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.

★

Once Upon A Forest (1993) Review

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are not known for pathos. That's why it's so surprising that they produced this wholly depressing animated film. This whole film is something I would expect from Don Bluth. Not the creators of The Jetsons, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and Tom And Jerry.

Once upon a Forest tells the tale of small woodland creatures whose world becomes in danger due to man. Following a deadly gas leak a hedgehog named Russell, a mouse named Abigail and a mole named Edgar travel to another forest in order to find a certain plant to save her before their badger friend dies. Their entire families were most likely killed by the gas but we don't know for sure. The young badger girl's family is most certainly killed (we see their bodies) save for her uncle who has his own horrible experiences with man. Along their journey they escape from a frightening looking owl, backhoes and bulldozers referred to as "yellow dragons", and save a young bird from certain death. It's just one bad event after another.

The film sort of has a happy ending. I must put large emphasis on the "sort of". Even though the badger girl is saved her family is still dead. There is no feeling of hope throughout the picture and it leads to quite an unpleasant experience for the audience especially children. The color of the film is dark and gray. One gets the same feeling from it that one would get if driving from sunshine into an oncoming thunderstorm.

There are no real optimistic moments in the film to combat the gloomy scenes. When Disney made The Lion King they had juxtaposition and balance so that people could appreciate the lightness by showing a darker side of the movie.  Even in Bambi when the title character is faced with an extreme tragedy he is able to rise above it. In Once Upon a Forest the characters are faced with a major tragedy and the possibility of more tragedy. Not a good way to structure a family film.

I'm not put off by the "go-green" type of message in the film like I am with Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. What I am put off by is the complete lack of cheerfulness in the film. Never have I felt more depressed about an animated film in my life.

★

Enemy at the Gates (2001) Review

This is a very unusual American film about WWII. There are no Americans. This is because Enemy at the Gates takes place in Stalingrad. Among the explosions and shooting there is a much closer battle that emerges between two snipers, one Russian and one German. Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Enemy at the Gates tells the mostly true story of Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a shepherd boy from the Urals of Russia, who after proving his marksmanship to a political officer named Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) and Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins who looks remarkably like the real thing), is promoted to sniper division. There he becomes a legend of the battle of Stalingrad (thanks largely due to Danilov's skill at public relations) taking down one German officer at a time. This gets the attention of the Nazis who bring in their best sniper. Major Konïg (Ed Harris) has never failed to kill a target and, as Vissili says at one point in the film, is a better marksman.

This is a highly suspenseful film that creates that classic cat-and-mouse relationship between the hero and the villain. It isn't about the battle around them so people looking for big explosions are probably going to want to shut off the movie after the first ten minutes. The best scenes are the ones in which each one knows that the other is there but doesn't quite have a clear shot. This is largely accomplished by the production design. It was done by Wolf Kroeger, who is a production designer who understands the subtleties necessary in war films.

Earlier I mentioned that this was only mostly based on a true story is because of a rather Hollywood like love triangle that exists between Danilov, Zaitsev and a Russian Jew named Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz). I don't think that love triangle existed but I'm willing to let it go because the truth is Rachel Weisz is a very nice to look at. Besides, it's a lot more believable than the love triangle in another World War II movie released the same year.

I wonder who decided that all of the Russian characters shouldn't have Russian accents. Apparently the Allies consisted of two main countries because the only accents I heard were English and American (thanks for the effort Mr. Harris). Even Annaud's frequent collaborator Ron Perlman, who is not English, has an English accent while he plays a sniper who's supposed to help Vassili kill the bad guy.

★★★

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) Review

Zero Stars

This is an absolutely dishonorable depressing piece of trash. It's nothing but ninety minutes of teenagers being stabbed, strangled, impaled, mutilated and butchered. It's literally about the killing.

Thirteen people die throughout that ninety minutes. If you do the math that's one person every seven minutes. The majority of them are women. There was a time during the era of horror films where the camera sympathized with the damsel in distress. Even though Evelyn Ankers was attacked by the monster we want her to survive. Now we see the killing through the eyes of the culprit. The filmmakers force us to "enjoy" this. What's most disturbing to me is that this is called entertainment. Violence is not the issue but if it's mindless violence it's just that. Mindless.

The film is directed by Joseph Zito who is and has never been anything but an exploitation director. In the last sixteen years he has only directed two films and hasn't done anything since 2003. I really hope he is never able to return to the director's chair.

Normally I try to look for something good. There is nothing good in this picture. One man's garbage is still garbage.

What’s Wrong With 3D?

I hate to have this be a rant but 3D sucks as a way of looking at movies. Even with the best systems possible the picture is diluted and washed down. Many of the effort is spent extending the foreground and so the background becomes so terribly out of focus that the audience becomes light headed and dizzy. Most of the 3D movies out there now are action pictures and none of them are filmed in 3D. They are just transferred to 3D and so a lot of that fast action is lost because your eyes can't adjust properly. 2D is crisper, cleaner and doesn't charge an extra three dollars for admission. No wonder Avatar is the highest grossing picture.

Thor (2011) Review

Here's an interesting combination. Comic books, mythology, and Kenneth Branagh, the director of films like Henry V, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Hamlet. Seems a bit unlikely doesn't it?

Before we get into my real review I would like to analyse that "unlikely" reality. Comic books already have been compared with mythology by smarter people than I so I'm not going to try to add anything to that. However the works of William Shakespeare have always seemed to, at least by me, have lot in common with mythology. In his plays there is pathos, comedy, revenge, murder etc. All these things can easily be seen in many issues of Batman as well as in the stories of ancient Greece or Norse religions. Branagh has shown several times that he has the ability to direct films with those themes of ancient mythology. So, when we take the above paragraph into account we see that maybe he was the best choice for the helm.

The basic plot of the film is as follows. Thor (Christopher Hemsworth), son of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and future king of Asgard, disobeys his father and attacks creatures known as Frost Giants. See, a few thousand years earlier Odin did battle with these creatures for the protection of the human race. The giants were banished from Asgard for eternity. The only way into Asgard is past a character known simply as The Gatekeeper but somehow some of the giants made it past him. Thor and his warriors convince The Gatekeeper to let them travel to destroy the Frost Giants. When Odin learns of Thor's arrogance and rash decision he takes his power and banishes him to live among humans until which time as he is found worthy enough to regain his immortality and powers. Thor is befriended by a young scientist named Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). The hero must learn how to blend in with these humans. All the while his villainous brother Loki becomes the acting king of Asgard.

One of my favorite things about the film was the performance by Hemsworth as the title character. He was a lot of fun to watch and the way he played off the other actors was great. He reminds me a lot of Heath Ledger who, as most people are aware, is one of my favorite actors. The way that he approaches the character is as it should be. Like a fish out of water. A much larger and arrogant Crocodile Dundee. Maybe it's because they are all Australian. Who knows?

The actual film begins with Thor landing on Earth. Then we travel back in time to see how he got there and after about an hour of screen time we return to where we started. I think it should have simply shown all the earlier events on Asgard and then gone to Earth. By then the audience is already enjoying the film.

Before I forget keep an eye out for the Stan Lee cameo. He's driving a truck used to try to remove Thor's hammer from a stone.

★★

Little Sparrows (2010) Review

Usually I am not a big fan of films about terminal illness. More often than not the illness is used as a way to bring about an emotional reaction from the audience that should come about naturally. It's a cheap shot and it insults the intelligence of the viewer. Among the films that do this are Beaches, A Walk to Remember and The Cure. There are films where the emotion comes out of the story and performances. Among those are Lorenzo's Oil, The Pride of the Yankees and Philadelphia. I think we can add Little Sparrows to the latter list.

In the midst of an Australian summer we meet three sisters. Nina (Nina Deasley) is a widow with two young children, Anna (Melanie Munt) is an unhappily married actress whose husband is a filmmaker and Christine (Arielle Gray) is a med student who has yet to come completely to terms with her sexuality. When their mother, Susan's (Nicola Bartlett) breast cancer returns, the family is faced with choices and uncertainty.
The film is set up by writer-director Yu-Hsiu Camille Chen as a documentary. The camera wobbles as though there is a camera man pretending to not be in the room and the film features cutaways where we see the women talking directly to the camera. A sort of confession. What helps this illusion of reality is the performances. All of the performers in the film are incredibly natural. Their roles seem to come out of somewhere so rarely seen in film today with the exception of some.

We spend approximately twenty minutes on each daughter's story. First we get some background on their lives (complete with the "interviews") and then get some sort of conflict (for example Anna's husband leaves her after it is revealed that she was having an affair) and then there is a scene in a hospital room where the girls have a heart to heart with their mother. The hospital room is where the real emotion comes out. The girls slowly break down into tears while their mother confesses something or describes how much she loves them. At the end of each daughter's story there is a scene at a cemetery where the audience is reminded of the final scene in Carrie sans the hand reaching out of the grave. What I mean is an ethereal, delicate feeling. Almost as though we are in the girls head while she dreams.

The film does not end with Susan's death. Sorry for those hoping it would. It avoids that cliché and instead ends with her getting a tattoo of three sparrows. One each to represent her daughters. Even the entire feel of the film is not one of despair. The first thing that Susan says after telling her husband James about the return of her cancer is, "I don't want any hysterics".

I think the world has a great new director and I'm very interested to see where her career goes from here.

★★★★

Fast Five (2011) Review

Here's a good, fun action picture that doesn't have to be in 3D for me to enjoy it.

As the fifth film in the Fast and The Furious series Fast Five (try saying that five times fast) reunites Vin Deisel and Paul Walker in the roles they played ten years earlier. Former cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) partners with ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) on the opposite side of the law. Since Brian and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom out of custody, they've blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he's not the only one on their tail. Hard-nosed (and big bicepped) federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) never misses his target. When he is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can't separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey before someone else runs them down first.

Basically when you have a picture like this all you are supposed to do is sit down and suspend your disbelief for an hour and a half. That's what I did with this film. I knew what I was watching when I got my ticket. It was a relentless loud cars, pretty girls and massive destruction (I think this movie may take the record away from Blues Brothers for most car-crashes in a single film). The story could've used some thought as well as the dialogue but I'm willing to let that go since this movie is meant to be nothing more than Saturday afternoon entertainment.

It seems as though there was a competition between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel as to who could get the bigger muscles. Although both of them are already known for their physical strength Johnson won that competion.

The film amounts to a video-game with the stunt players and drivers doing things that are incredibly impossible. The stunts in the film are fantastic. The stunt team (which comprises of about thirty people) are sure to get SAG nominations for their work.

At one point in the film two members of the team want to keep people out of a bathroom. What do they do? They blow up the pipes and send used food all over the bathroom. It's not funny. In fact if I hadn't been enjoying the picture at that point I'd have walked out. Additionally I don't find sexual statements made about women in films funny or tasteful. It's a knee-jerk reaction I have. Every critic has one.

★★★

The Green Hornet (2011) Review

★★★

Like many on this planet I was skeptical of a comic book movie starring Seth Rogen. My initial reaction was one of confusion. Will this be a spoof? Does this mean that Rogen will now be in dumb action pictures instead of dumb comedies?  When I say dumb I mean George of The Jungle dumb. Fortunately, and much to my surprise, I enjoyed this picture.

The Green Hornet was originally conceived as a juvenile adventure series on the radio in the 1930's. Then it became two separate movie serials in the 1940's as well a comic book and a network television program in the 1960's. Although some of the treatments of the character has been different over the years, most of them remain the same.

Britt Reid (Rogen) is a slacker. He only has one goal in life and that's to be the life of the party every day. After the death of his father Britt takes over the family business. The family business is a newspaper. Britt is assisted by his secretary Lenore (Cameron Diaz) and his chauffeur/mechanic/barista/martial arts expert Kato (Jay Chow) and becomes inspired to be a superhero but a different kind of superhero. He'll be a superhero that everyone thinks is a villain. Along with Kato he begins to take down L.A.'s Underworld. Enter the bad guy who goes by the hard to pronounce name of Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz). He believes that The Green Hornet is muscling in on his territory. 

In most comic book films you have the hero who can do anything while the sidekick is there to make the hero look better. In this film those roles are reversed. Britt is an idiot. There's no kind way to say that. Kato is the genius who designs the weapons, does the fighting and makes the coffee. Britt takes all the credit. This was a nice flip on the hero/sidekick relationship.

The movie was a great mixture of action and that sarcastic, quick-witted humor of Seth Rogen's that so many have come to love. Christoph Waltz shows his talent at playing "cuddly" villians. Even though he is doing terrible things to other human beings he is incredibly entertaining to watch. I was most intrigued by the performance given by Jay Chow. He brought a calm serenity to Kato. The character is not a stereotype but a fully realized individual that the audience cares about. There's a fight scene between Britt and Kato that fluctuates between serious and comical. Comical whenever Britt gets hit and serious when Kato is injured. This is because we want Kato to receive justice for things that Britt has said and done.

At one point we see Chudnofsky's crew putting the word out on The Green Hornet. It's shown in split-screen. One person tells someone and then we get a new frame of them telling someone else while the first person continues on to spread the news. This happens over and over again until you are so unsure of which frame to watch that you just ignore what's happening altogether. Sure it was a quick way to show a lot happening and how much of a reach the bad guy has but fifteen frames on one screen is overkill.

Jane Eyre (2011) Review

Based upon the 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre tells the story of an orphan girl by the name of Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska from last year's billion dollar hit Alice in Wonderland) who after years of abuse at an all-girl school travels to Thornfield House where she is employed as a governess (that's a fancy word for a nanny) by the dark, abrupt, almost sinister Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender). Jane and her employer soon become friends and she finds herself falling in love with him, much to the chagrin of herself and the head housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench). As time passes Jane learns that Mr. Rochester is harboring a very dark secret. Don't worry, I won't give away any spoilers suffice it to say that he isn't a vampire.

You know your movie is in trouble when the biggest criticism from me is the lead actress. Mia Wasikowska is not a particularly talented actress. In this film she is flat, lifeless and just plain boring. She is only "going through the motions" and delivers the lines as though she is reading them directly off cue cards. For the first two-thirds of the film she does no emoting whatsoever. Then in the last act of the film she does nothing but emote. By then I want to say "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn". Her casting in the film has "studio" written all over it. She was the lead in a majorly successful film last year so it seems only natural that she would continue to be cast in lead roles despite not having enough talent to carry an entire film. There is an actress who also appears in the film by the name of Tamzin Merchant who would have been a far better choice for the title character.

Fear not fellow cinephiles. I did not hate everything about the film. As a matter of fact with the exception of the above paragraph I quite enjoyed the rest of the film. The performances by Michael Fassbender (who reminds me of a younger Daniel Day-Lewis) and Judi Dench are fantastic. Although could you expect any less from Judi Dench? Everything you need to know about both of their characters is subtly shown in their first scenes. For example Mr. Rochester is shown wearing a black hat and black coat with black trousers while riding a black horse with a black dog in tow. Those color choices, obviously no accident, automatically give us a feeling of foreboding and mystery around the character that we are intrigued by.

The cinematography, art direction, production design and costumes all fit together like the pieces of a gothic period puzzle. The film is sure to receive Oscar nominations in one or more of those categories. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman, whose work I must admit I am not familiar with, creates a bleak canvas of near-winter in the film, not just with exterior scenes, but the interior as well. One gets the feeling that it is colder inside the buildings then outside.

Overall, if asked by a friend, I'd recommend it but prepare to be unmoved and unaffected by Wasikowska's wooden acting.

★★1/2