reviews

For those of you waiting at least a week to watch Alice in Wonderland in order to avoid the invasion of the hordes, yet still want something worthwhile and entertaining...without having to take the kids

For those of you who could only see Shutter Island so many times...

The Ghost Writer is the movie you’ve been waiting about 2 weeks for. One hopes this movie doesn’t lose box-office simply because it’s confused with that horrendous Nicolas Cage t’aint smear from 2007. It’s a rather quaint throwback thriller with a 70’s feel. As you watch it, you feel like you’re watching an entirely new genre, but all that’s occurring is a very good story being told with nothing added for effect (written by Polanski and Robert Harris, based on Harris’ novel "The Ghost"). The movie’s a solid two hours running time, but it feels half that long as there isn’t a wasted moment because you’re paying attention to everything that occurs.

The movie ends perfectly, yet I found myself sitting, hoping for more. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way in a theater that wasn’t screening something with the words “Nurses” or “Cheerleaders”. The more you get engrossed in it, the more you realize most studio releases are utter crap.

Be warned, The Ghost Writer contains very little violence, no nudity, and a very funny dearth of profanity (I’ll address that later). It’s a very adult movie (no, not that kind), so those of you bored with incisive dialogue and a generously unfolding story should just go see Cop Out again. It’s the best movie you’ll see this year that isn’t directed by Martin Scorsese.  read more »

“You're only as healthy as you feel.”
-- Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver

“I'm in a street fight, and I'm not going to lose.”
-- Howard Hughes from The Aviator

“You'll never leave this island.”
-- George Noyce from Shutter Island

The tendrils of expectations are a carnivorous bitch. The shadows on the wall are very much alive in the 21st Century despite the deviations of spectacle over content. As far as I am concerned, the first decade of the 21st Century has produced memorable cinema. In fact, so much, I am never sure where to begin when selecting favorites and I have plenty of favorites. Amidst everything that has happened over the last decade, one of the most unlikely cinematic partnerships has endured to the point of rapturous euphoria. The partnership between director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio has paid off in handsome dividends ever since the two worked together on the 2002 operatic, Sergio Leone inspired, Gangs Of New York. In terms of progression, it seems only fair that Shutter Island follows everything that has come before it. Speaking of enduring partnerships, David Fincher and Brad Pitt were attached to the Dennis Lehane novel at one time. A David Fincher interpretation of this film would have been fascinating because he is one of two living directors, other than Martin Scorsese, who could pulled this off. The Scorsese/DiCaprio partnership has become a worthy successor to the partnership that Scorsese had with Robert De Niro.  read more »

Starring: Donald Glover, DC Pierson, Dominic Dierkes, Aubrey Plaza
Directed By: Dan Eckman
Written By: Donald Glover, DC Pierson, Dominic Dierkes, Dan Eckman, and Meggie McFadden
Grade: B+

Mystery Team is the first feature from Derrick Comedy, an internet sketch comedy group of friends from NYU; Dan Eckman, Dominic Dierkes, Donald Glover, DC Pierson, and Meggie McFadden. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009 and since then has had limited releases in select cities around the country until it’s DVD release in May. It is a fresh and funny film not to be missed.

Jason (Glover), Duncan (Pierson), and Charlie (Dierkes) have been best friends their whole lives. Over the years they have become outcasts though. When they were 7 they started "The Mystery Team" , promising to solve any mystery for a dime. They are 18 now and about to graduate high school, still committed to The Mystery Team, and still only charge a dime as it’s not the money that matters to them. When a little girl seeks them out to find out who murdered her parents they are shocked, but end up agreeing to take the case. Jason especially thinks they need to solve the case to prove that they are real detectives to gain the respect they had when they were kids rather than being the laughing stock of the town. When Jason meets the girl’s older sister, Kelly (Plaza), he quickly forms a crush on her. Since she in particular thinks they are way out of their league and going to the police is the only helpful thing they could do, Jason becomes determined to prove that he’s worthy of her respect.  read more »

After seeing the trailer for The Book of Eli back in June, I wondered why they would release a Denzel Washington film in the garbage month of January. A month when all the Oscar hopefuls are given a wide release and all the refuse actually coming out in the New Year gets excreted with the meager hope that any of them break even.

Occasionally you get a Cloverfield, a Taken, or even an inexplicable hit like Paul Blart: Mall Cop (you feel stupid now, don’t you), but mostly January is for movies like The Uninvited, The Unborn, One Missed Call, In the Name of the King (awful by even Jason Statham’s very low standards) and those dorky Underworld movies.

I can see by the way you wince at those titles that you know exactly what I mean.

After surviving the post-annihilation morass that is The Book of Eli, I now know why this got dumped. Yes, the trailer is cool, but the movie sinks faster and deeper than the mud Denzel walks and walks and walks through during a movie which just FEELS like the end of the world, and not in a cool Road Warrior kind of way.

If you are able, and need to get your lone-guy-against-the-end-of-the-world fix, then go see The Road? A much, much, much better movie. I’d swear on a stack of bibles.

At least it’s not Paul Blart. But you should probably pass over this Book anyway and maybe even read an actual book.  read more »

What better way to celebrate the HannuKwaanzYuleChrist holiday than watching Sherlock Holmes? I’m sure there are lots of other better ways, but as far as movies opening this weekend, Holmes is your best bet, unless of course you’re Cougar-scoping at a screening of It’s Complicated, then everyone wishes you the best of luck with that.

At the very least, it’s a good way to spend a couple of hours while you wait for the text stating the relatives that have overstayed their welcome have finally gotten the fuck out of the house. You’re grateful because you can only use Avatar as an excuse to be away from the house so many times and being the only person in a strip bar at or around December 25th is just sad.

So while your waiting for that text, sit back, relax and enjoy watching Robert Downey Jr. be smarter than everybody, but make sure not to think about what you’re watching too much, as that might lessen your mindless gratification.  read more »

A good portion, or at least a larger portion than you’d expect, of people that attended the same screening of Avatar as I did had seen it the previous midnight showing. Some had seen it earlier that day. You’d be surprised the things you hear while people think you’re watching the commercials

-After the screening, there was the usual hyperbole, but from a relatively balanced cross-section of people, instead of say, New Moon, where you’d have the pre-teen Team Edward Groupies gushing in their Tampax while the boyfriends they dragged uttered obscenities as they exited the theater. I tend to get trapped in the middle of the throng of exiting people so I can’t help but hear reactions, even if I don’t want to. Actually, in terms of amount of people, the masses resembled last November’s Twilight 2 opening, except you got the feeling the majority of people actually wanted to SEE the movie, instead of Teenage Girl and her captive Plus 1. The point being, more that one person remarked at how they were going to see Avatar again very soon.

Those reactions, as I’m sure they’re the same in theaters across the country (especially IMAX), should be more telling than the overhype surrounding the movie or its Golden Globe Nomination for Best Picture (Go Basterds!!!). Odds are by the time of this posting, you or someone a degree or less close to you has already seen it. Maybe even twice. If you haven’t seen it...why?  read more »

The new film Invictus is genetically engineered and promoted for the sole purpose of harvesting Oscar Gold. And with the movie’s pedigree, it’ll be hard pressed not to garner one of the 10 Best Picture Nominee Slots next Month...

To Whit-

Director Clint Eastwood is a freakin’ Oscar magnet. He’s directed Hilary Swank, Gene Hackman, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn to Oscars and a strong case could be made that he should have been nominated for the kindly old racist he played in last year’s Gran Torino. The previous 2 Freeman/Eastwood collaborations (Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby) won Oscars for Best Picture (with Freeman nabbing the Best Supporting Oscar for Baby). And it’s well known fact that Eastwood can shoot laser beams out of his nostrils and will never, ever die

Subject Matter- It’s a TRUE inspigoddamnrational story that involves Apartheid and an UNDERDOG team prevailing against ALL ODDS, sure Oscar fodder because you know how people slurp that feel-good shit up. This is an IMPORTANT movie, because you will LEARN something while also seeing huge movie stars play REAL people. If you watch this, you won’t have to feel as guilty when you don’t give that homeless person a dollar even though you really can spare it and just end up renting something like The Ugly Truth.

Will Invictus be nominated for Best Picture? It almost can’t help but be, regardless of merit. With the absence of a viable Holocaust picture this year, Invictus slips in with the Apartheid/True Story Corollary because if one decides to vote against it they just end up looking like a bigoted jackass. Might as well pull for a movie where kids and dogs get run over by something.  read more »

2012, a summer movie plunked down in the middle of November is the prefect antidote to all the Christmas ghosts, Men-goat relations, and Michael Jackson documentaries. You want a movie you can have a good time at while the world gets destroyed...This Is It. Yes, 2012 is completely empty spectacle, but it’s spectacle nonetheless. Plus, you don’t have to worry about whether or not characters you love will die or live since you don’t give a whit about the characters anyway.

As the ads have been hammering you with, 2012 was written/directed by that purveyor of onscreen destruction, Roland Emmerich, who makes blowing shit up a way of life with the entertainingly stupid Independence Day and the just plain stupid The Day After Tomorrow (ask Jake Gyllenhaal anything about this movie and watch his face wince with embarrassment). The less said about Godzilla the better. Last year Emmerich released the laughably dull Razzie nominated 10,000 BC and thankfully, 2012 is a massive step up. While a lot of 2012 is laughable, it is rarely dull because if you’re not being wowed by the special effects, you’re smirking at the hokey “human” interaction.

If only real destruction were this diverting.  read more »

Of the four major releases opening this weekend, writer/director Richard Kelly’s adaptation of the Richard Matheson short The Box is the one you’d do well to shun. Despite the intriguing trailer, the film barely delivers, except to cement the notion that Frank Langella is one creepy bastard. But since he mostly plays are creepy bastards, we already know that so there’s no real surprise. Another reason not to see The Box.

If you want cheap scares and were deciding on whether to watch The Box or The Fourth Kind, go with the The Fourth Kind because the scariest things you’ll see while watching The Box are those 70’s sideburns. Yes, Fourth Kind is stupid, but it’s good stupid...

It’s a sorry state of affairs when a Milla Jovovich movie is actually better than a Cameron Diaz movie. Box isn’t outright terrible, but you can do so much better this weekend

The sad part is I really wanted to like this movie, mostly because of Richard Kelly. Kelly wrote and directed seemingly everyone’s favorite 2001 Cult Hit Donnie Darko and set himself up as filmmaker of promise. I like Darko a lot, though I don’t love it as much as some simply because I haven’t seen it in so long. It wasn’t perfect, at least it was interesting when so many others are predictably stale. Now when I see an old woman approaching a mailbox I think to myself “Mail, mail, mail...”  read more »

DVD Release Company: Dimension Home Entertainment (http://www.weinsteinco.com)
Language: English
Length: 95 Minutes
Image: Color
Year: 2009
Rated: R (Strong Bloody Violence, Language and Some Nudity)
Release Date: October 20, 2009

"Do you watch television father? The whole world is insane!" - Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu)

If any of you action buffs need more hair on your chests or would like an unforeseen expectation to all of a sudden kick someone in the teeth, then this movie is probably for you. The Tournament is all those cliche movie quotes into one: high-octane, adrenaline pumping, heart stopping, edge of your seat, etc. That is also its slight of a downfall as it delivers only action and nothing else. The good news here is is that the action is over the top and bloody. A fine tuned guts or glory scenario that packs a punch in the gore department.

Every seven years, a tournament is unleashed into the unexpected streets of a randomly picked city. As the media is handed either terrorist or a random act of violence explanation, the real reason is that 30 of the deadliest assassins have come together for a last man standing, cash prize, kill or be killed tournament held by a sadistic Mr. Powers. All the action is captured on close circuit cameras where wealthy gamblers pick their favorite horses to come out standing.  read more »