weapon, and the Vatican police. As expected, there are clues and corruption, but things aren’t what they seem. We have Ron Howard’s capable directing to thank for that.
When I hear the word “Illuminati,” my mind says: “tired old theme!” Immediately, I associate it with “Atlantis” and a so-called “face on Mars,” and other publicized stacks of silliness that have been played upon for so long that some of us are awaiting eagerly something new. But conspiracy theories are too appealing for far too many people. That’s how those strange few who think George Bush was behind the 911 attacks are kept in business. There are a lot of stupid people out there (not uneducated, just stupid). This is pseudo-science and why it is so alluring to so many.
What you might think robs the movie of credibility does not. The logical-thinking mind runs into problems with what is happening. For instance, if the Illuminati exist, would they not evolve with the times? Would they not prefer to meet in the equivalent of a low-key Motel6 some thirty-five miles out of the target area as opposed to using mystic symbolism and the direction statues point to find the locale of their operation? Well, hold on tight. Not so fast!
Like its predecessor, Angels and Demons was a decent conspiracy movie (for the right person), a made-interesting hunt for clues, with big dependency on the rhetoric. There is still much to forgive—and I mean things of greater importance than photon particles being accelerated at the speed of light and oddly making sounds like roman candles as they travel!
Both being based off of Dan Brown’s fictional thrillers, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons managed to hold my interest and then some, this one a little more so than its 2006 forerunner. The pacing is just right and the characters are ably weaved in. And then something happens.
About fifty minutes in, things become muddled and congested and the necessary dramatic build-up drops off. Things start happening too fast, like when someone is recounting a story they are too familiar with, and you have to say: “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Hold on. Now, what???” When everything is wrapped up, you’re satisfied, but with a raised eyebrow.
(JH)
---
Grade: B- (3 stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) finds himself trying to prevent an attack against the Vatican.
Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks “Robert Langdon,” Ewan McGregor “Camerlengo Patrick McKenna,” Ayelet Zurer “Vittoria Vetra,” Stellan Skarsgård “Commander Richter,” Pierfrancesco Favino “Inspector Olivetti,” Nikolaj Lie Kaas “Assassin,” Armin Mueller-Stahl “Cardinal Strauss,” Thure Lindhardt “Chartrand,” David Pasquesi “Claudio Vincenzi,” Cosimo Fusco “Father Simeon,” Victor Alfieri “Lieutenant Valenti”
Genre: Adventure / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Spoilers: No
---
I have a small, dark-green army man toy that I carry in my front pocket while critiquing a movie. When things start to die down on screen, I take it out of my pocket and piddle with it. I might make up a quick story and “play” with it for a few seconds in my mind, depending on how boring the film I am watching gets. A completely enrapturing movie results in my never having to reach for it. Go on. Think I'm weird. That's ok!
While watching Angels and Demons, I went for it twice, but immediately put it back both times. As before in his direction of The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard shows his skill in making what would otherwise have been a conspiratorial cock-a-mimi plot fit only for New Age-y bookworms in some book club in the back of an obscure library somewhere into engaging viewing.
The stimulating quality of Angels and Demons is the message it bears about the eternal conflict between God and science, theism and atheism. The bias of the film is fickle, diving in and out between making strong anti-Catholic statements while emphasizing that the Catholic Church has a growing number of heretics, and today they are respected and welcomed with the title: “Progressives.”
There remains hope for a war-torn church that regrets her horrid past of setting heretics on fire in the streets for daring to defy the church's edicts, but there is also fear on the part of many…fear of progress, of change, of science, and fear that the next stone unturned by man’s intellect will rob the church of her sacred goods forever and put God out to pasture. These are the issues, both of the film and of our time. When man gets past his fear of letting go of God, we’ll look back at this film and it will be a landmark.
“Since the days of Galileo, this church has tried to slow the relentless march of progress,” says Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewen McGregor) while trying to find the reason for a highly unusual bomb threat against Vatican City that appears to be coming from an old enemy of the church’s past. A pope has died. Four cardinals have been abducted, and the weapon of retribution is based upon technology that pours salt in that old open wound of the question of man’s origins.
Having been denied access to the Vatican archives for his own research, Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is surprised to again find himself in the middle of a mystery of medieval proportions. He finds himself working with an attractive Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), a physicist who is responsible for the intel on the weapon, and the Vatican police. As expected, there are clues and corruption, but things aren’t what they seem. We have Ron Howard’s capable directing to thank for that.
When I hear the word “Illuminati,” my mind says: “tired old theme!” Immediately, I associate it with “Atlantis” and a so-called “face on Mars,” and other publicized stacks of silliness that have been played upon for so long that some of us are awaiting eagerly something new. But conspiracy theories are too appealing for far too many people. That’s how those strange few who think George Bush was behind the 911 attacks are kept in business. There are a lot of stupid people out there (not uneducated, just stupid). This is pseudo-science and why it is so alluring to so many.
What you might think robs the movie of credibility does not. The logical-thinking mind runs into problems with what is happening. For instance, if the Illuminati exist, would they not evolve with the times? Would they not prefer to meet in the equivalent of a low-key Motel6 some thirty-five miles out of the target area as opposed to using mystic symbolism and the direction statues point to find the locale of their operation? Well, hold on tight. Not so fast!
Like its predecessor, Angels and Demons was a decent conspiracy movie (for the right person), a made-interesting hunt for clues, with big dependency on the rhetoric. There is still much to forgive—and I mean things of greater importance than photon particles being accelerated at the speed of light and oddly making sounds like roman candles as they travel!
Both being based off of Dan Brown’s fictional thrillers, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons managed to hold my interest and then some, this one a little more so than its 2006 forerunner. The pacing is just right and the characters are ably weaved in. And then something happens.
About fifty minutes in, things become muddled and congested and the necessary dramatic build-up drops off. Things start happening too fast, like when someone is recounting a story they are too familiar with, and you have to say: “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Hold on. Now, what???” When everything is wrapped up, you’re satisfied, but with a raised eyebrow.
(JH)
---
Grade: B- (3 stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) finds himself trying to prevent an attack against the Vatican.
Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks “Robert Langdon,” Ewan McGregor “Camerlengo Patrick McKenna,” Ayelet Zurer “Vittoria Vetra,” Stellan Skarsgård “Commander Richter,” Pierfrancesco Favino “Inspector Olivetti,” Nikolaj Lie Kaas “Assassin,” Armin Mueller-Stahl “Cardinal Strauss,” Thure Lindhardt “Chartrand,” David Pasquesi “Claudio Vincenzi,” Cosimo Fusco “Father Simeon,” Victor Alfieri “Lieutenant Valenti”
Genre: Adventure / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Second Time
I watch her. She sees me, but she has no idea what I think of her. She is young. She comes to work where we meet. Then she runs along, gallivanting around with her nineteen-year-old friends. They have such fun together, I can tell.
I watch her, not so much because I like her, but because I think she's cool. I envy her youth, even as I watch her light up with a child-like energy upon seeing her friends arrive.
As a mate, she would be too young. I wouldn't want that. Things wouldn't work. I know that. It would just be nice if she would notice me and think of me as someone other than some middle-aged dad-figure.
Sure, I confess; I've had my fleeting fantasies of groping her flat chest and small nipples as I caress her young and slightly boyish-looking face, but I go no further. Any more than that would creep me out. All I'm really hoping for in the end is a little flattery, I guess.
Getting old, it's not as though you never have fun anymore. It's just that everyone else who is having the real fun doesn't even notice you and has nothing in common with you. Those who are still in the prime of their glory days, still making their to-be-cherished memories just aren't lined up to appreciate their secret admirers.
When I am seen in public, it's not as though I'm ugly, not at all. I'm just not noticed. I'm just another middle-aged guy, a part of the repeating scenery in the insignificant background of a cheaply animated Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I'm like the “whah, whahs” when the parents are talking in a Charlie Brown episode.
To not be wanted is one thing. That's fine because then you just find another person or crowd that seeks to identify with you and you with them. To be hated is one thing; to be mocked is one and the same; but to not be noticed is where it really hurts. To connect with someone and have that person not connect back is one of the more painful elements of life's plaguing discords. Think about how not connecting made most of our school years so tough.
The search for belonging, that is the wearisome part of the journey of life. It's the alienation that gets to you, being shunned, feeling like you're traveling alone.
Sure, people see you traveling down your way, but seldom do any of them want to stop to let you know that they understand. I swear that if someone – anyone – ever walked up to me anywhere and with a somber look told me, “I understand,” I would probably collapse in tears of joy.
It's not that you mind traveling alone. You just don't want to feel like being alone is your only alternative, and sometimes you need someone on the same wavelength whose shoulder you can cry on. How much harder life is without such a one?
When you spend time around those formidably older or younger than you often enough, it's almost like you're existing on different plains of reality. Life is so different. Perceptions are so different. Words can't carry the right meanings and the weight of a cosmic dissonance is never heavier.
That makes you reflect away from relating to others to relating to yourself. It's scary – horrifying in fact – to think of yourself as someone else, and it's as scary to ask yourself if anyone can ever truly relate to another human being.
None of us ever feel like we truly fit a particular mold. It takes someone else's eye to size-up how we really are. And that should make us ask ourselves, are we all living personal lies? Are we each pursuing paths of unavoidable self-deceit?
Can we ever truly know ourselves? If we can, then why do our perceptions of ourselves in the eyes of others so differ (from our own and from each other's understanding), and why do we ever doubt our own self-images? If not, then how do we have any value at all apart from what others think of us?
Are the kids right? Are we not justified caring, obsessing about what others think of us, like tearful teenagers and their incurable craze for styles, fashion, and fitting in?
I used to think that if I could start life over as a kid again and use the wisdom and knowledge acquired over my lifetime to live out a better life the second time around, that I would and that it would be a phenomenal success. I’d go back and be the coolest, the toughest, and "with it" guy out there. But over the years, I find myself doubting that conviction. I seriously doubt things would be that easy.
You see, as we grow and age, we lose the ability to stay in touch with the passionate struggles of youth. We don't gain wisdom to deal with life – not really – we just lose the encounters that force us to have to deal with what drove us up a wall as kids. We forget as much or more than we learn as we grow.
We don't have to face bullies anymore. The maturity level of the people we fight with is higher. Our struggles aren't the same. A child can't relate to the struggles of the adult world, but the adults have forgotten how to relate to the struggles of their youth. We're less patient, less tolerant, and we're done with trying to fit in.
We've already found what works for us. If forced to face those old jarring challenges again, we'd fair a lot worse than we did the first time around when we had stamina and optimism and big dreams to keep us going through the heartbreaks and the pain.
This is a sad testament to the ravagings of life and age and what a callusing maturity does to us, but just try and deny it. You can’t.
It's so easy for me to boast about wisdom now and to school some poor 24-year-old college sophomore in a philosophy or religion debate and think well of myself afterwards. I can wax eloquent and impress my peers. I can use big words and make them colorful. I can weave together stirring sentences and cut to the chase in making arguments. I’ve done it and I’m bored with it.
I can spin sophistication to the delight of my peers, but I couldn't get on a school bus and be a kid again to save my life. The challenges and pressures would have me running for mom all over again. It seemed too much the first time, but it certainly would be the second time.
I say, screw second times. Forget second chances. I don’t believe in them. The first time was all I needed. I don’t have energy for a second time. I might succeed in enjoying my life from this point onward, or I might not. Either way, I’m going to do what pleases me. I’m going to have fun here and now. There will be no do-overs, no second attempts, not if I can help it.
I used to think I was weird in admiring junkyards the way some do art museums and things of conventional beauty, but I no longer find it weird. There is beauty in conventional things and in success, but there is also beauty in failure. The beauty is that you gave it your all and you weren’t disillusioned with regrets and patch-up work when you did it.
The first time was just fine.
(JH)
I watch her, not so much because I like her, but because I think she's cool. I envy her youth, even as I watch her light up with a child-like energy upon seeing her friends arrive.
As a mate, she would be too young. I wouldn't want that. Things wouldn't work. I know that. It would just be nice if she would notice me and think of me as someone other than some middle-aged dad-figure.
Sure, I confess; I've had my fleeting fantasies of groping her flat chest and small nipples as I caress her young and slightly boyish-looking face, but I go no further. Any more than that would creep me out. All I'm really hoping for in the end is a little flattery, I guess.
Getting old, it's not as though you never have fun anymore. It's just that everyone else who is having the real fun doesn't even notice you and has nothing in common with you. Those who are still in the prime of their glory days, still making their to-be-cherished memories just aren't lined up to appreciate their secret admirers.
When I am seen in public, it's not as though I'm ugly, not at all. I'm just not noticed. I'm just another middle-aged guy, a part of the repeating scenery in the insignificant background of a cheaply animated Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I'm like the “whah, whahs” when the parents are talking in a Charlie Brown episode.
To not be wanted is one thing. That's fine because then you just find another person or crowd that seeks to identify with you and you with them. To be hated is one thing; to be mocked is one and the same; but to not be noticed is where it really hurts. To connect with someone and have that person not connect back is one of the more painful elements of life's plaguing discords. Think about how not connecting made most of our school years so tough.
The search for belonging, that is the wearisome part of the journey of life. It's the alienation that gets to you, being shunned, feeling like you're traveling alone.
Sure, people see you traveling down your way, but seldom do any of them want to stop to let you know that they understand. I swear that if someone – anyone – ever walked up to me anywhere and with a somber look told me, “I understand,” I would probably collapse in tears of joy.
It's not that you mind traveling alone. You just don't want to feel like being alone is your only alternative, and sometimes you need someone on the same wavelength whose shoulder you can cry on. How much harder life is without such a one?
When you spend time around those formidably older or younger than you often enough, it's almost like you're existing on different plains of reality. Life is so different. Perceptions are so different. Words can't carry the right meanings and the weight of a cosmic dissonance is never heavier.
That makes you reflect away from relating to others to relating to yourself. It's scary – horrifying in fact – to think of yourself as someone else, and it's as scary to ask yourself if anyone can ever truly relate to another human being.
None of us ever feel like we truly fit a particular mold. It takes someone else's eye to size-up how we really are. And that should make us ask ourselves, are we all living personal lies? Are we each pursuing paths of unavoidable self-deceit?
Can we ever truly know ourselves? If we can, then why do our perceptions of ourselves in the eyes of others so differ (from our own and from each other's understanding), and why do we ever doubt our own self-images? If not, then how do we have any value at all apart from what others think of us?
Are the kids right? Are we not justified caring, obsessing about what others think of us, like tearful teenagers and their incurable craze for styles, fashion, and fitting in?
I used to think that if I could start life over as a kid again and use the wisdom and knowledge acquired over my lifetime to live out a better life the second time around, that I would and that it would be a phenomenal success. I’d go back and be the coolest, the toughest, and "with it" guy out there. But over the years, I find myself doubting that conviction. I seriously doubt things would be that easy.
You see, as we grow and age, we lose the ability to stay in touch with the passionate struggles of youth. We don't gain wisdom to deal with life – not really – we just lose the encounters that force us to have to deal with what drove us up a wall as kids. We forget as much or more than we learn as we grow.
We don't have to face bullies anymore. The maturity level of the people we fight with is higher. Our struggles aren't the same. A child can't relate to the struggles of the adult world, but the adults have forgotten how to relate to the struggles of their youth. We're less patient, less tolerant, and we're done with trying to fit in.
We've already found what works for us. If forced to face those old jarring challenges again, we'd fair a lot worse than we did the first time around when we had stamina and optimism and big dreams to keep us going through the heartbreaks and the pain.
This is a sad testament to the ravagings of life and age and what a callusing maturity does to us, but just try and deny it. You can’t.
It's so easy for me to boast about wisdom now and to school some poor 24-year-old college sophomore in a philosophy or religion debate and think well of myself afterwards. I can wax eloquent and impress my peers. I can use big words and make them colorful. I can weave together stirring sentences and cut to the chase in making arguments. I’ve done it and I’m bored with it.
I can spin sophistication to the delight of my peers, but I couldn't get on a school bus and be a kid again to save my life. The challenges and pressures would have me running for mom all over again. It seemed too much the first time, but it certainly would be the second time.
I say, screw second times. Forget second chances. I don’t believe in them. The first time was all I needed. I don’t have energy for a second time. I might succeed in enjoying my life from this point onward, or I might not. Either way, I’m going to do what pleases me. I’m going to have fun here and now. There will be no do-overs, no second attempts, not if I can help it.
I used to think I was weird in admiring junkyards the way some do art museums and things of conventional beauty, but I no longer find it weird. There is beauty in conventional things and in success, but there is also beauty in failure. The beauty is that you gave it your all and you weren’t disillusioned with regrets and patch-up work when you did it.
The first time was just fine.
(JH)
Monday, May 18, 2009
Let's Get Past This
Movie Title: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
In Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, you have a shallow, underwhelming, and unfunny film that lets you down further than you thought it would. It’s pretty bad, and don’t be deceived by the good actors just because they are a thousand times better than the parts they play.
You have Matthew McConaughey, that Cajun-looking dude with a southern drawl who comes off like a guy hired to paint your downstairs bedroom. McConaughey’s tan alone, much like his prominent facial features, qualifies him for this film. As far as I’ve seen, any part he plays he plays well, but he doesn’t quite “nail” (pun intended) the character of Connor Mead, the babe-nailing, wining-and-dining jerk he is supposed to be. He seems too good a person at heart. You could tell he was having fun with the cast off set.
But McConaughey has no strikes against him, and neither does a smooth-talking, well-haired “Uncle Wayne” (Michael Douglas). He fit his part. His cup of radiance runneth over in everything since Romancing the Stone (1984). Uncle Wayne is supposed to be the grand poobah of womanizers, the advance-making master who speaks great truths: “The power of the relationship lies with whoever cares less.” It really is true.
As his student, Connor Mead learns the ropes well. “In the end, love makes you weak, dependent, and fat.” Connor’s a busy man, so busy that the only other thing aside from his well-paying career as a professional photographer that he has time for is his kid brother whose wedding he almost misses.
Connor is a creep who puts down love and anybody who boasts of its virtues. But Mead is going to be visited by three spirits—I guess three who died of the 33,000 girls he wronged in the past as a sly dog player. Are these women really dead? You’d think, but one of them can apparently teleport and operates part-time as a ghostly corrections officer to set people like Mead straight. Maybe she’s a guardian angel? But how then can she be employed as Mead's personal assistant? Was it just in his mind? Who the hell knows? The film is so bad that I didn’t care.
You know where the film goes. What you may not know is how effective Jennifer Garner is in her role as a psychologizing Jenny Perotti, one of Mead’s many brokenhearted ex’s who never recovered. Her character is ice cold and quick-witted in one of Garner's more appealing performances (I, for one, was never too taken with her in the wig-wearing Alias days). Her work is to be commended, even though the movie itself – with the exception of the upscale dialog – is an archetype of bad writing and lead balloon humor.
These ghosts (with obviously too much time on their hands) that visit Mead in efforts to show him how much of an ass he has been to the women he kicked to the curb make an already boring movie even less engaging. Things happened in Connor’s childhood that caused him to take an unfortunate path, and taking that path made the movie possible. But unfortunately for the movie (and the viewers), that path didn’t involve much comedy, and so we get “mac daddy” talk about how to “bag” women. We do get comic relief in the form of an Asian archer chick who asserts herself by shooting arrows and freaking people out. If you’re not laughing, that’s ok. I wasn’t either.
(JH)
---
Grade: D- (1 star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A bachelor is haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends at his younger brother's wedding.
Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Matthew McConaughey “Connor Mead,” Jennifer Garner “Jenny Perotti,” Michael Douglas “Uncle Wayne,” Emma Stone “Allison Vandermeersh,” Breckin Meyer “Paul,” Lacey Chabert “Sandra,” Robert Forster “Sergeant Volkom,” Anne Archer “Vonda Volkom”
Genre: Comedy / Romance
Spoilers: No
---
In Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, you have a shallow, underwhelming, and unfunny film that lets you down further than you thought it would. It’s pretty bad, and don’t be deceived by the good actors just because they are a thousand times better than the parts they play.
You have Matthew McConaughey, that Cajun-looking dude with a southern drawl who comes off like a guy hired to paint your downstairs bedroom. McConaughey’s tan alone, much like his prominent facial features, qualifies him for this film. As far as I’ve seen, any part he plays he plays well, but he doesn’t quite “nail” (pun intended) the character of Connor Mead, the babe-nailing, wining-and-dining jerk he is supposed to be. He seems too good a person at heart. You could tell he was having fun with the cast off set.
But McConaughey has no strikes against him, and neither does a smooth-talking, well-haired “Uncle Wayne” (Michael Douglas). He fit his part. His cup of radiance runneth over in everything since Romancing the Stone (1984). Uncle Wayne is supposed to be the grand poobah of womanizers, the advance-making master who speaks great truths: “The power of the relationship lies with whoever cares less.” It really is true.
As his student, Connor Mead learns the ropes well. “In the end, love makes you weak, dependent, and fat.” Connor’s a busy man, so busy that the only other thing aside from his well-paying career as a professional photographer that he has time for is his kid brother whose wedding he almost misses.
Connor is a creep who puts down love and anybody who boasts of its virtues. But Mead is going to be visited by three spirits—I guess three who died of the 33,000 girls he wronged in the past as a sly dog player. Are these women really dead? You’d think, but one of them can apparently teleport and operates part-time as a ghostly corrections officer to set people like Mead straight. Maybe she’s a guardian angel? But how then can she be employed as Mead's personal assistant? Was it just in his mind? Who the hell knows? The film is so bad that I didn’t care.
You know where the film goes. What you may not know is how effective Jennifer Garner is in her role as a psychologizing Jenny Perotti, one of Mead’s many brokenhearted ex’s who never recovered. Her character is ice cold and quick-witted in one of Garner's more appealing performances (I, for one, was never too taken with her in the wig-wearing Alias days). Her work is to be commended, even though the movie itself – with the exception of the upscale dialog – is an archetype of bad writing and lead balloon humor.
These ghosts (with obviously too much time on their hands) that visit Mead in efforts to show him how much of an ass he has been to the women he kicked to the curb make an already boring movie even less engaging. Things happened in Connor’s childhood that caused him to take an unfortunate path, and taking that path made the movie possible. But unfortunately for the movie (and the viewers), that path didn’t involve much comedy, and so we get “mac daddy” talk about how to “bag” women. We do get comic relief in the form of an Asian archer chick who asserts herself by shooting arrows and freaking people out. If you’re not laughing, that’s ok. I wasn’t either.
(JH)
---
Grade: D- (1 star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A bachelor is haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends at his younger brother's wedding.
Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Matthew McConaughey “Connor Mead,” Jennifer Garner “Jenny Perotti,” Michael Douglas “Uncle Wayne,” Emma Stone “Allison Vandermeersh,” Breckin Meyer “Paul,” Lacey Chabert “Sandra,” Robert Forster “Sergeant Volkom,” Anne Archer “Vonda Volkom”
Genre: Comedy / Romance
X-Men Obnoxious: Wolverine
Movie Title: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Spoilers: No
---
Wolverine fans can take heart. The primal but attractive flare of Hugh Jackman can be seen again as (who else but) Logan, “Wolverine” for the fourth installment in the X-Men series. Liev Schreiber plays an effective but less emotionally invested Victor Creed, “Sabretooth,” Logan’s half-brother and fellow mutant.
You’ll run into many mutants, almost all of them thrown in and handled with little dignity just for fighting/novelty’s sake. They include Chris Bradley, a.k.a. “Bolt” (Dominic Monaghan), who can control electricity, the expert marksman Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), an amazing swordsman who never shuts up.
The “origins” part of the title wasn’t kidding as every shred of the history of one of Marvel’s most beloved heroes is explained a little too well. The entirety of what makes Wolverine is laid out on the surface, and the way it is done, we’d rather not have known a thing. This substandard addition to the series leaves much to be desired.
In the beginning, there are enough cheesy growls to make you swear you’re watching an SNL skit—that or you’re seeing the adult equivalent of a little kid “Hulking” around the house before bedtime pretending he is the green monster on the pajamas he’s wearing. When the tides of too much testosterone lower (they never really do), you get clichés, like “You ain’t from around here, are you?” and “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
There’s even a compliment on a naked Wolverine’s “package size” coming from a farmer: “Cover it up with that. I don’t want you giving the old lady a heart attack.” I am presently asking myself: how many points must this movie score from here on to be able to redeem itself for having a script where an old farmer and his wife take in and feed a stray naked man who runs into their barn uninvited? They even call him “son” after he slices off part of the bathroom sink, and they give him their dead son’s jacket. It takes a lot of points to make up for trash writing—and that, dear reader, is trash writing!
Let it be said that this Wolverine does provide plenty of action-packed entertainment, boatloads of it, which is why I will share little of the story. The mutant boys Logan and Creed get discovered by the military and get to join other mutants in combat in a truly “special” Special Forces unit. Refusing to go along with morally objectionable orders, Wolverine walks away, but this puts him at odds with his more animalistic brother. The two part ways and finally clash (it is at this point that the film experiences a nosedive in appeal that it barely recovers from). Preferring a simple life in Canada with an attractive schoolteacher (Lynn Collins), all should be good for the one called Wolverine. Just guess how things go awry from there.
We are shown how Wolverine gets adamantium into his skeleton (yes, “into” his skeleton, not “onto” it.) With the adamantium actually being injected into his bones, this leaves the annoying little question of what happens with the marrow that is already inside the bones. Where does it go? And with a steal inner-skeleton, does the marrow still get the vital new red blood cells into the body? Maybe regenerative mutants can survive without red blood cells?
Commander William Stryker (Danny Huston) is a stereotypically evil but well played military commander who goes off the deep end in his quest to capitalize on mutant powers. Points go out for the extreme care taken to ensure that the plot fits in well with everything we’ve already seen in the X-men series so far. Nothing contradicts. Precise directing sees to it that Cyclops (Tim Pocock) and Wolverine don’t cross paths. These points are quickly lost, however, in a corny boxing match between The Blob (Kevin Durand) and Wolverine. My mouth dropped open.
Much to the love of the fans, Jackman aglow gives it his expected best, but robust performances on everyone's part aren’t enough to save this sub-par motion picture from its demise.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Wolverine seeks to avenge the loss of his love and ends up as a target of the Mutant X Project.
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman “Logan / Wolverine,” Liev Schreiber “Victor Creed / Sabretooth,” Danny Huston “William Stryker,” Will i Am “John Wraith,” Lynn Collins “Kayla Silverfox,” Kevin Durand “Frederick J. Dukes / The Blob,” Dominic Monaghan “Chris Bradley / Bolt,” Taylor Kitsch “Remy LeBeau / Gambit,” Daniel Henney “David North / Agent Zero,” Ryan Reynolds “Wade Wilson,” Scott Adkins “Weapon XI,” Tim Pocock “Scott Summers,” Julia Blake “Heather Hudson,” Max Cullen “Travis Hudson”
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Comics
Spoilers: No
---
Wolverine fans can take heart. The primal but attractive flare of Hugh Jackman can be seen again as (who else but) Logan, “Wolverine” for the fourth installment in the X-Men series. Liev Schreiber plays an effective but less emotionally invested Victor Creed, “Sabretooth,” Logan’s half-brother and fellow mutant.
You’ll run into many mutants, almost all of them thrown in and handled with little dignity just for fighting/novelty’s sake. They include Chris Bradley, a.k.a. “Bolt” (Dominic Monaghan), who can control electricity, the expert marksman Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), an amazing swordsman who never shuts up.
The “origins” part of the title wasn’t kidding as every shred of the history of one of Marvel’s most beloved heroes is explained a little too well. The entirety of what makes Wolverine is laid out on the surface, and the way it is done, we’d rather not have known a thing. This substandard addition to the series leaves much to be desired.
In the beginning, there are enough cheesy growls to make you swear you’re watching an SNL skit—that or you’re seeing the adult equivalent of a little kid “Hulking” around the house before bedtime pretending he is the green monster on the pajamas he’s wearing. When the tides of too much testosterone lower (they never really do), you get clichés, like “You ain’t from around here, are you?” and “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
There’s even a compliment on a naked Wolverine’s “package size” coming from a farmer: “Cover it up with that. I don’t want you giving the old lady a heart attack.” I am presently asking myself: how many points must this movie score from here on to be able to redeem itself for having a script where an old farmer and his wife take in and feed a stray naked man who runs into their barn uninvited? They even call him “son” after he slices off part of the bathroom sink, and they give him their dead son’s jacket. It takes a lot of points to make up for trash writing—and that, dear reader, is trash writing!
Let it be said that this Wolverine does provide plenty of action-packed entertainment, boatloads of it, which is why I will share little of the story. The mutant boys Logan and Creed get discovered by the military and get to join other mutants in combat in a truly “special” Special Forces unit. Refusing to go along with morally objectionable orders, Wolverine walks away, but this puts him at odds with his more animalistic brother. The two part ways and finally clash (it is at this point that the film experiences a nosedive in appeal that it barely recovers from). Preferring a simple life in Canada with an attractive schoolteacher (Lynn Collins), all should be good for the one called Wolverine. Just guess how things go awry from there.
We are shown how Wolverine gets adamantium into his skeleton (yes, “into” his skeleton, not “onto” it.) With the adamantium actually being injected into his bones, this leaves the annoying little question of what happens with the marrow that is already inside the bones. Where does it go? And with a steal inner-skeleton, does the marrow still get the vital new red blood cells into the body? Maybe regenerative mutants can survive without red blood cells?
Commander William Stryker (Danny Huston) is a stereotypically evil but well played military commander who goes off the deep end in his quest to capitalize on mutant powers. Points go out for the extreme care taken to ensure that the plot fits in well with everything we’ve already seen in the X-men series so far. Nothing contradicts. Precise directing sees to it that Cyclops (Tim Pocock) and Wolverine don’t cross paths. These points are quickly lost, however, in a corny boxing match between The Blob (Kevin Durand) and Wolverine. My mouth dropped open.
Much to the love of the fans, Jackman aglow gives it his expected best, but robust performances on everyone's part aren’t enough to save this sub-par motion picture from its demise.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Wolverine seeks to avenge the loss of his love and ends up as a target of the Mutant X Project.
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman “Logan / Wolverine,” Liev Schreiber “Victor Creed / Sabretooth,” Danny Huston “William Stryker,” Will i Am “John Wraith,” Lynn Collins “Kayla Silverfox,” Kevin Durand “Frederick J. Dukes / The Blob,” Dominic Monaghan “Chris Bradley / Bolt,” Taylor Kitsch “Remy LeBeau / Gambit,” Daniel Henney “David North / Agent Zero,” Ryan Reynolds “Wade Wilson,” Scott Adkins “Weapon XI,” Tim Pocock “Scott Summers,” Julia Blake “Heather Hudson,” Max Cullen “Travis Hudson”
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Comics
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Where No Joke Has Gone Before
Movie title: Star Trek (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No
---
I am beside myself with anger over this absurd and ironically “illogical” excuse for a Star Trek. I’ll endure the trash talk and say it loud: I can’t for the life of me believe how charmed everyone is with it. The critics are overwhelmingly praising this film, and almost nobody has anything negative to say about it. It’s like the whole world is under a spell except for the 5% of smart critics who have the guts to call this what it is. The story was a joke, a smeared window of a plot, with melodrama and shotty cinematography. Worse yet, nearly nothing of it fit with the forerunning series it is based on.
Let’s deal with first things first; we have the now well-known kid Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) in a ‘60s Corvette scene—totally insulting to anyone who loves Star Trek and/or Corvettes. Anyone who has ever seen the old Star Treks knows that Kirk had immense trouble driving earth-bound vehicles. He certainly was no hot-rodder. Where did he get…no, nevermind…how did he get his hands on a 250+ year old car? Why would anyone in the 23rd century care to take a Corvette out of the museum to drive it? How was it maintained, and why, and how did anyone get their hands on the gasoline to fuel it in the 23rd century? That cop should have shot Kirk’s sorry little rump right then and there so I wouldn’t have had to watch the rest of the movie.
We have Vulcan getting attacked, but most interestingly, Vulcan’s fighters are nowhere to be found. Not a single visible Vulcan ship comes to the planet’s defense. Star Fleet ships instead are the ones to fight Vulcan’s battle for them. That’s how the Enterprise is led to face a mean, renegade, time-traveling Romulan named (oddly enough) “Nero” (Eric Bana). The rest of the time, you get to see the cast of the Enterprise introduce themselves in their younger counterparts. It’s sappy, it’s self-absorbed, and it deserves boycotting. And Winona Ryder plays Spock’s mother…can you believe it?
They got so much wrong in this film that I am surprised to the point of speechlessness that more people haven’t caught it. On a side note, what are the odds that Romulus’ sun goes supernova? We learned in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that the Klingon moon Praxis exploded, allowing only fifty years of life to remain on the Klingon home world, Kronos. Is Earth the only planet in the galaxy with a stable solar system? Add to that, the Romulans don’t look like Romulans. They look like tanned, unshaven Irish monks with tattoos who spent a little too much time in the local pub.
The plot was marred beyond recognition in the destruction of Vulcan. Yes, that’s right; the planet that the Enterprise crew must return to in order to switch out the mental “marbles” of a regenerated Spock with McCoy in Star Trek III is gone now, thanks to this overzealous film. The flimsy explanation given to justify the film’s compulsive adulteration of the earlier Star Trek story is that Nero, the rogue renegade Romulan warlord who traveled back in time to kill Spock, changed the time continuum.
Oh, real nice! You see, that catchall excuse gives the halfwit non-Trekkie writers license to screw everything up further. The problem for them is that because the movie takes place before the Enterprise’s five-year mission begins, a lot can’t happen in the show that was supposed to happen. Just totally disregard all other Star Trek episodes. Forget every other Star Trek-based film or TV series you ever saw. This loose canon portrays not just the fraternizing immaturity of the young enterprise crew, but its own writers’ youth-ish arrogance in disregarding all other Star Treks that came before it. No true Trekkie can appreciate that.
The sci-fi element is screwed up. Technology is purposely downplayed in most every area, and then things go the other direction when Spock (Leonard Nimoy) inexplicably has the ability to create a small red capsule that can absorb the power of a supernova to save a planet. It is worthy to note that it would be far easier to actually move an endangered planet out of orbit and tow it to a safe solar system than it would be to absorb the full power of a collapsing star, but despite being able to pull off this great technological feat, still no one is a match for the Romulan super-ship.
Just for nostalgia's sake, they threw in that nasty, brain-eating bug that made home in Chekov's ear in Star Trek II. Not to be topped, we have young Spock (Zachary Quinto) ejecting young Kirk (Chris Pine) from the Enterprise and onto a cold, barren planet inhabited with snow monsters. As chance would have it, that planet turns out to be the very same planet that Nero banished old Spock to years earlier. What Star Fleet regulation calls for ejecting an insubordinate crewman from the ship? It’s like no one stopped to read over the script to check it for plausibility.
And I can keep going…at no time do the Romulans on their ship speak Romulan to each other, even in the presence of enemy humans, why? Why are there no guardrails on their “bridge”? For a futuristic super-ship, that sure is needlessly dangerous. One wrong step and you will be sent plummeting to your death. But what I can’t shake is how this renegade Romulan runamock ruler defied the Romulan authorities in his own time and escaped to the past without getting resistance. Futuristic beings with super-ships who can travel back in time and make quick work of multiple Klingon vessels with shields stronger than the Enterprise should attract other super-ships. Don’t the Romulans regulate the use of this time-travel technology of theirs?
Being neither a sequel, nor a prequel, it is nothing but a mess and a failure. The melodrama, especially at the beginning, is thick. Made for clueless kids, it’s the “Dawson’s Trek” you never thought you’d see. Unceasing is that feeling throughout the whole two hours and six minutes that everyone is supposed to be applauded once they are introduced, like cameo star appearances on a sitcom. It made me sick, and it sickens me how so many are blown into non-cognizance seeing something like this.
It was that way with 2002’s Minority Report. Then, as now with Star Trek, the hype and excitement blew everyone away, even the critics. Only a few objective thinkers took the time to consider the film’s ruining plot-holes (I don’t have time to give examples, so stop and think for a minute). It’s sad, really, a sign of a less critical age.
(JH)
---
Grade: D- (1 star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: The young crew of the Enterprise bands together to fight Romulan warlord Nero.
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine “James T. Kirk,” Zachary Quinto “young Spock,” Leonard Nimoy “old Spock,” Eric Bana “Nero,” Bruce Greenwood “Capt. Christopher Pike,” Karl Urban “Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy,” Zoe Saldana “Nyota Uhura,” Simon Pegg “Scotty,” John Cho “Hikaru Sulu,” Anton Yelchin “Pavel Chekov,” Ben Cross “Sarek,” Winona Ryder “Amanda Grayson”
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi
Spoilers ahead: No
---
I am beside myself with anger over this absurd and ironically “illogical” excuse for a Star Trek. I’ll endure the trash talk and say it loud: I can’t for the life of me believe how charmed everyone is with it. The critics are overwhelmingly praising this film, and almost nobody has anything negative to say about it. It’s like the whole world is under a spell except for the 5% of smart critics who have the guts to call this what it is. The story was a joke, a smeared window of a plot, with melodrama and shotty cinematography. Worse yet, nearly nothing of it fit with the forerunning series it is based on.
Let’s deal with first things first; we have the now well-known kid Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) in a ‘60s Corvette scene—totally insulting to anyone who loves Star Trek and/or Corvettes. Anyone who has ever seen the old Star Treks knows that Kirk had immense trouble driving earth-bound vehicles. He certainly was no hot-rodder. Where did he get…no, nevermind…how did he get his hands on a 250+ year old car? Why would anyone in the 23rd century care to take a Corvette out of the museum to drive it? How was it maintained, and why, and how did anyone get their hands on the gasoline to fuel it in the 23rd century? That cop should have shot Kirk’s sorry little rump right then and there so I wouldn’t have had to watch the rest of the movie.
We have Vulcan getting attacked, but most interestingly, Vulcan’s fighters are nowhere to be found. Not a single visible Vulcan ship comes to the planet’s defense. Star Fleet ships instead are the ones to fight Vulcan’s battle for them. That’s how the Enterprise is led to face a mean, renegade, time-traveling Romulan named (oddly enough) “Nero” (Eric Bana). The rest of the time, you get to see the cast of the Enterprise introduce themselves in their younger counterparts. It’s sappy, it’s self-absorbed, and it deserves boycotting. And Winona Ryder plays Spock’s mother…can you believe it?
They got so much wrong in this film that I am surprised to the point of speechlessness that more people haven’t caught it. On a side note, what are the odds that Romulus’ sun goes supernova? We learned in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that the Klingon moon Praxis exploded, allowing only fifty years of life to remain on the Klingon home world, Kronos. Is Earth the only planet in the galaxy with a stable solar system? Add to that, the Romulans don’t look like Romulans. They look like tanned, unshaven Irish monks with tattoos who spent a little too much time in the local pub.
The plot was marred beyond recognition in the destruction of Vulcan. Yes, that’s right; the planet that the Enterprise crew must return to in order to switch out the mental “marbles” of a regenerated Spock with McCoy in Star Trek III is gone now, thanks to this overzealous film. The flimsy explanation given to justify the film’s compulsive adulteration of the earlier Star Trek story is that Nero, the rogue renegade Romulan warlord who traveled back in time to kill Spock, changed the time continuum.
Oh, real nice! You see, that catchall excuse gives the halfwit non-Trekkie writers license to screw everything up further. The problem for them is that because the movie takes place before the Enterprise’s five-year mission begins, a lot can’t happen in the show that was supposed to happen. Just totally disregard all other Star Trek episodes. Forget every other Star Trek-based film or TV series you ever saw. This loose canon portrays not just the fraternizing immaturity of the young enterprise crew, but its own writers’ youth-ish arrogance in disregarding all other Star Treks that came before it. No true Trekkie can appreciate that.
The sci-fi element is screwed up. Technology is purposely downplayed in most every area, and then things go the other direction when Spock (Leonard Nimoy) inexplicably has the ability to create a small red capsule that can absorb the power of a supernova to save a planet. It is worthy to note that it would be far easier to actually move an endangered planet out of orbit and tow it to a safe solar system than it would be to absorb the full power of a collapsing star, but despite being able to pull off this great technological feat, still no one is a match for the Romulan super-ship.
Just for nostalgia's sake, they threw in that nasty, brain-eating bug that made home in Chekov's ear in Star Trek II. Not to be topped, we have young Spock (Zachary Quinto) ejecting young Kirk (Chris Pine) from the Enterprise and onto a cold, barren planet inhabited with snow monsters. As chance would have it, that planet turns out to be the very same planet that Nero banished old Spock to years earlier. What Star Fleet regulation calls for ejecting an insubordinate crewman from the ship? It’s like no one stopped to read over the script to check it for plausibility.
And I can keep going…at no time do the Romulans on their ship speak Romulan to each other, even in the presence of enemy humans, why? Why are there no guardrails on their “bridge”? For a futuristic super-ship, that sure is needlessly dangerous. One wrong step and you will be sent plummeting to your death. But what I can’t shake is how this renegade Romulan runamock ruler defied the Romulan authorities in his own time and escaped to the past without getting resistance. Futuristic beings with super-ships who can travel back in time and make quick work of multiple Klingon vessels with shields stronger than the Enterprise should attract other super-ships. Don’t the Romulans regulate the use of this time-travel technology of theirs?
Being neither a sequel, nor a prequel, it is nothing but a mess and a failure. The melodrama, especially at the beginning, is thick. Made for clueless kids, it’s the “Dawson’s Trek” you never thought you’d see. Unceasing is that feeling throughout the whole two hours and six minutes that everyone is supposed to be applauded once they are introduced, like cameo star appearances on a sitcom. It made me sick, and it sickens me how so many are blown into non-cognizance seeing something like this.
It was that way with 2002’s Minority Report. Then, as now with Star Trek, the hype and excitement blew everyone away, even the critics. Only a few objective thinkers took the time to consider the film’s ruining plot-holes (I don’t have time to give examples, so stop and think for a minute). It’s sad, really, a sign of a less critical age.
(JH)
---
Grade: D- (1 star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: The young crew of the Enterprise bands together to fight Romulan warlord Nero.
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine “James T. Kirk,” Zachary Quinto “young Spock,” Leonard Nimoy “old Spock,” Eric Bana “Nero,” Bruce Greenwood “Capt. Christopher Pike,” Karl Urban “Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy,” Zoe Saldana “Nyota Uhura,” Simon Pegg “Scotty,” John Cho “Hikaru Sulu,” Anton Yelchin “Pavel Chekov,” Ben Cross “Sarek,” Winona Ryder “Amanda Grayson”
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi
Saturday, May 09, 2009
The Soloist: Liberalism Takes Center-stage
Movie title: The Soloist (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No
---
Let me get the synopsis of the film out of the way before I begin the uncivil rant I have planned. The Soloist is a rendition of the true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless schizophrenic musical prodigy living in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez is in a rut and needs a good story. Because of the Newspaper’s declining readership, the paper is forced to undergo cutbacks. Lopez gets his much-desired story when he comes across Ayers.
The movie follows Lopez, from going to crazy lengths to get bizarre stories, to going out of his way to befriend a man who makes being helped as easy as chewing broken glass. The performances of the two main characters are beyond gainsaying. Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez was a solid choice. Jamie Foxx, as the genius cello and violin player Nathaniel Ayers, should win Best Actor for his scarily well-done adoption of a character every bit as quirky as Dustin Hoffman’s “Raymond Babbitt.”
While the acting was runner-up for “too good,” the directing was mediocre. We have a sulking reporter, flashbacks from Ayers’ childhood when his life seemed to be on track, some very moving moments of musical entrancement (I honestly teared up during one of them), close-up shots of a scary-looking man who won’t be helped and who at one point threatens to gut his best friend like a fish. It’s a modified version of Rain Man, but with a less lively plot, and it’s loaded with propaganda.
Since my emotions take over at this point, I’ll stop and give it a grade before proceeding. It’s a stout C+. On the merits, it does fairly well. Nothing I will say can take from that. What I can do is sound the alarm on the invading army that approaches. It’s the army of radical liberal propaganda. The army is highly visible, marching forward unabashedly, and so are the left-wing messages in the film. They are the dreams of radical socialist change agents. Not a single idea is unique or surprising. We’ve heard it all before.
The movie is wrapped in American flags. If I had taken the time to count them, I wouldn’t have noticed much else. We have flags, flags and images of President Bush, Katrina, and great segments of scenes with the homeless and obviously mentally ill being victimized by a cruel, white-run society. The vein of thinking couldn’t be clearer if it were sprayed with Windex—the corrupt, oppressive, white, upper-class, with their money and their conformity is the problem in the world today and why America sucks.
Bush and the damn German-Scotch-Irish whites with their wealth…they are what has been putting down the poor. Time to spread the wealth around! We have Obama to take care of that now, but that didn’t matter. It was too hard to focus on a new agenda. It’s much easier to bash the hell out of the old one. Even though Bush is gone, it’s still no fun if he’s not picked on. That says a lot about liberal thinking. They attack in the name of change and “progression” and “transforming.” Nothing is ever really good enough.
I’m no Christian. I once was a Christian preacher, and now I’m an atheist who wrote a book about it. I’m no Republican. I don’t know where I stand on half of the issues, but I know what I don’t stand for, and I know what I hate. I know I don’t believe in prayer and I’m no fan of the Christian right, but I do believe having a white, too-evangelistic music instructor getting told off when asking Ayers to pray before a performance was yet another way of saying, “Fuck off, evangelicals!” There are no accidents in movies, friends!
Screaming, “Screw you, praying Republicans! We socialists are enlightened!” just wasn’t necessary, and it isn’t all that is done. Lopez speaks from his belly when he rejoices that the city chucks out more and more money to build more and more homeless shelters. Only sometimes does the city “get things right” giving, as he puts it. That’s what it’s all about with liberals. No one can have anything nice. If you do well and build yourself a nice big house, you’ve got to share it. Heaven freakin’ forbid there be inequalities!
And there’s more—and we’re not talking about resetting scoreboards at football games so that the Little League losing team won’t get their feelings hurt. We’re talking about the show-all moment of how a liberal thinks, and that is by exhibiting the same level of fascism as in his bigoted rightwing counterparts. Hearses used to take people to church by force. The golden age of popes and priests once had its stranglehold on the world, and thankfully, lost it. But left or right, mankind always becomes what he hates the most.
At a point in the movie, Lopez goes before the director of a homeless shelter and tries to get Ayers his much-needed medical treatment since he refuses of his own accord to take medication. When he is informed that Ayers is not obligated to receive treatment, Lopez says what any wayfaring radical liberal would say to someone who refuses to comply with their policy: “Force him.” All those centuries of oppressive popes, with their shackles and dungeons and thumbscrews, haven’t taught Lopez a thing.
That’s the way liberals are—oppose their agenda and they won’t go the tolerant route, even though logic says to. They’ll seek to suppress the opposition through any effective means, whether we are talking about a so-called Fairness Doctrine or a geeky liberal’s forcing his help on those who don’t want it. Right-wingers are guilty of this too, though you have to walk a little further right to encounter that than you do on the left. I, for one, am interested to see how the Obamunists will do, but I’m not optimistic.
(JH)
---
Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A journalist befriends a homeless musical prodigy living on the street in Los Angeles.
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Jamie Foxx “Nathaniel Ayers,” Robert Downey Jr. “Steve Lopez”
Genre: Biography / Drama / Music
Spoilers ahead: No
---
Let me get the synopsis of the film out of the way before I begin the uncivil rant I have planned. The Soloist is a rendition of the true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless schizophrenic musical prodigy living in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez is in a rut and needs a good story. Because of the Newspaper’s declining readership, the paper is forced to undergo cutbacks. Lopez gets his much-desired story when he comes across Ayers.
The movie follows Lopez, from going to crazy lengths to get bizarre stories, to going out of his way to befriend a man who makes being helped as easy as chewing broken glass. The performances of the two main characters are beyond gainsaying. Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez was a solid choice. Jamie Foxx, as the genius cello and violin player Nathaniel Ayers, should win Best Actor for his scarily well-done adoption of a character every bit as quirky as Dustin Hoffman’s “Raymond Babbitt.”
While the acting was runner-up for “too good,” the directing was mediocre. We have a sulking reporter, flashbacks from Ayers’ childhood when his life seemed to be on track, some very moving moments of musical entrancement (I honestly teared up during one of them), close-up shots of a scary-looking man who won’t be helped and who at one point threatens to gut his best friend like a fish. It’s a modified version of Rain Man, but with a less lively plot, and it’s loaded with propaganda.
Since my emotions take over at this point, I’ll stop and give it a grade before proceeding. It’s a stout C+. On the merits, it does fairly well. Nothing I will say can take from that. What I can do is sound the alarm on the invading army that approaches. It’s the army of radical liberal propaganda. The army is highly visible, marching forward unabashedly, and so are the left-wing messages in the film. They are the dreams of radical socialist change agents. Not a single idea is unique or surprising. We’ve heard it all before.
The movie is wrapped in American flags. If I had taken the time to count them, I wouldn’t have noticed much else. We have flags, flags and images of President Bush, Katrina, and great segments of scenes with the homeless and obviously mentally ill being victimized by a cruel, white-run society. The vein of thinking couldn’t be clearer if it were sprayed with Windex—the corrupt, oppressive, white, upper-class, with their money and their conformity is the problem in the world today and why America sucks.
Bush and the damn German-Scotch-Irish whites with their wealth…they are what has been putting down the poor. Time to spread the wealth around! We have Obama to take care of that now, but that didn’t matter. It was too hard to focus on a new agenda. It’s much easier to bash the hell out of the old one. Even though Bush is gone, it’s still no fun if he’s not picked on. That says a lot about liberal thinking. They attack in the name of change and “progression” and “transforming.” Nothing is ever really good enough.
I’m no Christian. I once was a Christian preacher, and now I’m an atheist who wrote a book about it. I’m no Republican. I don’t know where I stand on half of the issues, but I know what I don’t stand for, and I know what I hate. I know I don’t believe in prayer and I’m no fan of the Christian right, but I do believe having a white, too-evangelistic music instructor getting told off when asking Ayers to pray before a performance was yet another way of saying, “Fuck off, evangelicals!” There are no accidents in movies, friends!
Screaming, “Screw you, praying Republicans! We socialists are enlightened!” just wasn’t necessary, and it isn’t all that is done. Lopez speaks from his belly when he rejoices that the city chucks out more and more money to build more and more homeless shelters. Only sometimes does the city “get things right” giving, as he puts it. That’s what it’s all about with liberals. No one can have anything nice. If you do well and build yourself a nice big house, you’ve got to share it. Heaven freakin’ forbid there be inequalities!
And there’s more—and we’re not talking about resetting scoreboards at football games so that the Little League losing team won’t get their feelings hurt. We’re talking about the show-all moment of how a liberal thinks, and that is by exhibiting the same level of fascism as in his bigoted rightwing counterparts. Hearses used to take people to church by force. The golden age of popes and priests once had its stranglehold on the world, and thankfully, lost it. But left or right, mankind always becomes what he hates the most.
At a point in the movie, Lopez goes before the director of a homeless shelter and tries to get Ayers his much-needed medical treatment since he refuses of his own accord to take medication. When he is informed that Ayers is not obligated to receive treatment, Lopez says what any wayfaring radical liberal would say to someone who refuses to comply with their policy: “Force him.” All those centuries of oppressive popes, with their shackles and dungeons and thumbscrews, haven’t taught Lopez a thing.
That’s the way liberals are—oppose their agenda and they won’t go the tolerant route, even though logic says to. They’ll seek to suppress the opposition through any effective means, whether we are talking about a so-called Fairness Doctrine or a geeky liberal’s forcing his help on those who don’t want it. Right-wingers are guilty of this too, though you have to walk a little further right to encounter that than you do on the left. I, for one, am interested to see how the Obamunists will do, but I’m not optimistic.
(JH)
---
Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A journalist befriends a homeless musical prodigy living on the street in Los Angeles.
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Jamie Foxx “Nathaniel Ayers,” Robert Downey Jr. “Steve Lopez”
Genre: Biography / Drama / Music
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
A Bull Moose Movie
Movie title: Fighting (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No
---
As much as I hate to disappoint those readers who would rather have less info on what a film is about, I’m going to have to disappoint. There’s no way I can hold back saying that if you’ve seen Jean-Claude Van Damme in Lionheart (1990), then you’ll find this one very familiar. With just a few changes, this is it. The plot is the same, save for one plot-twist at the end, and the characters resemble each other closely. Sorry, I had to do it!
The plot is as narrow-minded as the brutish stare coming from the eyes of the show’s likable star, Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum). I swear, the kid is 2/3 bull moose brawler and 1/3 Ricky Schroder. He was well picked for the part. Shawn is a small-time counterfeiter in New York City. By chance, he becomes acquainted with a scam-artist and thereby put in touch with an underworld of bear-knuckle brawling for cash.
But fighting is not all that Shawn does in Fighting. His eyes are on a beautiful waitress named Zulay Valez (Zulay Henao). Shawn’s world is a rough world, but he’s not scared of it. He’s a bull moose, remember (in attitude, appearance, and intellect). He has a steam-less, sideshow romance while becoming a rising star in a world of illegal street fights and clears a few thousand on fight nights, and all he’s got to do is put up with shady characters and streets where trouble lurks. None of this amazes me.
What amazes me is how a fighter can expect to do this well when he almost never trains, but dates and goes for dinner outings. There’s about ten seconds of film-time seeing him train. That’s it. More amazing is that everyone in the world of Fighting is concernedly in the cerebral red-zone. The people who organize these street fights take few precautions to see to it that the fighters have enough room to fight, and no one seems too worried about the police catching onto their activities. But then again, you never see the cops. They must suck tremendously. You hear them in the distance, but they are such moping morons that they never come around.
Other things bother me too, like why people who get knocked out stay out for as long as they do in the film. Normally, people who get knocked out are “out” for about 30 seconds to a minute. Then they are helped up and call it a day. They don’t lie there as though tucked in bed. There is no helping the losers up, no after-match embraces, nothing to give off any sense of sportsmanship, and yet everyone is confidently expected to remain approvingly tight-lipped enough not to squeal to the authorities about the goings-on.
The fight scenes are spiritless, but I give credit for one thing: they involve a lot of grappling and tackling, which deserves kudos because 90% of fights end up on the ground. Not a few young viewers will be disappointed that more WWE-style violence isn’t here, but those of us who thought Van Damme’s glorified kick routines were pooh-pooh will be happy to see them be dropped.
But the real kicker that seals the deal on just how cognitively cut down these fighters are is a simple one. The fighters participating in these underground fights win all or lose all, and there are no rules to them…eye-gouging, nut-kicking, head-stomping, it’s all fair game. The winners take home a few thousand dollars while the losers take home nothing. Fighting for thousands of dollars or nothing makes you as dumb as a bag of hammers. No one in the film ever takes the time to wonder how they will deal as losers with medical injuries, but even if they win, the amount of money won might not be enough to cover medical expenses—this risk gets bigger the more fights you put under your belt. Like a car, you’re going to need maintenance. It’s simple logic, but because few people in the film have an IQ higher than a pack of Irish elk, no one sees it.
A thin layer of drama and fine dialogue don’t provide the entertainment value to iron out the wrinkles.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: In New York City, a young counterfeiter is introduced to the world of underground street fighting by a seasoned scam artist, who becomes his manager on the bare-knuckling brawling circuit.
Director: Dito Montiel
Starring: Channing Tatum “Shawn MacArthur,” Terrence Howard “Harvey Boarden,” Zulay Henao “Zulay Valez,” Michael Rivera “Ajax,” Flaco Navaja “Ray Ray,” Peter Anthony Tambakis “Z (as Peter Tambakis),” Luis Guzmán “Martinez”
Genre: Action / Drama
Spoilers ahead: No
---
As much as I hate to disappoint those readers who would rather have less info on what a film is about, I’m going to have to disappoint. There’s no way I can hold back saying that if you’ve seen Jean-Claude Van Damme in Lionheart (1990), then you’ll find this one very familiar. With just a few changes, this is it. The plot is the same, save for one plot-twist at the end, and the characters resemble each other closely. Sorry, I had to do it!
The plot is as narrow-minded as the brutish stare coming from the eyes of the show’s likable star, Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum). I swear, the kid is 2/3 bull moose brawler and 1/3 Ricky Schroder. He was well picked for the part. Shawn is a small-time counterfeiter in New York City. By chance, he becomes acquainted with a scam-artist and thereby put in touch with an underworld of bear-knuckle brawling for cash.
But fighting is not all that Shawn does in Fighting. His eyes are on a beautiful waitress named Zulay Valez (Zulay Henao). Shawn’s world is a rough world, but he’s not scared of it. He’s a bull moose, remember (in attitude, appearance, and intellect). He has a steam-less, sideshow romance while becoming a rising star in a world of illegal street fights and clears a few thousand on fight nights, and all he’s got to do is put up with shady characters and streets where trouble lurks. None of this amazes me.
What amazes me is how a fighter can expect to do this well when he almost never trains, but dates and goes for dinner outings. There’s about ten seconds of film-time seeing him train. That’s it. More amazing is that everyone in the world of Fighting is concernedly in the cerebral red-zone. The people who organize these street fights take few precautions to see to it that the fighters have enough room to fight, and no one seems too worried about the police catching onto their activities. But then again, you never see the cops. They must suck tremendously. You hear them in the distance, but they are such moping morons that they never come around.
Other things bother me too, like why people who get knocked out stay out for as long as they do in the film. Normally, people who get knocked out are “out” for about 30 seconds to a minute. Then they are helped up and call it a day. They don’t lie there as though tucked in bed. There is no helping the losers up, no after-match embraces, nothing to give off any sense of sportsmanship, and yet everyone is confidently expected to remain approvingly tight-lipped enough not to squeal to the authorities about the goings-on.
The fight scenes are spiritless, but I give credit for one thing: they involve a lot of grappling and tackling, which deserves kudos because 90% of fights end up on the ground. Not a few young viewers will be disappointed that more WWE-style violence isn’t here, but those of us who thought Van Damme’s glorified kick routines were pooh-pooh will be happy to see them be dropped.
But the real kicker that seals the deal on just how cognitively cut down these fighters are is a simple one. The fighters participating in these underground fights win all or lose all, and there are no rules to them…eye-gouging, nut-kicking, head-stomping, it’s all fair game. The winners take home a few thousand dollars while the losers take home nothing. Fighting for thousands of dollars or nothing makes you as dumb as a bag of hammers. No one in the film ever takes the time to wonder how they will deal as losers with medical injuries, but even if they win, the amount of money won might not be enough to cover medical expenses—this risk gets bigger the more fights you put under your belt. Like a car, you’re going to need maintenance. It’s simple logic, but because few people in the film have an IQ higher than a pack of Irish elk, no one sees it.
A thin layer of drama and fine dialogue don’t provide the entertainment value to iron out the wrinkles.
(JH)
---
Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: In New York City, a young counterfeiter is introduced to the world of underground street fighting by a seasoned scam artist, who becomes his manager on the bare-knuckling brawling circuit.
Director: Dito Montiel
Starring: Channing Tatum “Shawn MacArthur,” Terrence Howard “Harvey Boarden,” Zulay Henao “Zulay Valez,” Michael Rivera “Ajax,” Flaco Navaja “Ray Ray,” Peter Anthony Tambakis “Z (as Peter Tambakis),” Luis Guzmán “Martinez”
Genre: Action / Drama
Monday, May 04, 2009
The Bitch is Crazy!
Movie title: Obsessed (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No
---
People suffering from mental illnesses may be called “insane” and “sick,” but insanity carries with it a certain “sick” fascination in the eye of the beholder as well. You'd rather be crazy than stupid. Being stupid will get you hated and ridiculed, but being crazy will get you feared and pitied.
How many times driving to or from work have you glanced out your window and seen a man or a woman talking to themselves? Shees, I've seen whole conversations being had with invisible men while waiting at traffic lights, and despite my being surrounded by 2,000 pounds of car, I was still scared! If not scared, I said within myself: “aw, how sad.”
We normal people remind ourselves of how unfortunate having mental illness is, but only after watching an episode of World's Wildest Police Videos and laughing at the nuttiness of some fool running down the street naked or jumping out in front of traffic. Only when we feel guilty for laughing do we so reflect.
My point, you ask? Well, the point is that mental illness is captivating, and that is the only thing that makes Obsessed a worthwhile watch. It's not unique. You've seen the film before when it was called Fatal Attraction (1987), The Crush (1993), etc. The plot is nothing new. It's been done before and done better. The actors (all except Beyoncé Knowles) stand a head and shoulders above the roles they play. True, they might blot this off their resumes in years to come, but it's on them now.
An obsessive but beautiful woman named Lisa (Ali Larter) takes a liking to a well built, strapping man named Derek (Idris Elba). She's a temp. He's an asset manager. They meet at work. The problem for her is, he's married and off the market. That doesn't stop her from making advances, obscene and offensive advances over time as they get to know each other. How things went from casual to too close was one thing first-time director Steve Shill did well. Derek handles these advances so stupidly that you almost start hoping his psychotic admirer ruins him.
As Lisa's wayward wiles begin to affect his marriage, things get worse and worse still, leading to an ugly confrontation between he and his soon-to-be-fired temp. Things hit the fan, and then they keep going. As with the rest of the movie, things would have gone better if Knowles could act, but she can’t, and so I’d advice her to keep singing. The predictable nature of the film, coupled with its crudeness, hurt it badly. There's no spoiling the plot here. The cat is out of the bag.
Obsessed offers a racial dynamic, a soft, still cultural taboo (the beautiful white woman going after the handsome black man, and not the other way around). But more was needed, something catchy, something irresistible, like nudity. Called for was an erotic element here, and that we didn't have. You'd think a lusty lunatic who went so far as to drug the man of her dreams would at least strip him naked and have her way with him, but she doesn't as far as we can tell. There’s no denying it! She’s crazy!
In addition to not being original in plot and being barely mediocre in every other gradable category, we have a nearly B-movie aura, which thankfully, is offset by a “Tales from the Crypt,” horror movie vibe that permeates the entire screenplay. It's like the best B-movie you've ever seen. Good background music helped it along for sure. Bonus points are given both for the feel and the music.
But let's get back to why anyone wants to watch the movie in the first place—because “the bitch is crazy!” That's what makes this worth the watch. As noted in the beginning, it's so darn fascinating to see what the mentally ill are capable of!
Taking into account all of the film's many glaring faults, I couldn't deny that disturbed gut feeling I kept having, as if I was in Derek's shoes with a mad woman making my life miserable. I was compelled to watch only for that reason. Elba and Larter pulled it off well enough to make it watchable and to make me ask myself what I would do if I became the target of a serial stalker. One badly presented “cat fight” with a cursing Beyoncé, a few moments of flat dialogue, and some unlikely social behaviors didn't ruin it for me as it did for some reviewers.
It won't win any awards or be the best film you'll see. It may even be forgettable, but if you're in love with looney, you might just give this one a try.
(JH)
---
Grade: C- (2 stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A woman stalks a successful business and family man who turns her away.
Director: Steve Shill
Starring: Idris Elba “Derek,” Beyoncé Knowles “Sharon,” Ali Larter “Lisa,” Jerry O'Connell “Ben,” Bonnie Perlman “Marge,” Christine Lahti “Reese”
Genre: Crime / Drama / Thriller
Spoilers ahead: No
---
People suffering from mental illnesses may be called “insane” and “sick,” but insanity carries with it a certain “sick” fascination in the eye of the beholder as well. You'd rather be crazy than stupid. Being stupid will get you hated and ridiculed, but being crazy will get you feared and pitied.
How many times driving to or from work have you glanced out your window and seen a man or a woman talking to themselves? Shees, I've seen whole conversations being had with invisible men while waiting at traffic lights, and despite my being surrounded by 2,000 pounds of car, I was still scared! If not scared, I said within myself: “aw, how sad.”
We normal people remind ourselves of how unfortunate having mental illness is, but only after watching an episode of World's Wildest Police Videos and laughing at the nuttiness of some fool running down the street naked or jumping out in front of traffic. Only when we feel guilty for laughing do we so reflect.
My point, you ask? Well, the point is that mental illness is captivating, and that is the only thing that makes Obsessed a worthwhile watch. It's not unique. You've seen the film before when it was called Fatal Attraction (1987), The Crush (1993), etc. The plot is nothing new. It's been done before and done better. The actors (all except Beyoncé Knowles) stand a head and shoulders above the roles they play. True, they might blot this off their resumes in years to come, but it's on them now.
An obsessive but beautiful woman named Lisa (Ali Larter) takes a liking to a well built, strapping man named Derek (Idris Elba). She's a temp. He's an asset manager. They meet at work. The problem for her is, he's married and off the market. That doesn't stop her from making advances, obscene and offensive advances over time as they get to know each other. How things went from casual to too close was one thing first-time director Steve Shill did well. Derek handles these advances so stupidly that you almost start hoping his psychotic admirer ruins him.
As Lisa's wayward wiles begin to affect his marriage, things get worse and worse still, leading to an ugly confrontation between he and his soon-to-be-fired temp. Things hit the fan, and then they keep going. As with the rest of the movie, things would have gone better if Knowles could act, but she can’t, and so I’d advice her to keep singing. The predictable nature of the film, coupled with its crudeness, hurt it badly. There's no spoiling the plot here. The cat is out of the bag.
Obsessed offers a racial dynamic, a soft, still cultural taboo (the beautiful white woman going after the handsome black man, and not the other way around). But more was needed, something catchy, something irresistible, like nudity. Called for was an erotic element here, and that we didn't have. You'd think a lusty lunatic who went so far as to drug the man of her dreams would at least strip him naked and have her way with him, but she doesn't as far as we can tell. There’s no denying it! She’s crazy!
In addition to not being original in plot and being barely mediocre in every other gradable category, we have a nearly B-movie aura, which thankfully, is offset by a “Tales from the Crypt,” horror movie vibe that permeates the entire screenplay. It's like the best B-movie you've ever seen. Good background music helped it along for sure. Bonus points are given both for the feel and the music.
But let's get back to why anyone wants to watch the movie in the first place—because “the bitch is crazy!” That's what makes this worth the watch. As noted in the beginning, it's so darn fascinating to see what the mentally ill are capable of!
Taking into account all of the film's many glaring faults, I couldn't deny that disturbed gut feeling I kept having, as if I was in Derek's shoes with a mad woman making my life miserable. I was compelled to watch only for that reason. Elba and Larter pulled it off well enough to make it watchable and to make me ask myself what I would do if I became the target of a serial stalker. One badly presented “cat fight” with a cursing Beyoncé, a few moments of flat dialogue, and some unlikely social behaviors didn't ruin it for me as it did for some reviewers.
It won't win any awards or be the best film you'll see. It may even be forgettable, but if you're in love with looney, you might just give this one a try.
(JH)
---
Grade: C- (2 stars)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: A woman stalks a successful business and family man who turns her away.
Director: Steve Shill
Starring: Idris Elba “Derek,” Beyoncé Knowles “Sharon,” Ali Larter “Lisa,” Jerry O'Connell “Ben,” Bonnie Perlman “Marge,” Christine Lahti “Reese”
Genre: Crime / Drama / Thriller
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Follow by Email
