Casablanca (1942) Review

To put it as succinctly as I can, Casablanca is one of the greatest American films that have ever been made and is, in my estimation, second only to Gone with the Wind.

In World War II Casablanca, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), self-exiled American and former freedom fighter, runs the most popular nightspot in town (everyone comes to Rick's). The cynical Rick comes into the possession of two valuable letters of transit, taken from two murdered German couriers by Signor Ugarte (Peter Lorre). When Nazi Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arrives in Casablanca, the obsequious Captain Renault (Claude Rains) does what he can to please him, including hindering underground rebellion leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) from escaping to America. Much to Rick's frustration and disbelief, Lazslo arrives with Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's one time love, who ran out on him in Paris years earlier.

The screenplay (written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch) is possibly the best that has been written with Claude Rains getting the majority of the great lines (for example, "I like to think that you killed a man. It's the romantic in me." and "round up the usual suspects"). The lines have become so popular that when AFI did a list of the top 100 greatest movie quotes, Casablanca appeared on that list more (a total of six times) than any other film.

One thing you can look closely at is the cinematography. The framing of Ilsa deserves particular mention. By filming Bergman from largely the left side with catch lights, to lighten her eyes, Arthur Edeson manages to enhance the look of ineffable sadness that Bergman conveys in every scene she is in. It should come as no surprise that the performances in the film are pure perfection. Perhaps the fact that the characters are so relatable is why people attach themselves to Casablanca. Somehow, Bogart manages to have great chemistry with every other actor he appears with and not surprisingly Ingrid Bergman is perfect in this film. When wasn't she?

I'd love to give the film a four-star rating. However, I think that the film actually surpasses what my current rating system allows so I won't be assigning a star rating. This is not, I repeat, not a bad thing.

No Star Rating

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) Review

This film, created in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, is one of the best superhero/comic book films to ever be made. It can even be said to rival or in some cases, and I'm talking to you Schumacher, far surpass the live-action films that have been made.

During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, gangster Chuckie Sol (Dick Miller) is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure shortly after Batman (Kevin Conroy) bursts in on the meeting. Batman is blamed for the death. Councilman Arthur Reeves (Hart Bochner) tells the media that Batman is an irresponsible menace, then attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego. Reeves jokingly taunts Bruce for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), to get away. In a flashback to Bruce's college days, we see him meet Andrea in a cemetery while visiting his parents' grave. Bruce has vowed to avenge his parents' murder by dedicating his life to fighting crime. He dons a mask and black ninja-styled outfit and foils an armored car robbery, but is discouraged that the criminals do not fear him. Around the same time, he begins a romance with Andrea. Eventually, Bruce decides to quit his plan on becoming a crime-fighter and proposes marriage to Andrea. However, Andrea mysteriously leaves Gotham with her father, ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John letter. Believing that he has lost his only chance of having a normal life, Bruce officially dons the cape and cowl and the moniker of Batman. In the present, the killer finds and kills another gangster, Buzz Bronski (John P. Ryan). Batman discovers evidence linking Andrea's father with a number of organized crime figures. The killer later targets Salvatore Valestra (Abe Vigoda), the mob boss for whom both Sol and Bronski once worked as enforcers, but is beaten to the punch by the Joker (Mark Hamill), whom Valestra had foolishly consulted for help; Batman is blamed again and has a close call with the police after a brief confrontation with the killer. Rescuing Batman in her car, Andrea explains that she and her father had been hiding in Europe, from the Valestra mob, to whom he owed a lot of money. Carl Beaumont (Stacey Keach) eventually repaid them, but that did not satisfy them. Batman believes that Andrea's father may be the killer vigilante

Some might think me a bit biased. Batman is my favorite comic book character. I am biased in the sense that I am likely to be far more critical of adaptations of Batman than I am with Superman or The Green Lantern just to name a couple. It's easy to screw up the source material however this film manages, with its dark backgrounds and gothic layout, to do the material justice while still being able to hold you in what ends up being quite a tragic and powerful film. The simplest and most central theme in the film is loss. This can be a difficult theme to pull off without feeling superficial or heavy-handed. It's a very fine line and the filmmakers walk that line beautifully and have perfect balance.

The voice-acting in the film is as close to perfect as is to be expected in I grew up watching the Batman cartoon every day after school and hearing Kevin Conroy's voice alongside the drawings of Batman. To me, and a lot of others, there is no other Batman besides him. He takes Batman to dark, deep and powerful place. By contrast his work as Bruce shows the idea of a character who wants to have happiness but can't feel it so he puts on a phony façade. Dana Delany in particular brings a reality to Andrea that is at times heartbreaking. The good Batman films and television episodes embrace the tragedy of its characters. That's what sets Batman apart from other comic book characters. Pathos with a small underpinning of hope.

★★★1/2

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2003) Review

I'm sure most of you had to have seen this coming. So the question we have to ask ourselves today is, why am I reviewing this so long after I first hated it? Everyone else loved it. I'm writing this review to try to convince those people that it is a stupid film targeted at stupid moviegoers. You see, the point is not to avoid stupid movies but we must avoid being stupid audience members. I am all for goofy, campy humor but that's only when it is done well. George of the Jungle and Wayne's World are examples of silliness at its best. Those films are whimsical and damned funny. The film I am reviewing today is neither whimsical nor funny. Deal with it.

Anchorman is set during the 1970s and stars Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy, San Diego's top-rated news anchorman. Burgundy is outwardly willing to adjust to the idea of females in the workplace although he doesn't want his job challenged. Due to that it's no surprise that when an aspiring female anchor named Veronica (Christina Applegate) shows up she is not the studio's most welcome addition. After Veronica pays her dues covering so-called female-oriented fluff pieces (think cat fashion shows and cooking segments), the ambitious Veronica sets her eyes on the news desk; more specifically, on Ron's seat behind it. Not unpredictably, Ron does not take this intrusion lightly and so the two rivals engage in a battle of the sexes for a chair.

Here's a summary of every joke in the movie: Not funny. You know when you tell someone to shut up and all they say is, "You shut up." Those kind of childish insults plague the movie. It's essentially an hour and a half of back and forth insults and dialogue designed for stupid characters that doesn't really go anywhere. Lines like, "You smell like a blueberry" and "Where'd you get your clothes? The toilet store?" leave me wondering, "is that meant to be funny?" The only answer I can come up with is that the shooting script had to be the first draft. The attempts at satirizing sexist workplaces and news stations in the 1970's are so desperate for laughs that it's almost tragic.

IMDB lists the runtime of the film as ninety-four minutes. You know what I did like about this movie? That it wasn't ninety-five.

½ ★

 

The Muppets (2011) Review

The Muppets are a part of my childhood. They've been around so long that they span more than just one generation. However in recent years they have become less relevant than they were prior to the CGI-ridden 3D slop that tends to inhabit theaters. The last theatrical Muppet film, the overall disappointing Muppets From Space, was twelve years ago. Now with The Muppets well, the Muppets are back to where they fit best in a world of ridiculous jokes, off the wall situations and bears telling bad puns.

Walter (performed by Peter Linz) is a puppet who loves The Muppet Show and dreams of nothing more than meeting the characters. He and his human brother Gary (Jason Segal) travel with Gary's girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams) to Los Angeles to visit the Muppet Studios. They get there and find it in serious need of repair. Apparently even though Beauregard has been sweeping for X years the place is a mess. Enter our villain. Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is an oil man who knows that there is oil beneath the studio. He plans to own the studio and theater so he can destroy them and drill. Walter learns of this and he, Gary and Mary decide to reunite the Muppets to put on one last show in order to save their theater.

There are so many great moments in The Muppets that I can't possibly list them all but among my personal favorites are how Rowlf ended up being convinced to be reunited, Animal in anger management and the entire Muppet Show cast singing a new version of "Rainbow Connection". Writer and co-star Jason Segal is a self-professed Muppet fanatic and so The Muppets plays like a love letter to the characters and their brand of humor. That's what allows the film to be so great. The songs are an additional boost to the franchise but then again Muppet songs have always been wonderful.

Where would any review of a Muppet movie be without mentioning the brilliance of the Muppeteers. Steve Whitmire (Kermit, Beaker, Statler, Rizzo, The Newsman, Link Hogthrob), Dave Goelz (Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Zoot, Beauregard, Waldorf, Kermoot) and Eric Jacobson (Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam Eagle, Marvin Suggs, Animal) are all the top performers in the film. It's not easy to push a performance out through your hand and make the audience believe that what they are seeing are real, living, breathing things even though I know the performers don't see them that way.

To give you an idea of how wonderful the film was, I have only been to four films that were met with applause at the end. This is the fourth film.

I must set aside a spot on "My Ten Favorite Films of 2011" list. Don't know where yet but I can promise it will be on there.

★★★★

Puss In Boots (2011) Review

Spin-off films (or anything spin-off) are usually not good. I had concerns for this film since it was first announced as a direct-to-dvd several years ago. My concern was more that Puss might not be a strong enough character to carry an entire film without Eddie Murphy or Mike Myers.

Set during what I assume is the same time period of the first Shrek film. Okay, maybe that's too much to assume. It all happens before Puss tells Shrek and Donkey to fear him if they dare. In this film Puss (Antonio Banderas) is still a bandit. He hears talk of the legend of the gold-laying goose. Attempting to steal magic beans from Jack and Jill (yep those ones that fell down the hill), Puss meets another feisty female cat named Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and as a result is reunited with his "brother" Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis). They travel into the sky and steal the goose and Puss saves the day.

Some of the funniest moments in the film are where we see Puss act like a cat. Lapping up a shot glass of milk or chasing a small ball of light were two of my favorites. The animation itself is beautiful in particular when Mr. In Boots and Ms. Softpaws have a dance fight. There are so many wonderful little spaghetti western homages in the film but I got the feeling that, in a theater of around forty people, I was only one of two-ish who got those. I wish I could help those people learn more.

The majority of my criticism for the film lies with the character of Humpty Dumpty. Well, maybe not so much with the character but rather with Galifianikis. His take on the character is to do what all the king's horses and all the king's men did with the character. Nothing. The film itself is lacking during his far too often screen time. That's right Dreamworks. Dumpty fell off the wall and brought the film down.

★★★

Raven Reviews’ Rating System

This is for the voracious readers of my blog and even the casual observer (read it more). You may have noticed that at the end of every review I list the number of stars I give a film. Why do I do this and what does each star mean? Well, officially I do the star system because I hate assigning a grade (A, B, F, C-) for a movie. Now what are my criteria?

Generally, if I give a film four stars (such as Rio, Kill Bill Vol. 1) it means that I have no negative criticism for it or, if I do have negative criticism it is so minimal that it doesn't detract from my love of the rest of the film. On the flip side if I give a film zero stars (The Hottie and The Nottie, Freddy Got Fingered, Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter) it means I have nothing but criticism for it. Either I find the subject matter approached in deplorable manner or just hate the film. Rarely do I hate a film enough to warrant zero stars and even more rare is a "No Star Rating". My reasons for this are more often because I just couldn't make it through the whole film (remember when I reviewed Hangover Part II?) or the star system is unsuited for something as was the case for The Gingerdead Man. That hardly was a movie at all so I guess it doesn't matter if it was worth zero stars or I just wanted to not assign a rating. This is important: A zero stars is not the same thing as a no star rating.

This is about how it breaks down:



Zero Stars

This means I hated everything about the movie

½ ★

This means I only found a ridiculous redeeming quality like the font used for the credits

★

This means that there is something that really turns me off to the rest of it (case in point, the gloomy and gray animation in Once Upon A Forest)

★1/2

Overall not really watchable but features at least one or two things I did like.

★★

Movies I probably would only watch again if I was really bored.

★★1/2

This means that only one or two things are of special significance and near perfect (Like Javier Bardem's performance in Biutiful) but are surrounded by basic slop (like everything else in Biutiful)

★★★

This one is kind of tough to explain. The ratio is rather reversed from two and a half stars

★★★1/2

Sometimes it is something seemingly small that drops a four star film to this rating like the last shot in Thelma and Louise.

★★★★

Every once in a while I am pleasantly surprised and my rating reflects that (Our Idiot Brother). Usually this is reserved for films that are, just like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.



Above all I must warn that the purpose of the stars should not be taken out of context of the review itself. You can't compare two completely different reviews and say that only the stars matter.

This post is dedicated by My Idiot Father who for whatever reason doesn't get my system.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

The film could be judged to be one of the best sequels in recent years but it's really not a sequel anyway. So I won't say that. I don't believe it be quite the masterpiece that the Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is but it is a great film nonetheless.

Vol. 2 picks up almost exactly where Vol. 1 left off. The Bride (Uma Thurman), having killed O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Greene has only three more people to take revenge on. They are Bill's younger brother Budd (Michael Madsen), his latest flame Elle (Daryl Hannah) and Bill himself (David Carradine).

Like I said in my review for Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino is a master at genres. This film is more spaghetti western than kung fu but there is nothing wrong with that. Tarantino's dialogue has never been better than in the final act of the film. The last twenty minutes or so feature some of the best read/written dialogue I've seen in a film. David Carradine has a fifteen minute monologue where he explains his position and why he did what he did to The Bride. Instead of simply saying, "You made me feel bad" he goes into rather fluid analogy connecting Superman to the life of an assassin.

We don't get an extended fight between the Bride and Bill like we did with O-Ren in the first film. Frankly I didn't need it. His death in the film (I'm not responsible for that spoiler since it's in the title) is handled tragically and is incredibly sad which one would not expect given the build-up to the last twenty minutes. David Carradine showcases some great character work in this film and I would have loved it if he recieved an Oscar nomination (Golden Globes suck) for his work.

Now I feel I must explain the reason for not giving the film four stars like I did with Kill Bill: Vol 1. Admittedly it's because I just liked the first more. Not because this one isn't as good but since I know I enjoyed the first more I cannot in good conscience give them both the same rating. I'm almost half-tempted to use three stars and three quarters of a star for it but alas I fear change.

★★★1/2

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) Review

This movie isn't so much a sequel (like the title would suggest) as a prequel. It's an inferior film that, considering how much I liked the first Paranormal Activity, was a major disappointment.
Daniel Rey (Brian Boland) and his wife Kristi (Sprague Grayden) have just brought home their infant son, Hunter. They live in a large house with Daniel's daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim), their nanny Martine (Vivis Colombetti) and their German Shephard Abby. As it turns out Kristi is the sister of Kathie who you might remember as the victim of a haunting in the first film. Both Kathie and her boyfriend Micah make several appearences in the film. One night the Reys return home to find their entire house vandalized. Furniture is thrown across the floor, the television is smashed etc. Assuming they are the victims of a break-in (interestingly there was nothing stolen and no signs of forced entry) the Reys set up video survellience cameras around their house. As the cameras record strange things happening night after night Ali, after a extensive amount of research on the internet, assumes that their is a demonic entity in the house that is after Hunter. Bet you wouldn't have been able to guess that she's right.

Like I said this was a major disappointment. Basically this how almost all the events transpire. Nothing happens, nothing happens, loud bang, nothing happens, nothing happens, louder bang, nothing happens, things move around by themselves, nothing happens, demon attacks and it's over. The subtleties and illusions utilized so well in the first film have, for some strange reason, been replaced by cheap jump scares. For those who are unfamiliar with jump scares allow me to elaborate. Often there will be silence which is suddenly interrupted by a loud noise or fast action with a sharp musical chord. If you have ever been sitting in a room by yourself with your attention on something interesting and someone comes in to the room and causes your shoulders to leap up suddenly in brief terror. Well, you have been jump scared.

A major issue is the camera angles which are all too far away or too fuzzy to really see the characters faces when they are scared. As a side effect of that we are not scared because we cannot empathize with them. The characters are like faceless mannequins so who cares about their plight? I certainly don't and I really don't think you will either.

★

Boondock Saints (1999) Review

Nearly everyone I've spoken to about this film says things such as "It's incredible" and "You'll love it!" and the like. What I got upon viewing is a film that I didn't love nor hate, in the strictest sense.

Fraternal twins Connor and Murphy Mcmanus (Sean Patrick Flannery, Norman Reedus) are two Irish-born Catholics who live and work in Boston. After they kill two Russian thugs in self-defense and being released as heroes they decide that it is their mission from God to rid the world of evil men. Risking their lives for their beliefs of Veritas (truth) and Aequitas (justice), the Boondock Saints are hyped by the public, for they are doing good, which only few dare to admit. Even FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe), who is assigned to follow their trail of bloodshed, admits that what Connor and Murphy are doing is what he has always wanted to happen. The boys are joined by their friend and former mob "package boy" David "The Funnyman" Della Rocco (David Della Rocco) as they slowly work their way through the underworld killing men they judge to be evil. No vigilante story can be complete without the bad guys hiring a perfect killer who's only known in the film as Il Duce (Billy Connolly).

Possibly the only good things in the film are the strong performances by Dafoe and Connolly who both manage to make the most of their limited screen time. By contrast Flannery and Reedus stay oddly wooden in their readings.

The film itself seems more interested in finding interesting or original ways to stage the executions of the villains instead of presenting the internal choices made by the main characters to choose vigilantism. Sloppy editing of action sequences leave me wanting more. I've been told that the original cut received an NC-17 rating after the Columbine massacre but the chaotic editing to gain an R makes you realize that all the other aspects of the film are just as poor. That feeling runs from the direction by Troy Duffy to the Tarantino-wannabe dialogue (also by Duffy) to the hammed up role of Rocco. All the way up until we get to the miscasting of Ron Jeremy as a mafia underboss.

Who knows? Maybe I really did hate it.

★1/2

La Belle et la Bête (1946) Review

One of the best French films in existence, La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast), begins in the home of a half-ruined merchant (Marcel André). The merchant, whose name is never mentioned, has four grown children. Three daughters and a son named Ludovic (Michel Auclair). His first two daughters, Adélaïde (Nane Germon) and Félicie (Mila Parély), are superficial, selfish and spoiled. They exploit the third daughter, Belle (Josette Day) as a servant and squander every cent their father makes on themselves so that they can be beautiful and sophisticated. Ludovic despises both Adélaïde and Félicie but is highly protective of Belle, particularly from the advances of his scoundrel friend Avenant (Jean Marais). One day the merchant leaves on a business trip. Before he goes he asks each of his daughters what he can bring them as a present. Adélaïde and Félicie naturally ask for lavish gifts while Belle asks for only a single rose. On his way home the merchant gets lost in the forest. He comes across a castle and enters to seek accommodations. No one appears to own the castle and the merchant sleeps well. The next morning the merchant sees a rose bush and, remembering his promise to Belle, he picks a single rose.

Out of the shadows steps the Beast (also played by Jean Marais) who demands retribution for the loss of his precious rose after he allowed the merchant to stay in his home. The merchant begs to see his family one last time and the Beast gives him a choice. Either he must return and stay in the Beast's castle forever or one of his daughters must take his place. As she feels she is the cause of her father's predicament, Belle sacrifices herself to the Beast. Upon arriving at the castle, Belle finds that the Beast, whose grotesqueness she cannot deny, does not want to kill her, but wants to marry her and lavish her with riches. He does not force her, but he will ask her every night to marry him, these times the only ones when he will appear to her. She vows never to say yes. As Belle resigns herself to her mortal fate and looks deeper into the Beast - whose grotesque exterior masks a kind but tortured soul her thoughts begin to change. Meanwhile, Belle's family, who learn of her situation, have their own thoughts of what to do, some working toward what they believe is Belle's best welfare, and others working toward their own benefit.

The original story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont is essentially a story about two characters having dinner. Writer/Director Jean Cocteau manages to flesh out something with less than six-thousand words into a film of near perfection. It's a picture that does not age. Every time I watch the film I see something new. Purely poetic, fantastical and translucent. The film is not hindered by my inability to speak French. The Beast, in all his incarnations, is one of the most tragic heroes in literature. Jean Marais and Jean Cocteau give him an elegance that is absolutely mesmerizing. His appearance has an odd similarity to animal-human creatures from the Universal legacy. Cocteau decides to play up the Beast's eyes so that we are not only sympathetic to his plight but also empathetic. Jean Marais plays a total of three roles in the film but it is his interpretation of The Beast that is his best role and has only been matched by Robby Benson's.

★★★★

Keeper of the Flame (1942) Review

1942-1946 was an irregular time in Hollywood. The US was engulfed by World War II and Hollywood was forced to support the war effort by creating more or less propaganda pictures. Perhaps the audiences wanted a way to escape the realities of the war so the Three Little Pigs took on Adolf Wolf in the Tex Avery short Wolf Blitz and Batman was fighting to stop a Japanese criminal mastermind in the cliffhanger series. Oddly enough this era also produced some of the best films ever made. Keeper of the Flame is no exception.

As the second of nine films that Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made together Keeper of the Flame begins with a car racing down a storm-trodden road. The car, driven by someone we don't see, careens of a broken bridge and crashes into a ravine. The killed driver we learn is Robert Forrest. He's somewhat of a hero among the American people. He spends the majority of his time speaking out against fascism in Germany and giving hope through rousing speeches and essays. The entire country mourns his death like they would a president. Newspaperman Steven O'Malley (Tracy) is motivated to write a biography on Forrest. First though he must get through to Forrest's widow Christine (Hepburn) who has become a recluse following her husband's death. As Steven probes the story of Robert's life, with the help of a lead secretary named Clive Kerndon (Richard Whorf), he finds that not all about Robert was as it seemed and his death may have not been an accident.

You won't ever see me say that Katharine Hepburn gives a bad performance because, quite frankly, one does not exist. Her role as Christine is one of her best. We don't see Christine until nearly a quarter into the film so we wonder who she is or what she feels. There's no dialogue when she first appears. A lesser actress would have required a long speech to convey what Hepburn does in very few facial expressions. Spencer Tracy is equally brilliant in the film and has a remarkable ability to create a fully realized character based on Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay.

The story is one of the best mysteries that Hollywood has put out. Until the last ten minutes we wonder what the truth is. We know that there is a secret that Christine and Clive are keeping from Steven but are not sure what and we naturally attempt to come to our own conclusions. Was he having an affair? Where was he going when he crashed his car? The whole film has a wonderful atmosphere surrounding it. It's a film that is horribly overlooked by so many people today.

★★★★

50/50 (2011) Review

Every few years Hollywood churns out a film about terminal illness. Most of all of them have one or more moments in the film where they nudge the audience saying, "Are you feeling emotional yet?" instead of hoping you do. Terms of Endearment, Beaches and the like are all guilty of this severe turn-off. 50/50 is not. What you get is a film that doesn't focus on the dark sides of an ailment. It's not an overly dramatic film nor is it an overly funny sitcom.

Adam Schwartz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is by all accounts a good guy. He's 27 years old, has a beautiful artist girlfriend named Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and works as a writer of radio programs in Seattle with his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) who messes up Adam's life in more ways than one. Suffering from back pain Adam decides to get checked out. It turns out he has a rare form of spinal cancer which he has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving before Metastasis (after that his chances are less than ten percent). Left with no other options Adam begins chemotherapy and starts seeing a 26-year-old medical student/therapist named Katherine (Anna Kendrick). With the support of Katherine, Kyle and his overprotective mother (Angelica Huston), Adam manages to come to terms with his illness and starts to appreciate his life more, especially the things he previously took for granted.

Gordon-Levitt gives a particularly transparent performance that runs a great, wide range of emotions. At some points he is laughing with two other chemo patients and at other times silently contemplating his current situation and, in one particularly perfect scene, screaming at the top of his lungs and punching a dashboard. Here Rogen is quite good as well but is somewhat type cast into his role. I'd love to see him do a serious drama. Anna Kendrick's performance is a bit underdone but it's possible that she isn't given much to do with her role besides being the therapist.

It's not a "laugh-out loud" film but is actually quite dramatic with a lot of humorous dialogue, mostly from Rogen, thrown in. I get the feeling that the film was terribly marketed for what it really is. Don't misunderstand that. I'm not saying it isn't funny. It did have me laughing enough to be satisfied but, much like Woman of the Year, I see it as tragic above funny.

Good performances and (thankfully) few dirty jokes help to flesh out a poorly marketed film.

★★★1/2

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

Quentin Tarantino is a film geek (not unlike yours truly) who is massively influenced by the films he has seen and is a master at mixing those influences coherently. Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a perfect example of this. Additionally Tarantino is a master at non-linear storytelling. In this case we start at the beginning and move into the end of the story and Tarantino, as he did with Pulp Fiction, manages to tie everything together by the end through his near-perfect writing. He frequently places "Macguffins" (something that the audience finds inconsequential until much later on) that help to reinforce the need to pay attention.

The film centers around a woman known only as The Bride (Uma Thurman) who, four years after being shot in the head at her wedding, awakens from a coma and decides it's time for a little, or a lot, of payback. Having been gunned down by her former boss (David Carradine) and his squad of deadly international assassins (Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu) she goes on a quest to exact her revenge and much like any movie about that subject the quest is messy. Lots of "innocent" people die along the way because unfortunately that's the story of revenge. It never works out quite the way the avenger wants it to.

The violence in the film is extensive. A lot of it is so immensely over the top that it borders on camp. I am reminded of Peter Jackson's Dead Alive simply because of the massive amount of blood. A lot of people ask how I can give this film a pass and hate the violence in a film like Kick-Ass. The answer is simple. The violence in this film is not gruesome or unpleasant. The fight scenes in this film are highly choreographed and interesting to view just from a stylistic standpoint.

The film is well-written and carries with a sense of style that was evidently influenced by the Martial Arts films of the seventies and eighties.

It's refreshing to see a woman in a role that is so often reserved for men and Uma Thurman is immensely perfect in the film. I'm not sure if women will be empowered by a character that is a female warrior and not simply just the girl walking around tee-heeing about stupid things but who knows?

★★★★

Our Idiot Brother (2011) Review

The title of this movie is misleading. One would expect a raunchy film about an infantile slob who goes to live with his family and wreaks havoc on them with his stupidity. In reality it is a rather bittersweet film about a laid back kind-hearted man named Ned (Paul Rudd) who, after selling marijuana to a uniformed police officer, lands in jail. He is released early eight months later (named model prisoner four months in a row) and due to his pacifist girlfriend kicking him out has to go live with his sisters. Each of the sisters has a problem that they tell Ned about expecting him to keep it a secret. Liz (Emily Mortimer) is a highly conservative mom married to a weasel of a filmmaker (Steve Coogan); Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) is an ambitious writer who hopes to work for Vanity Fair magazine, and Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) may be a lesbian but isn't sure if she wants to move in with another woman. I won't go into what each of the sisters respective problems are suffice it to say that the majority of them are their own doing. Ned tells all the wrong people but that's not for malicious reasons. It's because he simply assumed that everyone knew what was going on. One by one the sisters start to hate Ned because he is "ruining their lives".

One of the things that I liked most about the film was how nice it was to watch. Ned is almost a saint and is so friendly to everyone he meets. He has an almost constant smile and nearly never loses his temper. There is only one scene where he does and it is quite a well-done scene and completely justified. It was refreshing to see a character that isn't cynical or paranoid that people will betray him. He is an idiot in the sense that he is wholly honest and trusting. Why did he sell that officer the weed? Because the cop told him he had a bad week. Ned didn't even want to accept money for it.

Due to his roles in other films like Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin I expected to be annoyed with Paul Rudd's performance and instead was pleasantly surprised at the great range he exudes in the film. He truly did a good job here and I wish that I could be like Ned.

Perhaps the film is not worth the rating I'm giving it but since it is a nugget of nimble wit and intelligent humor in an era of unfunny gag comedies I am regarding it rather highly.

★★★★

Straw Dogs (2011) Review

In the wake of her father's death, Amy (Kate Bosworth) returns to her rural Southern hometown with her screenwriter husband, David (James Marsden). Her goal is to put her childhood home on the market while David works on his latest screenplay. Meanwhile, David hires Amy's high school boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård) and his crew to rebuild the roof on the secluded country home. But the more time Charlie's work crew spends working on the roof, the greater tensions begin to grow between Amy and David. Every time Amy walks outside, the work stops and the ogling begins. When David attempts to avert confrontation by firing the crew before the job is finished, former high school football star Charlie snaps, deciding that if he can't have Amy on his own terms, he'll take her by force. Later, when a mentally disabled presumed rapist or child murderer kills a high school student her father, only called Coach (James Woods) swears revenge and Charlie and his crew decide to help. Amy and David take in the murderer to protect his life from the angry mob and all hell breaks loose as Charlie and company break into their house.

One of the many things I could say about this film is that it is a tense, well-structured thriller that doesn't need to rely on exorbitant amounts of constant violence to be effective. Don't get me wrong. The film is very violent but much of that is in the last fifteen minutes and if you look closely a large portion happens off-screen and in shadow rather than harsh fluorescent light. What you do see is so quick that, if you blink you might miss it. One of the more disturbing scenes is a scene in which Amy is raped by Charlie and his "second-in-command" Norm. It is disturbing in the sense that it is rape but there are the same types of scenes in other films I could name that are more uncomfortable to watch. I was more moved by the intimidating performance by Skarsgård and the frightening work done by Woods than any other roles in the film. When Charlie chastises David for leaving a church sermon early I nearly said, "Yes sir". Woods has portrayed some fairly evil characters in the past but this is by far the scariest one.

On a completely separate note when I saw the film the reels were mixed up which led to me being removed from the feelings I was having during the intense moments in the house and put into events several hours earlier. If they had been in the proper order I would have enjoyed the film more. Sure it's not as good as the 1971 original but I prefer to look at this as its own film unlike some critics.

★★★

American History X (1998) Review

Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), the charismatic leader of a group of young neo-Nazi white supremacists, lands in prison for a brutal hate-driven murder. Upon his release he is ashamed of his past and pledges to reform himself. Derek realizes that his younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) is headed for a similar fate and so Derek attempts to save his brother from the teachings of a manipulative white supremacist (Stacey Keach) who also was the one who convinced Derek of his pre-prison beliefs after his father was murdered by a black man. I refuse to give away what happens to Derek in prison that makes him change because it is such a powerfully disturbing moment but not excessive.

Derek is a character of many multiple dimensions. During the black and white flashbacks we see a man consumed by rage and hate and when the film transitions to color for the present day events we see a more reserved although by no means timid version of Derek. Edward Norton plays both these with a scorching intensity that is perfection in its complexities. We believe that the character would transition the way he does. There is no moment of insincerity in Derek's attempts to change.

There is quite a bit of racist language in the film. It pulls no punches with showing the film through white supremacist's eyes. One scene in particular drives this home. There is a basketball game between Derek, his fellow neo-Nazis and a group of black teenagers. Derek manages to make the game winning shot and we get the general "hero" theme as the white characters celebrate their victory. We don't know anything about the black characters they played against, who they are as people, because neither does Derek. He has no desire to. With all these trappings (the music, the "hero" shots, a strong charismatic character) it can be hard not to root for him on a visceral level. There is, at the same time, a lot of irony in this scene. The successes are not borne out of joy but out of hate. The film is extensively subtle in the way it teaches the lessons it does and is, without giving spoilers, a heartbreaking picture.

★★★★

Conan the Barbarian (2011) Review

Conan the Barbarian is a movie of contrivance and convenience. I went into the film with low expectations and lower hopes and somehow still managed to be dissatisfied.

Conan (Jason Mamoa) is basically your average slaughtering hero. He's tall, muscular and sports a rather camera-friendly scars. He is a "battle-born" (meaning his father performed an emergency Caesarean section on the battlefield) Cimmerian whose entire village was slaughtered, including his father (Ron Perlman), by a power-hungry warlord named Khaler Zym (Stephen Lang) and his daughter (Rose McGowan). Conan grows up and becomes a pirate that hunts the earth for Zym. Basically you don't really need to know anything else. Conan goes somewhere, kills a bunch of people, puts his sword in the ground and does it all over again.

The majority of the film is horribly incoherent. Characters are in one place and then suddenly they appear in another with no explanation of how they got there or managed to escape their earlier predicament. All the moments between the action scenes seem to be nothing more than filler before the next battle. While I'm at it, the battles are boring and ridiculous. When a character cuts through that thick leather armor a hundred and twenty eight ounces of blood plop out all at once no matter where the victims are cut. Well, every victim except Conan. . Oh and before I forget, I really want to be a warlord. They apparently get a really good dental plan.

One of the more out-of-place roles is Morgan Freeman as the narrator. His voice, while pleasant, just doesn't fit. It's the first thing you hear in the film and immediately takes you out of the film thereby forcing you to be uninvolved by everything that follows. The only saving grace for the movie is Ron Perlman but he's always interesting to watch.

Broadswords go a long way with me. Just not far enough.

★

The Reef (2010) Review

People tend to have a great apprehension of the ocean. The fear of the unknown or of what we can't see is far more substantial then what's right in front of us. The Reef is a film that exploits that fear in ways that are at times thrilling and tense and at other times stupid and boring.

Supposedly based on actual events (the only similar events I could find were from a man named Ray Boundy who was the sole survivor of an incident in 1983) The Reef is about a group of five friends who go sailing/snorkeling/fishing along the Great Barrier Reef. From one dull moment to another we follow them on a standard beautiful-people-in-beautiful-locations adventure. The group's small sailboat capsizes after colliding with the reef and four of them decide to take their chances and swim for a (hopefully) nearby island. Along their way there they begin to be stalked by a Great White Shark.

The film is written and directed by Andrew Traucki. It basically follows the same plot as his previous survival film, Black Water, but substitutes a shark in the place of a crocodile and a boat in the place of a tree. Sometimes in the film he does a good job of creating tension by extending the time before the characters either see the shark they know is there or before the shark attacks but once the shark does attack it turns into a jump-scare fest. He'd been better off focusing on the pressure that the characters have from being tired, dehydrated and traumatized by the death of their friends one by one.

The film ends right where it should have begun. The sole survivor makes it to a rock and we get the usual "So-and-so was found three days later. The other guy who stayed behind wasn't found". Something that would have been far more original and interesting is after she is found she recounts her ordeal in flashbacks. Then we could have seen how it might have affected her but instead we are simply left with a moment we've seen five hundred billion times before.
★1/2

Jurassic Park (1993) Review

Nearly twenty years before Jurassic Park was first released Steven Spielberg made Jaws. That film was a masterpiece. A stunning success measured by the overall failure of shark attack films since. The same is true of this film. In the hands of another filmmaker this could turn into your standard Saturday monster matinee but Spielberg's mastery of science-fiction and indeed film itself keeps that from happening.

Based upon the novel by Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park imagines a world where Dinosaurs are no longer extinct. On a remote island, a wealthy entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough) secretly creates a theme park featuring living Dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening the attraction to the public, he invites a top paleontologist (Sam Neill), a paleobotanist (Laura Dern), a mathematician/theorist (Jeff Goldblum), and his two eager grandchildren (Joseph Mazzello, Arianna Richards) to experience the park -- and help calm anxious investors. A money-hungry computer technician (Wayne Knight) tries to steal the Dinosaur embryos and forces systems all over the park to shut down causing the prehistoric creatures to break out who then wreak havoc.

Not only is it a visually brilliant film but it also is incredibly nice to listen to. I know what you're thinking. The screeching Dilophosaurus is nice to listen to? Trust me. If you were only listening to the film as it plays in your living room while you are in the kitchen it would still be exquisite. There is a nice blending to all the sounds in the film. The real stars of the film are the Dinosaurs. This is due to the work of Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren, Stan Winston and Michael Lantieri. Each of these men are vital to the effects being able to succeed. I still watch the film and have to wonder who was responsible for what shots of the Dinosaurs in the film.

The film is still the standard for any live-action film with dinosaurs running around. The phenomenal effects have not aged in the least. Maybe because people aren't used to seeing Dinosaurs so we aren't as quick to criticize but there is no point in denying that when people of think of Dinosaur films they think of Jurassic Park first and foremost. Indeed when someone tries to change the way Dinosaurs move or sound in a film we often reject it.

★★★1/2

Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009) Review

So many documentaries fail to actually do what the genre's name implies. Documentation. The filmmakers bring in their own preconceived notions and political beliefs and disguise them as facts. Waking Sleeping Beauty manages to document the truth in an enormously bittersweet style. A truth that can only be told by the people who were there. The truth was that, although it seemed like a paradise, from 1984-1994 the Disney Animation Studios was a difficult time. Management changes and egos nearly spelled the end of the studio but strangely enough it was also the most successful point in the history of the studio.

One thing I loved was the complete lack of talking heads. What do I mean by that? There is no new footage of people sitting in a chair talking to the camera. It's all archival footage and voiceovers. It's an immensely refreshing alternative style of documentaries. The director, Don Hahn succeeds in what he set out to do. Wonderfully the film is not about him. Besides the narration he appears briefly throughout the film. This is only to show the audience that he was there and is qualified to tell this story. You can tell that it's a very personal film for him.

There is a lot of great archive footage that the filmmakers managed to put together coherently. One of the best moments is a shot of executive Jeffrey Katzenberg waving off interviews on the red carpet premiere of The Lion King following an article that, much to Roy Disney's annoyance, proclaimed Katzenberg the guy who was saving Disney Animation. Another great point is during a game of Jeopardy where a minor revolt at the studio became a category after Peter Schneider decided to change the title of Basil of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective (Someone sent around a fake memo saying all the film titles would be changed).

As a major Disney animation fan who thought he knew a lot about the films and how they were made I was surprised by how much of the reality I didn't know. It was quite nice to see the people involved with that decade shown at times broken and others joyous. This documentary shows the miracle of creation. Certain points of the film are absolutely heartbreaking. One such moment is the discussion of Howard Ashman's death. Don Hahn's narration is brilliant and conveys just the right amount of emotion without being overly sappy.

★★★★

Muppet Treasure Island (1996) Review

Muppet Treasure Island is the best Muppet film to date. It has a perfect mixture of brilliant songs and a, dare I say, exquisite placing of the old characters in new roles and an incomparable performance by Tim Curry. Can you tell I like it yet? Just wait there's more.

Sort of like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island (written by Robert Louis Stevenson) is a book that everyone knows the plot of. Even if they haven't read it. This film follows the same basic storyline with a few surprises. I don't want to accidently give away those surprises so I don't want to tell you which Muppet plays what character suffice it to say that The Great Gonzo and Rizzo The Rat play themselves.

It should come as no surprise the Muppet performers are superb. To a lot of people in the world these are living breathing characters. It's not enough to move the eyes evenly or match the mouth to the words. You have to inhabit the character. Performers like Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire are better than most "real" actors in the world. The best human performance in the film is by Tim Curry who has been given his best role in years and his tactic is to out shine but not upstage the puppets. It's a thin line and he walks it beautifully.

The test of a really good song is one that I am willing to listen to over and over and over again. There is not a song in the film where I say, "glad that's over". Every song in the film is wonderfully written (and ahem massively singable). I can't pick a favorite song because they are all so unique from one another but all of them fit the soundtrack perfectly as a whole.

As I said this picture is the best Muppet film so far. Immensely entertaining and yet so simple and childlike. Jim Henson would be proud.

★★★★

Mulan (1998) Review

Let's face it. In the 1990's the bar on animation had been raised to its peak. With films like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, Mulan had a lot to live up to and it doesn't. It's the weakest of the 90's Disney animated features.

Inspired by an early sixth century poem, Mulan tells the story of a free-spirited Chinese girl of the same name. Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na) is afraid that she will never bring her family honor so she decides to enter the army to battle the Huns lead by the supposedly evil Shan-Yu (Voiced by Miguel Ferrer). It's the only way that she can protect her father, a former soldier, from having to go. She cuts her hair and spends far too much of the film pretending to be a guy. She receives help from a shamed dragon (voiced by Eddie Murphy) who thinks that by helping her he can retake his place as a guardian over Mulan's family. To make a long story short Mulan manages to fight off the Hun army before being discovered.

This picture is really all over the place. There is no clear structure to the story nor does it have very interesting characters. I found Mulan to be rather whiny and selfish. She doesn't go to save her father. Just so she can be someone she likes looking at in the mirror. She's not sure what she really wants and so I don't feel any reason to root for her. Additionally I don't root for the bad guy because the filmmakers never bothered to explore what makes him tick. The only thing we hear is that he's mad about a wall being built.

The biggest issue I have with the film is the songs. There is no subtlety to them. The songwriters were trying to duplicate the Menken/Ashman collaborations so much that what they ended up with are songs that have no consistent form and don't really do anything to help the story or have the characters express what they can only express in song. I can't hum a single one of these songs.

The only thing that hints at a great film is the score. I distinguish the score from the songs as a way to further pan the songs in that they don't fit with the score as composed by one of the greatest composers in film history, Jerry Goldsmith. The animation is nice to look at but with the lack of structure and even less songs that I can get into, the film ends up being bogged down to a murky mess that did at one time have potential.

★★

More of a rant than ever before...

I lament for a time when films were praised based on their quality and not their popularity. Twilight wouldn't be believed to be the "best movies I've ever seen" and more people my age would be aware of Chaplin (who anyone who ever watches a film owes a debt to). Granted there are good films out there but you have to sift through fifteen bins of garbage before you even can find a film of higher quality. The ratio is not good.

All of the horror movies these days are either full of gore, sex, or people getting tortured physically. You know why? Because that's what is popular. That's the type of vulgar, impudent garbage the average filmgoer wants to see. Alfred Hitchcock never had to do that. He understood the subtleties needed for a horror film because he was a genius. Today you have the Eli Roth-like filmmakers who put torture and slashers on the screen and call it art.

Lately I have seen far too many stoner, gross-out comedies being made. They are not funny except to the subintelligent boils of the earth. Most are written as though there was an explosion at a used screenplay factory and then shoddily put together using fruit stripe gum. If you see a film by Mel Brooks you'd know he built jokes up properly. Now all I see are a lot of stupid punchlines

I have high standards. There isn't any way to sugarcoat it nor would I want to if there was a way. Perhaps my high standards are the reason I am so often disappointed. Who knows? Maybe if I didn't hold films to such a high standard I'd have been one of the fools who enjoyed Hangover Part II. That's why I proudly proclaim my standards because I know how great film can be. There is nothing I love more than going to the movies and I am never happier when I get to discuss films that I enjoyed. Therefore when I am not able to do that I am not happy.
So I say to many filmmakers of today, make me happy!

Perhaps this post was a bit mean spirited but, as Peter Finch said in Network, I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Review

In 1968 damned dirty apes didn't take their filthy paws off Charlton Heston and a cultural phenomenon was born. It was an immediate success and spawned four sequels, two television series, a remake and a plethora of merchandise. I'm not going to bring about the differences between remakes and reboots because, let's face it, that's boring and arbitrary. Rise of the Planet of the Apes bears very little resemblance to the original Apes films and still manages to function on its own in a way that is surprisingly fresh and interesting so I decided to treat it as such.

Scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) lives and works in San Francisco. He's working on a chemical compound that is being tested on chimpanzees. This formula not only is increasing brain functionality, but Will thinks it will help his father's Alzheimer's (John Lithgow). When one chimp goes on a rampage during a share holders' meeting the project is forced to stop, Will and his co-worker Robert (Tyler Labine) must put down the test chimps. They soon realize the one chimp didn't have a bad reaction to the drug, but that she had a baby and was protecting her offspring. Will names the young chimp Caesar and takes him home and raises him. Caesar the chimp is showing signs of increased intelligence like his mother had shown. Caesar grows and grows and gets even smarter with Will at home. He's learned sign language and is much more intelligent than any other animal Will has worked with. Will decides to test his formula on his father and his father starts showing positive signs. He tells his boss what he did and the boss wants full research and experimenting done. When an incident takes Caesar away from Will, he must give up his beloved chimp and put him in an animal control center for monkey, chimps and apes. As Caesar finds difficulty to his new environment, he meets an orangutan who also knows sign language and they communicate on how to control things. Caesar soon finds himself the leader of the animals and decides he's had enough of the bad treatment by his human handlers (including Harry Potter's Tom Felton). Caesar is smart enough to come and go as he pleases and is able to get Will's latest chemical compound to increase the other animals' intelligence. Now that the primates are running the asylum, Caesar leads a rebellion. He gathers every ape and chimp there and then breaks into Will's work to free the other captives. As his rebellion grows and he gains more backers from the local zoo, Caesar leads his animal army to San Francisco's famed Golden Gate Bridge where it is animal vs. man for control of the future.

The technical wizards at Weta (would you trust anyone else to create motion capture?) have once again been able to create something rather extraordinary in the CGI. They have managed to mix said CGI and live-action seamlessly. One easily wonders where the human begins and the special effect ends. The apes have weight and happen to move much like they really would. One of the best performances in the film is that of a character that isn't really there. Andy Serkis plays Caesar with such a mesmerizing brilliance that we have to believe in Caesar and, surprisingly root for him to get what he wants by the end of the film even though what he wants is to kinda, sort of take over the world. Sure Caesar is a computer generated character but Serkis still created the basis for him and performed all his movements and were it not for the strict rules excluding computer-created characters from consideration I would expect Serkis to score a Best Supporting Actor Nomination.

The great effects and Serkis' performance don't help any of the human roles from being moderately boring and majorly underwritten, just as an example James Franco is just sort of there to show that not all humans are evil.

Even though some of the things that happen in the film are rather unrealistic (Chimpanzees are not 5'11" when standing upright) I was not bothered by them enough to be turned off the film.

★★★1/2

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) Review

As someone who hasn't ever really been drawn in by the whole Harry Potter craze I am actually delighted to report that I greatly enjoyed this one.

I don't know how to possibly elaborate on the plot beyond what ninety percent of the earth already knows. Certainly all the people who read this blog know the storyline so I'm not going to tell you about the plot. Besides, I just returned from short term disability and am feeling kind lazy so I'm just going to give my review.

The film is a highly satisfying conclusion for both fanatics as well as the casual observer. Every question one might have wondered previously is answered. Especially for the Potter-illiterate individuals like myself who haven't read the books. So for all six of you out there don't worry it makes sense. One of my biggest criticisms for the first part of the finale was that there was too much that I had to have explained by an expert. Anyway there are many good things about the film and, regrettably one bad thing. The best thing is the performance by Alan Rickman. As Severus Snape he is powerful, complex and most of all captivating. I found myself completely drawn in and moved by his performance in a way I did not expect. His first scene features him atop a tower looking out at the landscape. Talk about a face saying a thousand words. In that one shot everything about his character makes sense. This is furthered later on when we see a long montage covering events in the last seven films. This sequence is not as drawn out as it could have been but lingers just the right amount of time in the film.

There are other great things like the final battle between the good guys and the bad guys. I'm not sure what those magic beams were made of but they do look incredibly painful and the film was not unnecessarily loud or overrun with over the top visual effects. Michael Bay should take notes on how it's done.

My earlier statement about the one bad thing does not happen until the end. After the climax of the film we fade to black and then see a title saying "19 Years Later". All the kids are now in their thirties and have their own kids who they are sending off to school. This epilogue could have been axed and I would be able to give the film four stars but it's there and I can't. Everyone ends up with who you'd expect and have 1-3 children. This Disneyish-everybody-gets-what-they-wish-for-happy-ending cheapens the whole thing for me. It completely feels tacked on and in my opinion, insults the audience. I've been told that it's in the book but that doesn't mean it had to be in the movie. I would have been happy without it.

Still I am overall praising the film's brilliant use of sets, costumes, special effects and in particular Alan Rickman's performance.

★★★1/2

 

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Review

Easily one of the most spectacularly crafted films of the nineties and unfortunately it is also one of the most overlooked and underrated.

British and French troops do battle in colonial America, with aid from various native American war parties. The British troops enlist the help of local colonial militia men, who are reluctant to leave their homes undefended. A budding romance between a British officer's daughter and an independent man who was reared as a Mohican complicates things for the British officer, as the adopted Mohican pursues his own agenda despite the wrath of different people on both sides of the conflict

The final sequence is possibly one of the greatest climaxes in film history. There is no dialogue during the final battle. Only a strongly composed musical score. Even the final dialogue atop the mountain by Russell Means is phenomenal. We see in his face the end of his people and believe it. Additionally there is the brilliant cinematography and gorgeous untamed landscape that is consistently seen in the film.

Director Michael Mann has managed something quite extraordinary in that he was able to make a version of James Fenimore Cooper's novel that is equal to the 1936 version starring Randolph Scott, if not able to surpass it.

There aren't enough adjectives in any thesaurus or dictionary to describe my love of this picture. Fantastic, beautiful, unbelievable, exquisite, perfection all come to mind in addition to ones that I don't even have enough time to list. The Last of the Mohicans is largely one of the major reasons I want my life to be in film. It is one of the first films I was aware of and remains after all these years to be one of my absolute favorite films.

★★★★

Super 8 (2011) Review

I'm a very big fan of Steven Spielberg as well as Roger Corman, George A. Romero and those old 1950s sci-fi cheese fests. Super 8 plays like a tribute to all of that with even a little bit of The Goonies thrown in.

The year is 1979 and a group of junior high age kids are making a movie about zombies using a Super 8 camera and their own homemade makeup and production value. One night while filming a scene by a railroad track they witness a pickup truck crash into a train. The train derails nearly killing all of the kids and allows something to escape from one of the cars. The kids start to notice strange things happening in their hometown. Dogs and people disappear, the government takes over patrolling the town, there is several occurrences of unexplained destruction. They start investigating the circumstances and they discover a large government conspiracy and the strong possibility of an extra-terrestrial life.

When you have a film like this there is one thing required of the parents. That's for them to fade into the background. In this film the focus is mostly on the kids as it should be because they are by far the most interesting characters. The whole picture is an example of a great film being made without overloading the audience with CGI effects or loud noises. I suggest Michael Bay takes some notes on this picture.

There are a lot of unrealistic scenes and aspects in the film. During one scene the kids are filming part of their movie outside a teacher's house. All the military personnel either don't notice them or don't care that they might end up filming sensitive material. Additionally I have been told that the backpacks that the kids carry in the film were not actually. Don't know if that's true since I wasn't alive at that time. Despite those unrealistic components I don't really care. I was interested enough in what was happening in the film to let it go and believe me those criticisms are minor compared to the praise I have for the film.

This is the first real good film of the summer. To use a frequent phrase in the film it's mint.

★★★1/2

Be Kind Rewind (2008) Review

This movie relies on one thing. That every character in it is stupid enough to go along with its premise. Be Kind Rewind tells the unlikely story of a small video store on the verge of collapse, literally. There's only a couple of customers who are willing to get their videos (yes, videos because they have no DVD) from it. The store, named Be Kind Rewind, is run by a single clerk named Mike (Mos Def) and crashed by his idiot paranoid friend Jerry (Jack Black). Jerry is so convinced that the government is controlling his mind by way of the power plant he lives next to, that he attempts to sabotage it. He is of course electrocuted. Instead of dying he is magnetized and inadvertently erases all the videos in the store. Don't ask me if that is really possible. I've never met a magnetic person to ask them. Anyway Mike and Jerry decide to reshoot the entire catalog themselves with an old camera and a budget of about zero dollars. They begin to make more money with their "Sweded" versions of the films (including Ghostbusters, Driving Miss Daisy, Men In Black, The Lion King, Rush Hour 2) then they ever did renting the real ones. "Sweded" means they are more expensive because they have to be imported from Sweden. Sweden actually has a very lax stance on file-sharing and so there is a LOT of piracy in Sweden.

No way could any of this happen in real life but guess what? I don't care because it's all whimsical and whimsy is what writer-director Michael Gondry excels at. Jack Black has rarely even made me smile but his role is the best in the film. One particular moment where he makes up the lyrics to Ghostbusters had me laughing quite a lot. Mos Def on the other hand was a mental strain. He mumbles through the whole film and only emotion is whining. As a cinephile I truly enjoyed the idea behind the film and found myself asking myself how I would remake a smaller version of my favorite movies.

Whether their plan works or not I won't tell you nor will I inform you if Hollywood believes Mike and Jerry's work to fall under piracy or parody but I will say that this was an enjoyable film. I suppose that the people in the area are paying for a twenty minute version of a movie starring their neighbors but I myself don't know my neighbors enough to want to pay a dollar a minute for something that is far below the quality of the original. Maybe I should go knock on their door? Nah.

★★★

Thelma & Louise (1991) Review

What this pictures amounts to brilliance and art. It is quite possibly the greatest road picture ever made. Yes, even better than Easy Rider. Those who might be aware of the fact that Easy Rider is one of my favorite Dennis Hopper films will know that me saying a better road film exists is an accomplishment.

As the film opens we meet Louise (Susan Sarandon), a waitress in a small Arkansas diner. During a lunch rush she takes a smoke break (in the kitchen) and calls her friend whose name is, yep you guessed Thelma (Geena Davis) and makes reference to a weekend trip to a cabin owned by a friend of Louise. Thelma is the polar opposite of Louise. She is married to a moronic hothead rug salesman named Darryl (Christopher McDonald). Thelma is so timid that she decides to wait until Darryl leaves for work, then she leaves him a note and takes his handgun (in case of bears or a serial murderer) and packs up to go on the trip with Louise. Louise herself has a boyfriend named Jimmy (Michael Madsen). He is short-tempered like Darryl but is far more well-meaning. Before Thelma and Louise arrive at their destination Thelma wants to stop at a roadside bar. Although at first unwilling to stop, Louise agrees to after she is reminded that it is also Thelma's vacation. There the pair meets a mysterious man named Harlan (Timothy Carhart) who takes an interest in Thelma and flirts with her all night. They end up in the parking lot of the bar where, after Thelma refuses to have sex with Harlan, he beats her and attempts to rape her. Louise appears brandishing the handgun. Harlan lets Thelma go but not without saying he should have raped Thelma anyway and adding a few more expletives thrown at the two women. Louise shoots and kills him. Based on the evidence against them and lack of physical evidence the two flee. Harlan's body is soon discovered and it doesn't take the police long to suspect Thelma and Louise had something to do with it. The investigation is lead by Hal Slocumb (Harvey Keitel) who immediately is sympathetic to the pair and believes that everything is not quite how it seems. As Thelma and Louise head to Mexico they keep meeting a young hitchhiker named J.D. (Brad Pitt). He turns out to be a thief and takes advantage of Thelma in order to steal the sixty-six hundred dollars given to Louise by Jimmy. Things for the women spiral more and more out of control as they try to escape with their lives. Instead of going directly from Oklahoma through Texas to Mexico the two travel around and end up going Louise insists on not going through Texas. Something happened to her in Texas years earlier that she refuses to talk about. Thelma is able to figure out Louise was raped and received no help from the police. That, we learn, is the reason for her earlier reactions about Thelma and Harlan.

The film has been discussed left and right about its apparent anti-male quality. I have never thought of this film as anti-male. Sorry, I don't relate to Harlan or feel sympathetic to the sleazy truck driver that gets his rig blown up for being a pig. The truth is that Thelma and Louise are not meant to be role models. The shooting of Harlan is the biggest mistake either one of the women could possibly make. Those mistakes continue with holding up a convenience store, trusting J.D. and locking a police officer in the truck of his car. Eventually the two go for a Bonnie and Clyde/Young Guns 2 ending as they drive their Thunderbird off a cliff.

The performances in the film are brilliant. Obviously all the leads are great but I was more moved by the performance given by Christopher McDonald who is unfortunately mostly known for his roles is bad comedies like Happy Gilmore and Flubber. Near the end of the film there is a shot of Darryl who sits at his home staring at the television on the verge of tears. We see on his face the realization of his mistakes and what he has lost. That shot only lasts for about ten seconds but what a shot.

I have one negative criticism for the film and it happens at the last shot. Instead of trusting the audience enough to follow the women's car off the cliff with a more somber score director Ridley Scott opts for a happier freeze with the car in mid-air then fades to white. As the credits role we see some snapshots reprising earlier moments in the film along with a cheesy soundtrack choice by Hans Zimmer. If you pick up the film on DVD take a look at the original ending. It's far superior.

I have enjoyed the films of director Ridley Scott and Geena Davis and Harvey Keitel and Michael Madsen and Susan Sarandon. When you add all that enormous talent you have a fantastic film.

★★★1/2

The Blues Brothers (1980) Review

There was a day when comedies were actually comedic. Only certain films brought the right combination of a great director, cast, and script. In the case of The Blues Brothers you can add a great soundtrack on top of that.

Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) Blues are brothers/musicians who are on a mission from God. That's their code for trying to raise money to save the orphanage they grew up in from foreclosing. After Jake is released from prison, he and Elwood start to bring their old band back together so that they can play a charity show to raise the money. Along the way they are chased by police, Nazis, a country band, a bartender and a mystery woman.

Written by John Landis and Aykroyd and directed by Landis The Blues Brothers is a fun picture that I can't get enough of. Usually I am so irritated by John Belushi that I want to punch him square in the jaw. That's not the case with his role as Jake. He brings his usual loudmouth slob down to a dull roar and if I as a film critic and not a music critic can say, he actually has quite a good singing voice. Aykroyd is Belushi's silent partner and straight man. His facial expression never changes and he never removes his sunglasses (Belushi removes his once) not even when it's 106 miles to Chicago and they have a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes and it's dark. Sorry, I couldn't resist quoting one of my favorite lines.

There's about thirty cameos in the film (the best ones from such musicians as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Cab Calloway among others) and contains about five hundred and eighty-two car crashes (all within about ten minutes of each other). The best way to do cameos is not mention that the person is who they are. That's something that the filmmakers are aware of and play it beautifully.

I highly recommend this picture.

★★★

Keeping Mum (2005) Review

★★★

Here's a wickedly funny movie that you don't have to be British to appreciate. Set in the small English country parish of Little Wallop, Keeping Mum tells the story of a priest named Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson) who is so preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon, that he doesn't realize his wife Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas) is on the verge of having an affair with her golf instructor Lance (Patrick Swayze) and that his seventeen year old daughter is consistently going a number of inappropriate relationships with unsuitable boyfriends and his son is terrified to go to school. This continues until the arrival of a nanny whose supposed name is Grace Hawkins (Maggie Smith). Almost instantaneously Grace becomes a part of the family as she starts tending to their needs and removing those causing problems.

This picture is a black comedy which insists on taking a slightly sinister approach that is enormously refreshing. It doesn't rely on gross out gags and poorly developed characters. Instead it focuses on very sincere actors giving very sincere performances all of them are perfect in their particular roles. Rowan Atkinson has always had a talent for playing massively inept individuals with a certain charm while Patrick Swayze gives, in my opinion, his best performance. He's so sleazy in this picture that you get the feeling that if you touched him you'd catch some sort of disease that there is no diagnosis or cure for. The true star of the film though is Maggie Smith. She gives a darker rather more sinister version of Mary Poppins. Grace is extremely kind-hearted but is not above bashing someone's head in with a frying pan if it suits her.

The violence and nudity in the film is under control so there is no reason to not enjoy the movie.

 

The Hangover Part II (Review) 2011

In the more than twenty-three years I have been going to the movies I have only walked out of two films. The first time was during Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The second time was last night during The Hangover Part II.

Two years after the bachelor party in Las Vegas Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to Thailand (referred to by Alan as Thighland). The guys wake up the next day in Bangkok not remembering the night before. So begins a reprehensible journey to discover what they did.

The Hangover Part II is devoid of any worth or soul. The entire picture makes light of realities in Thailand and says that they are funny. They aren't. Prostitution, Trafficking, animal abuse, riots, poverty etc. should not be used as entertainment like this. Everyone involved in this atrocity should be ashamed of themselves. Its attempts to "push the envelope" are disgusting and shameful. It doesn't border on the edges of bad-taste because to say that would be to imply that it had any taste at all. The last thing I heard was a transsexual prostitute saying to a man and I quote, "My load in you and your load on the floor" endquote.

Seven years ago when I walked out of Anchorman I was bored. When I walked out of this film I was offended and refused to subject myself to any more garbage. From speaking to others who did stay I am glad I didn't.

 It is presently June 4, 2011 and I think I can reserve this picture a spot on my list of the ten worst films.

No star rating

Single White Female (1992) Review

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Bridget Fonda star in this film that stresses the importance of background checks. Allison "Allie" Jones (Fonda) is a software designer in New York City. While her professional life is on the rise her personal one is in a freefall. After she discovers that her fiancé Sam (Steven Weber), slept with his ex-wife she banishes him from her two bedroom apartment. Allie is now in need of a roommate. So she puts an ad in the newspaper looking for a roommate. Every single applicant is not right, until the appearance of Hedra "Hedy" Carlson (Leigh). Hedy seems to be the perfect roommate and very quickly fills the void left in Allie's life after Sam's departure. The two girls' friendship deepens when Hedy brings home an adorable, and very expensive, puppy. At first Allie objects to the idea of a pet but quickly becomes attached to it. After about a month Allie reconciles with Sam and they begin to discuss moving in together again much to Hedy's discomfort. Eventually Hedy's more disturbed side begins to surface as she tries to be more and more like Allie even going so far as to change her hairstyle to match Allie's exactly. Hedy has had issues since the age of nine when her twin sister drowned in an accident. Since then Hedy has not been the same. Hedy blames herself and seeks to replace her twin.

Directed by Barbet Schroeder, who is perhaps best known for directing the exquisite Reversal of Fortune, the film starts off as an effective psychological thriller. Leigh (one of my favorite actresses) gives an intensely creepy and yet reserved performance. The audience sympathizes with Hedy in some strange way. In a way that reminds me of Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal it is a performance in which we wish it could be different for her despite our head telling us to hate her.

Unfortunately the last act of the film transforms it into a standard monster-in-the-house-slasher picture. Allie ducks around air vents and behind furniture while Hedy chases her calling for her. I wish the film could just avoid that cliché and stick to what worked in the first two-thirds of the film.

★★★

How I Review

I am not going to review something according to other people's tastes. For example a good friend of mine truly enjoyed Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy. That remains as the only film in the history of my life I have ever walked out on. He tells me that I can't be a good critic because I don't go along with the rest of earth's moviegoers. Are you kidding? Should I be ashamed for not agreeing? No because I've always been proud of my critical eyes. When I find a film I love there is nothing I enjoy more than giving it praise.

So what do I look for? First of all I look for an emotional connection. If it's a comedy I expect to laugh, if it's a drama I expect to want things to work out for the characters, if it's a horror I expect to be scared. As far as I am concerned when you have a comedy that doesn't make me laugh, you have a failed comedy. Same thing with horror and being scared. However if you have a drama that doesn't make me cry you don't exactly have a failed drama. Perhaps they weren't going for that.

Priest (2011) Review

★1/2

In as few words as possible this film is all over the place. It never bothers to create a coherent storyline or introduces new characters effectively

The main character in the film has no real name. He is simply called Priest (Paul Bettany). Set in what I assume is a post-apocalyptic future; Priest tells the story of a man who defies the church by going after the vampires who have abducted his niece. He sets off on a journey with a trigger-happy sheriff whose name I cannot recall. Haggis maybe? The bad guy is a self-referred human vampire. In fact he's the only one of the vampires who can be in daylight and doesn't look like sausage skin filled with gelatin. As far as the story, it moves so fast that I found it difficult to keep up. Eventually I started asking, "Who's that guy?" Additionally I must say that vampires are really not PG-13 material. I really wish the filmmakers had gone all the way to an R rating instead of simply playing it safe.

The best sequence is in the beginning where we see an animated prologue. That was a lot of fun. That's only the first ten minutes.

The film is based on a popular Manga series, which you are supposed to read backwards. I can't help but think that if I had watched the film backwards it might make more sense.

Biutiful (2010) Review

The majority of this picture is sloppy. It's underwritten and poorly directed. The film doesn't seem to have a conscious storyline. The only saving grace is Javier Bardem's performance. He's fantastic. It only furthers to prove his talent when you factor in what I feel about the screenplay. It's not the way people talk and seems fakey (if you haven't seen Underworld with Denis Leary and Joe Mantegna that word might be lost on you).

Uxbal (Bardem) is a tragic hero and father of two (one is aged 7 while the other is aged 9) who's sensing the danger of death. About twelve minutes into the film we learn, along with Uxbal, that he has cancer. He is given only a couple of months provided his body reacts well to chemotherapy. The entire film is about his downward spiral.

I've seen Babel and 21 Grams and I can tell you that I don't see any real substantial talent in this film's director/co-writer. Alejandro González Iñárritu strikes me as lazy. Rather than spend any portion of his films getting you to care enough about his characters he simply drops tragedy upon tragedy on you. A director like David Cronenberg is a master at mixing the decay and tradgedy of a character with a hope of redemption. Iñárritu is not a master at that.


As I said the only saving grace is Javier Bardem's performance. In this film Bardem manages to create a multi-faceted character that grabs hold of the audience in such a magnificent way that it's easy to understand why Bardem has been nominated for acting Oscars more than twice. Sporting a ponytail and his usual physique Bardem has the appearance of a lion and yet at several moments in the film he plays Uxbal as a mouse uncertain of his future but unwilling to accept his fate. At one point he tells the doctor that he forgot to fast prior to having his blood drawn in the hope that maybe the tests were wrong. "Fasting is only a formality" the doctor says. One could slow down the next shot of Uxbal and pinpoint the exact moment that his soul is crushed. If not for Bardem's performance I would say skip it.

★★1/2

Bottom Ten of 2010

At a special request of a friend of mine I decided to write a list of the ten worst films of 2010. Normally I wouldn't do this especially since it's now May. However the more I thought about it the more I decided it could be really fun and a nice way to exact some revenge on movies that stole a portion of my life away.

10. Robin Hood
9. The Last Song
8. Jonah Hex
7. Piranha
6. The Expendables
5. Marmaduke
4. Clash of the Titans
3. Grown-Ups
2. Resident Evil: Afterlife
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street

Paranormal Activity (2007) Review

Not often is there a film that keeps me up at night. Among the ones that do: The Omen, Evil Dead and An American Werewolf in London. Three days ago I watched Paranormal Activity for the first time and could not, for the life of me, fall asleep that night.

Flowing in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project, Quarantine and Cloverfield this particular film tells the story of a young, middle class couple whose happy life in suburbia is disturbed by a presence that may or may not be demonic. One thing is for certain. There is something that is bothering them and it happens at night. Micah (Micah Sloat) decides to set up a video camera to catch the nightly occurrences. The first night nothing happens but the bedroom door moving. Micah thinks it's a bunch of bull and makes constant jokes about the situation. Katie (Katie Featherson), who has had issues with the same malevolent force since she was eight years old, is convinced there is an apparition after her soul. It is not until the arrival of a psychic that the couple discover it is not a ghost but a demon that is terrorizing them. Every night gets worse and worse as Micah begins to become convinced that there is something in the house.

This is a truly great little horror film. What makes it so scary is that it is presented as factual events recorded on home video (although if you look at the end there is the usual copyright notice that says "the characters and events portrayed in this film are fictitious") as though someone got a hold of the tapes and released them. Little subtle effects, such as powdered footprints from an invisible source appearing before our very eyes or Katie being pulled out of the bed or (my favorite) unexplained shadows appearing on the wall, help to create that sense of realism. Personally I couldn't figure out how they accomplished many of these moments and since I couldn't figure how it was done my mind simply accepted that what I was seeing was real.

There is a slow burn to the film that works well. We slowly build from the atmospheric and creepy to the truly terrifying. The film doesn't overload the viewer with violence or images of the demon. Instead the film sticks to that old adage that what is in our imaginations is far more frightening than what we see.

At the start of the film the acting does not feel natural at all. It's as though writer-director Oren Peli only put the first several scenes in the film as filler and gave limited thought to how his actors should approach the roles at the beginning but somehow I found myself caring about the characters and their plight.

Don't worry. I have since been able to fall asleep.

★★★1/2

We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993) Review

This movie is like nails on a chalkboard. It's noisy and quite obnoxious to look at. Even more so when you consider that the film was produced by Steven Spielberg, whose other Dinosaur picture released the same year is so pleasant to listen to and watch.

Captain New Eyes (Walter Kronkite) travels back in time and feeds four dinosaurs his Brain Grain cereal. They are a Tyrannosaurus named Rex (John Goodman), a Triceratops named Woog (René Le Vant), a Pterodactyl named Elsa (Felicity Kendal) and a Parasaurolophus named Dweeb (Charles Fleischer). The cereal makes them intelligent and non-violent. Since the dinosaurs have gained the power of speech and reasonable thought they agree to go to a modern-day New York to grant the wishes of the children there. They are supposed to meet up with Dr. Bleeb (Julia Child) who runs The Museam of Natural History. In the first three minutes of their arrival in the Big Apple the dinosaurs meet a tough-talking kid named Louie (Joey Shea) and a neglected rich girl named Cecilia (Yeardley Smith). Eventually they come across the evil brother of New Eyes. His name is Professor Screw Eyes and he's voiced by Kenneth Mars. Basically Screw tricks the Dinosaurs into taking his Brain Drain, the antidote to his brother's Brain Grain. This reverts the dinosaurs back to being "monsters" and Louie and Cecilia must find a way to get the dinosaurs back to being goofy.

The drawing style in the film is not worth viewing. It's wooden and grainy. There is only one song in the picture and it's not a good one. And can someone explain how becoming more intelligent changes physical appearance and the color of an individual? Additionally when the dinosaurs travel to the present day they are somehow knowledgeable about things like lights and cars and know how to act like balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which incidentally is going in the wrong direction). I find it a little irksome that we are supposed to feel okay with the fact that normal dinosaurs are monsters. Why did Spielberg allow the dinosaurs as monsters here but wanted to portray them as animals in Jurassic Park?

Much like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest the film fails on many levels but on one that it does succeed is it's villain. Professor Screw Eyes is theatrical and sinister at the same time. As a comparison every other character is boring and stupid. He's in the film just the right amount of time. There's nothing like a good, well-written and acted bad guy.

★