Category: Movie
2008 brought us several blockbuster movies. Immediately the three comic book titans and Pixar’s latest achievement come into mind. And while WALL-E was perhaps Pixar’s greatest achievement to date and The Dark Knight was a box office juggernaut, Danny Boyle’s late comer, Slumdog Millionaire, cannot be overlooked.
Terrible terrible terrible.
The Happening was a better film. I. Shit. You. Not.
It is not even good for a “popcorn” flick. It’s the worst movie I’ve seen in years.
The script, direction, performances, characters, plot and viewing experience were wretched on levels that genuinely angered me. The story was intriguing in rough concept, but it’s implementation was so horrifyingly bad, that I prayed to Almighty God that everyone in the movie would die midway through the film… sacrificed on the alter of “Cutting our losses”.
A note to Will Smith: We don’t want to see your son in another movie ever again. He has no talent. He is not cute. We don’t want to pay to watch him do anything.
A note to Jennifer Connely: Eat.
A note to Keanu Reeves: Go….just…go.
A final note to any Aliens who are looking for a reason to save humanity from our Just extinction: Please don’t watch this movie.
In 2007 a Biographical Western was debuted at a film festival at 4 hours in length before being cut down to the “marketable” 2 hours and 40 minutes. The movie is the drawn out tail of the last days of the James-Younger Gang and (as the title says) the murder of Jesse James by Bob Ford.
By the monetary measure this film was a box office failure costing $30 Million to produce and earning a scant $4 MIlion at the box office. But all movie fans know that bad marketing or timing will doom a film at the box office before it ever gets off the ground. But when Brad Pitt agreed to co-produce this film, he knew it was the story that was important. It was the story that needed to be told. If this film is judged by that metric, than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a complete success.
This movie was genius, even if it did drag from time to time…
“An American Carol” is rated PG-13, and according to Nathan Lee (New York Times): “It includes swearing and satirical bigotry.”
Satirical bigotry. That’s what the left calls it when you call a dirty stinking terrorist a dirty stinking terrorist. Of course there were jokes about typical naming conventions of Arab Muslims (all of the Al Qaeda fighters are named Mohammad Hussein). But when you are talking about a group of people who conduct martyrdom bombings, does it really matter?
“An American Carol” was co-written and directed by David Zucker, the man who brought us “Airplane!”. It is- forgive the expression- a coming out party of sorts for the Hollywood conservatives. As any good non-left movie fan knows, there is a 90% bias against conservatives in Hollywood. The movie show cased well known Hollywood conservatives like Kelsey (and Camille) Grammer, Jon Voight, and fellow libertarian James Woods. But it also has cameos by a few lesser known (to me at least) conservatives: Paris Hilton (makes sense if you think about it), Hercules himself Kevin Sorbo, Mary Hart (Entertainment Tonight), David Alan Grier, Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper, Leslie Nelson, Kevin P. Farley, and John O’Hurley also known as Seinfeld’s J. Peterman.
The movie itself was very entertaining. Only once did the humor slip into something deeper; and the scene hit deep- all the way to bedrock.
I saw Choke Friday at 5:10 PM. Since it is in limited release I had to drive 20 miles to go see it. I checked out of work early and made an afternoon of it. I have waited until now to write a review because I wanted it to settle and stew a bit in my mind. I waited months and months for the movie to come out (see also: years), and I wanted to be sure and give Chuck and Clark a well thought out review of their creation.
Regardless of what I write here, go see the movie NOW. It is your homework assignment.
Over the last few year, movie goers have been re-introduced to comic book content by a string of Superhero properties. It is fair to say that the Action Film genre, which rose to blockbuster prominence in the 80s with such epic stars as Arnold, Sly and Bruce, has now been supplanted by the fantastic hero styles that comic book readers have enjoyed for years. Superhero movies are the bankable win for studios, and despite the stellar box office and reviews of The Dark Knight, Marvel Comics has been at the forefront in representing the Superhero movie push.
If you look at the roster of Marvel based films, you will see such box office titans as the Spiderman and X-men trilogies, The Hulk reboot and this years smash hit, Ironman. There is no doubt that Marvel has finally shown the world how to translate their comic book properties into motion pictures: Have faith in the source material and stay reasonably true to it.
This plan has held true for both the big screen offerings and the direct to DVD animated titles that Marvel has been releasing over the last few years. Although some of the titles vary in quality over the others, they are all worthy and mature Superhero stories and are a great gateway for the Geek parent to introduce his comic book passions to his loinnext_avengers_01.jpg-fruit.
This week I watched the latest release form Marvel animation, the kid friendly Next Avengers. As the cover and title suggests, the is a story about the children of the avengers getting together to create a team. There is nothing new about this concept, and indeed… it may strike the average joe as a formula for unbearable cute and wise cracking cheesiness. I’ll admit, I came at it expecting an over indulgence of ‘tween-isms’ where the writers replace natural dialog with their idea of what kids would say. I was pleasantly surprised to see that was not the case.
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I’m sure most of you have heard about this “bomb” of a Will Smith movie, and like me were terribly disappointed to hear these earlier reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has this movie as a clearly rotten film.
I disagree, and I wanted to post a few thoughts…
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Open Range
Kevin Costner is one of the best actors of our time… in the right genre. If Costner is in a sports film or a western, you know it’s going to be at least entertaining, and perhaps even brillient. As long as he stays away from Sci-Fi… he’s a sure thing.
There are 2 kinds of movie fans when it comes to westerns. There is the fan who loves the action/adventure western (Tombstone) and there is the fan the loves the character driven/epic western (Wyatt Earp). Both are valid entertainment, but in my opinion, one is pop-corn and the other is meat. I look for the more satisfying fare, and Open range is a meal to be enjoyed.
‘Open Range’ follows up on the magnificent Wyatt Earp as a western driven by the characters. It is one of the best westerns ever made, and unlike Wyatt Earp, it doesn’t suffer from the Costner ‘Too much Story’ problem. The film comes in at around 2 1/4 hours, which is just perfect for this tale to unfold and resolve itself.
Boss Spearman(Robert Duval), Charley Waite(Kevin Costner), Mose Harrison(Abraham Benrubi ) and Button(Diego Luna) freegraze their cattle across the vast prairies of the West, sharing a friendship forged by a steadfast code of honor and living a life unencumbered by civilization. When their wayward herd forces them near the small town of Harmonville, the cowboys encounter a corrupt sheriff and kingpin rancher who govern the territory through fear, tyranny and violence. Boss and Charley find themselves inextricably drawn towards an inevitable showdown, as they are forced to defend the freedom and values of a lifestyle that is all too quickly vanishing. Amidst the turmoil, life suddenly takes an unexpected turn for the loner Charley when he meets the beautiful and warm spirited Sue Barlow, a woman who embraces both his heart and his soul.(This summary snipped from the IMDb)
For movie fans that enjoyed ‘Unforgiven’, you will recognize a simularity in character theme between Waite and Eastwood’s ‘William Munny’. Both are men with a past of darkness and violence. Both are looking for redemption. Not to slight the legendary Eastwood, but Open Range shows us a deeper and more complex character as portrayed by Costner. While Unforgiven is Eastwood’s take on the Sergio Leone westerns that brought him fame, Open Range gives us a less ‘pulp fiction’ version from the same epic themes. This movie is what a Leone Story would be if the writer focused on character exploration and not intensity of style.
The story moves along at a smooth pace, starting slowly to spend time on the principle characters and establish their personalities, as well as present the Freegrazing lifestyle. The plot starts to increase it’s speed with the introdiction of the main conflict between the Ranchers and the small band of freegrazers, but there is very little on-screen violence. The violence that occurs in the story is not seen… only the results of it are shown. This will alienate the ‘action-adventure’ lover, as he expects the film to be action scenes driven by story. The main motivation for the primary characters are the result of the violence off-screen.
This screenplay device is VERY effective in building great anticipation to the climax of the film and the inevitable violence of it. The payoff is spectacular. Waite’s violent explosion is a release that is shared by the viewer. Costner is not the ‘Aw shucks’ midwesterner, he is the death angel gunfighter without hesitation or remorse. All in all, it is a very satisfying end-game.
Open Range is a rare treat. It deserves far more attention than it has gotten, even though all reviews were solid and complementary. For those that enjoy the epic western, it’s the best of the genre. I highly recommend it.
-Ganelon