(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

If you ride like lightning, you’re going to crash like thunder.

A story in three acts, The Place Beyond the Pines stars Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendes.  I never did learn from the movie what the title refers to, but I found out via IMDb that the place beyond the pines refers to the name of the city of Schenectady, which is where the movie took place and also was filmed.

Act One involves Luke (Ryan Gosling), a stunt motorcycle rider who works for a traveling circus.  While performing in Schenectady, he runs into Romina (Eva Mendes), a sometimes lover of his.  When Luke discovers Romina has a baby boy named Jason and that Jason is HIS son, he decides he wants to be a part of his son’s life.  He immediately quits the carnival to stay in town to be near his son.  Now, what happens next is kind of unbelievable, but it’s a movie so I went with it.  While riding his motorcycle through the forest, Luke meets Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), who gives him a trailer to live in and a job fixing cars at his shop.  I’m pretty sure nothing like that would happen so fast in real life, but this is movie land so I guess it works.

Now that Luke lives near Romina and Jason, he wants to spend as much time as possible with his son.  Some scenes were pretty heartbreaking, such as when Luke goes to watch his son get baptized and Romina and her boyfriend are standing up there holding the baby instead of Luke, or when Luke and Romina take Jason for his first ice cream because Luke wants his son to remember him whenever he has ice cream.  Some fathers just don’t get to spend enough time with their sons, and that’s not right.

Anyway, since he has no job, Luke decides to rob banks to get money to support Romina and their son.   Using his motorcycle to get away from the robberies, he is able to get away with it a few times.  Until one day, his getaway doesn’t quite go as planned.  Enter Avery (Bradley Cooper), a cop who is summoned to the house where Luke has taken cover.  I won’t spoil exactly what happens next, but it’s not good.

Next comes Act Two.  This focuses on Avery as he returns to work after a work-related injury.  Avery and his wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) have a baby boy, AJ.  When he returns to work he is on light duty, which includes being in charge of the evidence room.  Here he finds out that some of his fellow cops aren’t exactly on the good side of the law.  As he struggles to deal with the guilt of shooting a suspect, he also has to deal with the issue of his crooked cop buddies and his crumbling marriage.

Finally we arrive at Act Three.  It is fifteen years after the end of Act Two.  Avery is running for Congress.  Avery and Jennifer are divorced.  AJ wants to live with his father in Schenectady, and he is enrolled in the high school there.  AJ is a drug-addicted, partying waste.  While at his new school he meets a fellow student, Jason.  They become fast friends and end up getting into trouble for possession of drugs. Avery tells AJ to stay away from Jason, but AJ won’t leave Jason alone (not in a homosexual way, just in a buddy kind of way).   I can’t really say much more about this without spoiling anything so I’ll leave it at that.

One word I can use to describe The Place Beyond the Pines is raw.  These characters did NOT look glamorous.  They looked weary and somewhat wrecked.   Director Derek Cianfrance seemed to favor tight, close shots of the actors throughout the movie and there was no escaping their tired eyes.  I also noticed another camera technique, which was following behind Luke as he walked from his trailer to the tent where he performed his motorcycle stunts.  It was strange yet it worked, because you felt like you were there at the carnival with him, although I did think “gosh I hope the whole movie isn’t filmed this way” (it wasn’t).

Overall I thought it was a good story, but it would have kept my interest if it was shorter.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

A great story, but merely a good movie.

The H-Bomb: In post-war 1940′s America, fascism has been defeated overseas, but here at home, segregation still exists in practically every facet of society; in schools, buses, restaurants, restrooms, and professional sports. Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) feels that it’s time to break down that racial barrier by recruiting an African American player onto his team (though he admits it’s as much a financial decision as it is a social statement). After an extensive search, Rickey settles on a 26-year-old prodigy out of California named Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman).

This Robinson kid soon proves to be quite gifted, as he makes stealing bases look easy, and can hit a home run like it nobody’s business. He clearly has the potential to be a great sports star, there’s just one problem… his skin color. He is the first African American to ever play in the Major Leagues, and given that this is the 40′s, not everyone is a fan. Despite being clearly talented, Robinson encounters, and is forced to deal with, bigotry at pretty much every turn. It’s something that could derail his promising career, especially if he loses his cool in public. So, the question is, will he be able to suck it up, put all the taunts and torments out of mind and just play the game?

As I said a long, long time ago in my review for The Blind Side, I’m not a sports fan. However, I do tend to enjoy sports movies, because they usually have the makings for good drama: a hero, typically an underdog, has to struggle against all odds, in order to achieve an ultimate goal, which in a sports film usually means winning the big game/race/fight, or what have you. That is the formula for most sports films, and it’s the one that 42 follows to the letter.

For Jackie Robinson, the hurdle he had to pass didn’t have to do with the game of baseball, so much as his ability to play the game while contending with small minded racism that seems to come from all directions; from booing crowds (there’s a chilling moment where a young boy starts shouting the N-word at Jackie after listening to his father do it), umpires, players from opposing teams, and even his own teammates.

One of the worst occurrences happens early on; Robinson is playing for the Montreal Royals in Florida, when some shit-kicking hillbilly cop walks up to him after scoring a run, and orders him to get off the field, or else. Another instance, one that personally brought my piss to a boil, is when Robinson steps up to bat in Philadelphia, and is forced to listen to an endless barrage of cruel taunts from Phillies Manager, Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk, who plays a true dick, and does it a little too well).

At that point, I would’ve had no problem with Robinson going over to the guy and caving his face in with his bat, which he clearly wants to, but of course doesn’t, because good old Rickey taught him better than that. He taught Jackie to turn the other cheek, that the best way to show up his unenlightened naysayers up is by performing on the field. And that Jackie does, by taking the Dodgers all the way to the Pennant… don’t think I’m spoiling anything there, folks.

As an indictment on racism, and showing younger audiences just how bad things really used to be, 42 pushes all the right buttons, hits all the right notes, and works nicely. As a sports drama, and a biopic of one of the most important men to ever play the game of baseball, it just doesn’t quite make the cut. This is mainly because Robinson, as a central character, is woefully underwritten. Boseman is stellar in the role, but aside from a few moments of warmth with his wife, Rachel (Nicole Beharie), and one crucial scene where he has a private emotional breakdown, he comes off as incredibly stoic and cold, to the point where he seems a little off putting.

I know it was a conscious decision for Robinson to behave that way in public, but we never get enough of a peek behind the curtain to get a sense of who he really was, and consequently, I never got as caught up in his story, nor did I care about him, nearly as much as I knew I was supposed to. I lay the blame for this at the feet of writer/director Brian Helgeland (screenwriter of L.A. Confidential and Mystic River), who does a masterful job of recreating the period. The ball parks, the locker rooms, and the back offices all look and feel authentic, it’s just a shame Helgeland decided to treat Robinson as a symbol instead of a character.

Because of that, the majority of the dramatically juicy bits go to the cigar chomping Rickey, who is played by Ford with gravitas and gusto. Unless I’m forgetting something, this is the first time in Ford’s career where he truly inhabits and disappears inside of a character. I didn’t even recognize him when he first appeared on screen, then, after some time, I forgot that I was even watching him. I would go so far as to call his performance Oscar worthy, even if he does overplay his hand at times by hamming it up a little too much. It also seemed a tad silly that he always had some wiser-than-thou speech prepared whenever someone came to him with a problem, but again, that’s Helgeland’s doing.

With 42′s faults aside, it is a solidly entertaining film that tells a remarkable, and important, “true” story (embellishments were made, I’m sure) that deserves to be seen, particularly by young people, who only seem to get their history from the movies these days, anyway (if Scary Movie 5 out performs this at the Box Office, I will lose all hope for humanity). Yes, it could have been better, and perhaps less conventional, but still, it’s uplifting, inspirational, and had me leaving the theater with a smile on my face.

(1 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

“Spring break forever, bitches!”

The H-Bomb: Four college friends decide to do what no college student has ever done before; head down to Florida for Spring Break. Three of them (Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine) are total wild chicks who are into boozing, smoking dope, and shoving various powdered substances up their noses. The fourth one, Faith (Selena Gomez), is a goody-goody two shoes who’s into prayer groups and is not at all a party girl. Why she’s BFFs with these other chicks is anybody’s guess.

Anyhow, the four of them have been planning and saving for several months for this trip, and much to their dismay, when they pool their savings together, they only have around $300. So the girls, minus Faith, go about procuring additional funds, with the help of a couple of spray painted squirt guns and some ski masks… that’s all I’ll say about that.

So, with said additional funds raised, the bikini-clad foursome finally hits the sunshine state, where they ride motor scooters, dance on the beach, drink, smoke (not cigarettes), and play cocktease with some douche bag jocks. Then one night, they all party just a little too hard, and they end up in jail, where they’ll have to spend two whole days if they can’t pay the fine. Now, our fab four are in a real bind; they have to either spend the rest of their Spring Break behind bars, which would be like such a bummer, or call their parentals for bail money, which would so totally suck, as well.

Fortunately, the young lovelies are spared from making such a painful decision when they are bailed out by a mysterious benefactor… “Alien” (James Franco). Who (or more appropriately, what) is “Alien?” A white boy gansta/rapper/drug dealer guy with dreadlocks, a mouth full of gold teeth, and an unhealthy fixation with Britney Spears, who claims to be from another planet… a claim this reviewer is inclined to believe. The girls (rather inexplicably) fall for Alien’s charms, as he brings them into his world of drugs and sex and money (and guns, lots of guns). But Alien’s world is a truly dangerous one, and the farther the girls descend into it, the more their dream vacation threatens to turn into a total nightmare.

Spring Breakers, which is perhaps the most artsy-fartsy beach movie since… The Beach, comes to us from writer/director Harmony Korine, a filmmaker who first made waves back in 1995 with his screenplay for Kids, which I cannot deny was absolutely brilliant. It was haunting, provocative, and overall just a deeply disturbing work. As for everything else he’s done, Holy Christ… let me do a rundown; Gummo was garbage, Julien Donkey-Boy sucked donkey dick, and Ken Park… don’t even get me going on that vile pile of ass vomit.

As far as I’m concerned, Korine is a gutter auteur of toilet bowl cinema, and I’m not exactly a fan of his. However, if there is one thing being un critic du cinema has taught me, it’s to go into every single film, even the ones I think are going to blow beaver butt, with an open mind… as doing so can periodically bring about a pleasant surprise. Such is the case with Spring Breakers. I expected to despise it, strongly, but I ended up kind of liking it.

Now, I should point out that this is not a movie for the masses. In fact, I’m a little surprised it’s gotten such a wide release. Many who go to see this film are really not going to like it, for perhaps a couple of different reasons. The art house crowd, who would recognize Harmony Korine’s name, are going to see the first half of the film and think it’s just a polished Girls Gone Wild video. The moviegoers of less sophisticated design, who show up for the T&A, which is supplied in abundance, will probably be put off by the artsy-ness of the whole thing.

What am I talking about? Well, the way the film is edited, we’ll see montages of people partying on the beach accompanied by moody, dreamy music and/or quasi-deep narration from one of the characters. Another bizarre artistic touch is when certain lines of dialogue are repeated for no apparent reason.  Maybe it’s meant to imply that those lines have some greater significance…? Fuck if I know. Let me put it like this, if Terrence Malick ever directed a beach party movie (after dropping a shitload of acid), it would turn out something like this. For many out there, I imagine it won’t go over very well… at the end of my screening, when the closing credits came up, somebody shouted, “What the hell was that?!”

For me, however, it more or less worked. Like Korine’s past films, it gets incredibly sleazy, and sordid, and made me want to take a shower afterwards, but I was also invested in what was happening, intrigued as to where it was going, captivated by the gorgeous cinematography by Benoit Debie, stimulated by the bodies on display (I am a dude, after all), and, for the most part, entertained, particularly when the flamboyant Franco enters the picture.

The first half plays like a slightly pretentious version of Project X, with Gomez and Hudgens doing things that Walt Disney most definitely would not approve of. This front section of the film does get a tad repetitive and tedious, what with all those seemingly endless montages of smoking, drinking, and fucking. And aside from Gomez, none of the lead girls are well developed as characters and are more or less interchangeable.

Then Franco comes into the movie, and when he does, it becomes his movie entirely. He has to be the craziest white dude with dreads this side of Gary Oldman in True Romance, and hot damn is he a blast to watch. A long way from the Land of Oz, his “Alien” is a disgusting, creepy, little scuzzbucket… but he’s also absolutely fucking hilarious. Everything he does, from talkin’ black, to playing the poolside piano for his ladies, to sucking off a Beretta, is just priceless, and he more than makes the movie. This is probably my favorite performance of his, and if the Oscars had any balls (which they don’t), they would nominate it, for sure (which they won’t).

Thanks to Franco, I had a lot more fun with Spring Breakers than I ever should have been allowed to. But his outlandish turn aside, I really enjoyed the film overall as I was watching it. So, why the relatively low rating, you ask? Well, when it was all over, I was left with one burning question: What was the point? What was Korine trying to say with this? I mean, it’s obvious from the heavy stylization and the introspective voice overs that he was going for more than pure exploitation here. So what, then? That bad things can happen to out-of-control college kids on Spring Break? That was the apparent point up until the last ten minutes, where the story makes an absurdly ridiculous turn that is so unbelievable that it invalidates such a point.

It was then that I came to the realization that Spring Breakers, with all its depictions of excess, decadence, and hedonism, really doesn’t have a point. That is such a shame, since Korine, as a director, has finally made a film that’s worth a damn, he just forgot to give it a purpose, and when it ended, I was left feeling kind of empty… despite the strangely good time I had with it.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

A ‘call’ you might want to take.

The H-Bomb: It’s a typical night for Los Angeles 911 operator Jordan Turner (Halle Berry), taking an array of calls ranging from domestic disputes, to medical emergencies, to the occasional crank, and handling them all with the kind of professional detachment that would be required of those who would have a job like this. Then she receives a call from a frightened teenage girl who reports a prowler breaking into her house. While waiting for the police to arrive (FYI, in this movie, they always arrive too late), Jordan gives the girl by-the-book instructions on where to hide and what to do, but when the line gets disconnected, Jordan makes a mistake, an astoundingly stupid mistake, that results in the girl’s kidnapping and eventual murder.

Six months later, a guilt-ridden Jordan, who is understandably traumatized by her collossal fuck up, now works as an instructor for the 911 operator training program. While taking a group of trainees on a tour of “The Hive” (the call center), Jordan listens in on a 911 call from a Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin), another teenager who has been abducted and is locked in the trunk of a moving car. Jordan immediately takes over the call from the inexperienced operator, and finds herself in a disturbingly familiar situation… trying to instruct another terrified girl on how to escape a kidnapping.

As if the two scenarios aren’t already similar enough, Jordan soon finds reason to believe that the man who took Casey is the same nut job who abducted and killed the girl from six months ago. As far as plot goes, I’ll stop there, because this is one movie where the less you know about it going in, the better off you’ll be.

The Call is a film that I was so not looking forward to. For one thing, ever since the new year, with a few exceptions aside, I had been seeing nothing but pure, unadulterated, cinematic dogshit.  And this thriller, starring Halle Berry, who ever since winning the Oscar, has turned herself into the queen of crap movies, sure didn’t look like it was going to do diddly-dick to break that trend. Even though the words, “A Film by Brad Anderson” did give me a slight shimmer of hope (I didn’t know going in that he was the director), I was still expecting the following ninety minutes to be nothing but torturous.

I suppose I should have had a little more faith in director Anderson, because I was wrong. Dead wrong. Not only was The Call not ninety minutes of torture, it actually turned out to be a surprisingly intense and entertaining flick. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to end up on my top ten of 2013 list (at least I hope not), it’s not going to win any awards, but as far as taut, exciting thrillers go, it definitely gets the job done, as it had me on the edge of my seat for most of its running time, and even managed to surprise me once or twice with the various twists and turns that it took.

Now, this is far from my favorite Brad Anderson flick, as that honor still goes to Session 9, with The Machinist in a very close second. This, I would say, is the “most Hollywood” film he’s ever made, but he takes Richard D’Ovidio’s script and wrings every last ounce of tension from it that he can. And damn does it get tense at times. The sequences in which Casey tries to signal for help without her abductor noticing, and another involving a would-be savior, were honest-to-God nail biters that had the audience at my showing revved up and yelling at the screen– this is the sort of movie where that kind of audience behavior is not only not annoying, but actually enhances the experience.

The strong lead performances by Berry and Breslin, as well as Richard Eklund as the kidnapper (who turns out to be a real sick puppy), also add a lot to the film’s building tension. I’m typically not a fan of Berry’s, but she’s quite solid here, as a 911 operator who constantly breaks her own rules, like never getting emotionally involved with callers, and never making promises to the callers. Then there’s Breslin, who’s, frankly, pretty terrific as the frightened young victim. I bought her terror completely, particularly when Anderson put the camera right up into her face, which he does quite often.

Eklund does a fine job of conveying what a genuine wacko this kidnapper is, but as we find out, he’s a man leading a double life, and I would’ve liked to have seen more of the “normal” side of his persona. But still, he was good. I also liked how the script went into his motives for doing what he does. I obviously can’t get into specifics here, but instead of just saying he’s crazy and leaving it at that, Anderson shows us things from his life that shed light on his actions. I’ll just say, this guy does not pick his victims at random.

On the negative side of things, there’s the film’s last act. Basically, like with many thrillers of this ilk, all believability gets chucked right out the window during the final half-hour. We find out that the bad guy has an underground lair (I mean, really?!), then we’re supposed to believe that Jordan would leave the call center in order to search for Casey herself… sorry, but bullshit. And if that’s not enough, Jordan then just happens upon evidence that the cops missed that leads her right to the location of said underground lair… come on! There are more issues that I had with the film’s finale, but again, due to the no spoiler law on this site, I won’t go into them, but I think my point has been made. The movie becomes completely ludicrous in the last act, which is disappointing, since I was totally with it up to that point.

But, even though the filmmakers apparently said “fuck credibility” towards the end, the audience I saw it with seemed to lap it up, so maybe I’m just full of it. Maybe I’m just over-thinking it. Either way, it didn’t kill the film for me, as I can still say that, again, much to my own surprise, I had a lot of fun with The Call. Is it a modern classic? Hell no, not by a long shot. It is more or less just “another Hollywood thriller,” but it’s darker than most, smarter than most, and more suspenseful than most.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

Married life is a bitch.

The H-Bomb: Quasi-hip married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann aka Mrs. Judd Apatow), two supporting characters from Knocked Up (which I haven’t seen), now get their own movie set during the turbulent week in which they both turn 40 (at least Pete is, Debbie’s year of birth tends to fluctuate). As if hitting the big 4-0 isn’t traumatic enough, they also have to deal with all these pesky everyday issues going on around them, like problems with their two daughters (played by the real life offspring of Mann and Apatow), problems with their jobs (his record label is failing, her clothing store is being ripped off by one of her employees), problems with their fathers (his is a money grubbing mooch, hers is an aloof doctor who’s been MIA most of her life), and problems with their marriage in general (sex life, money, constant bickering). Problems, problems, and more problems… with some dick ‘n fart jokes thrown in for good measure.

Before I go any farther, I should confess that I am not exactly a fan of Judd Apatow. I think the only other film of his that I’ve seen was The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and that one didn’t exactly have me rolling in the aisles whilst pissing myself. For some reason or another, the man’s movies just don’t appeal to me at all, and sufficed to say, I was not really looking forward to his latest, This is 40. But, sometimes going into a movie with little-to-no expectations can actually be a good thing, as it does leave room to be pleasantly surprised, and, much to my delight, that’s exactly what happened here. Despite my typical anti-Apatow leanings, I did manage to enjoy this one… to an extent.

This is the second flick of Apatow’s to feature the number 40 in the title, though as we find out in the very first scene, the main characters here are most definitely not virgins. The rude and crude (and very R-rated) humor that has been a staple of his past work is very much present and runs through the entire picture, though it’s not really what defines this film. Rather, it’s the trials and tribulations of getting older that this couple has to contend with that drive it. Be it Pete dealing with the possibility of having to sell the family house if his record company goes under, or Debbie dealing with some young punk-ass who’s been cyber-bullying her older daughter (this leads to the two funniest scenes in the movie), it’s the very real problems that they’re confronted with that make these people relatable and that draw us into their story. This is more of a dramedy than a comedy, and the humor is there simply to keep it from turning into Blue Valentine.

What also goes a long way in getting us to really invest in the adventures Pete and Debbie are the terrific lead performances by Rudd and Mann. Yeah, they may be more youthful looking and attractive than your average 40-year-olds (personal trainers, gotta love em), but their flawless chemistry made them a very believable couple. As it happens, this past October I re-watched Halloween 6 for the first time in years, which featured Rudd when he was very green. Both he and the movie were pure and utter ass, so seeing him here made me realize and appreciate how far he’s come as an actor from that rather modest (and embarrassing) beginning. As Pete, he somehow pulls off being both goofy and charismatic at the same time. That is not something a lot of actors can do, so good on him.

Mann, as the half of the couple who is much more self-conscious and insecure about getting older, shines like she never has before. Her hubby has written her a very juicy part, and she takes full advantage, finding the humor in Debbie’s vulnerabilities, and pulling it off perfectly. Whether she’s constantly insisting that she’s turning 38, or disparaging Tom Petty, she is just hysterical. I do question some of her nude scenes, however. They seemed to be there for no other reason than Apatow wanting to show off how hot his wife is. “Yeah guys, that’s what I get to tap every night! How jealous are you?”

Overall, Rudd and Mann are indeed fantastic, but they’re not the only actors worth mentioning. Albert Brooks, as Pete’s money leeching father, is an absolute howl and a definite scene stealer. Loved the bit where he tells Pete that a pizza was the reason he was born… you’ll have to see it to get it. John Lithgow, as Debbie’s absentee dad, doesn’t get as much to chew on comedically as Brooks, as his story thread is played much more straight, but he’s stellar as always. Megan Fox is surprisingly good as Debbie’s dress shop employee who is suspected of stealing money from the business. It’s a smallish part, but her self-deprecating performance is quite funny, and that she is easy on the eyes certainly doesn’t hurt.

If there’s one thing Apatow has a talent for, it’s casting his pictures with first rate actors and making good use of them. That, however, leads me to something he doesn’t seem to have any talent for, editing his movies. This is 40 clocks in at two hours and fifteen minutes, and I felt every second of it. During the last twenty minutes, it really turned into the movie that wouldn’t end. It is way overlong, by at least a half hour, and it truly does damage the film. All of Apatow’s movies have bloated running times, and that leads me to believe that he is one of those filmmakers who just can’t bring himself to cut anything from his movies. There is a lot of fat on this bitch, like a pointless sequence where the couple absconds to Laguna Beach, that should have been left on the editing room floor. Sometimes less is more, Judd.

Another issue I had is the constant arguing and making up that happens throughout the film. I understand that this plays into the realism of married life that Apatow was trying to get across, but having it happen over and over again over the course of two hours and fifteen minutes, it just became overbearing, not to mention redundant. Like the younger daughter yells out at one point, “I’m tired of everyone fighting all the time!” Amen, sister, a-fucking-men.

If Apatow had the will to cut his film down to a more reasonable length, which would have in turn eliminated much of the repetitiveness, then This is 40 would have been a solid 4-star movie. Sadly, because of his unwillingness to cut anything, he merely has a 3-star movie with a 4-star movie lurking somewhere within. And that is a shame, as it is genuinely funny, smart, and, in parts, moving. It’s something that anyone who has ever been married (or in a serious relationship) can relate to, as well as anyone who is pushing the dreaded 4-0 (I could make a crack about our esteemed editor here, but sound judgment is getting the better of me). If it weren’t so damn overlong, I would tell you to go see it, but as it is now, This is 40 is purely a rental.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

“America is not a country, it’s a business.  Now fuckin’ pay me.”

The H-Bomb:  After a Mob-run card game in New Orleans is held up by a pair of lowlifes, all the games in the area are shut down, which will undoubtedly cause the underworld’s entire financial structure to collapse.  In order to set things right, the people behind the robbery have to be tracked down and dealt with accordingly, so the powers that be call in Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), an efficient, reliable hitman who likes to kill his marks “softly” (from a distance, to avoid the begging, the crying, and all that other “embarrassing shit”).  Complications arise as the Mob debates internally over who should get whacked, who shouldn’t get whacked, as well as from one of the robbers, a junkie who can’t keep his damn mouth shut about the stick up.

Killing Them Softly, directed by Andrew Dominik, who based his script from a novel by George V. Higgins, will probably stand alongside Killer Joe and The Master as being one of the great audience dividers of 2012.  Those who praise it will champion its vivid depiction of the Mob’s inner-workings from the point-of-view of an enforcer, as well as its strong characterizations and potent violence.  Those who dislike it will deride it for its confusing structure, its talky nature, its unsympathetic characters, and will overall just dismiss it by slapping it with the dreaded B-word, boring.  I personally fall into neither camp, since, oddly enough, I agree partially with both camps.

Being that I’m familiar with (and a fan of) director Dominik’s previous film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Movie with the Ridiculously Long Title, I went into this picture anticipating it to be something of a slow burner.  That said, it took me a while to really jell with this one.  For roughly the first quarter of the film, we’re following a couple of dull, scuzzy shitbags who I truly did not give a crap about as they discuss such fascinating topics as selling dogs, dealing smack, and fucking ugly women from the classifieds.  It was as though Dominik was trying to channel Tarantino’s writing style, while sorely lacking the ability to come up with dialogue that’s nearly as entertaining or memorable.

All of this is intercut with, at first, seemingly unrelated scenes about how low level Mobster, Markie (Ray Liotta, looking perpetually hung over) robbed his own card game a while back.  This section of the film is choppy, difficult to follow, and frankly, almost lost me completely.  However, once Pitt enters the picture, things do pick up substantially.  He’s an actor who first caught my eye, and everyone else’s, in Twelve Monkeys, and he’s been worth paying attention to ever since.  Here, he plays the cool-headed Cogan with assured nuance.  We sense that he doesn’t really like his job, particularly the nasty part, but he is a consummate professional, and he has zero tolerance for fuck ups, even those made by people he considers friends.

The film remains dialogue heavy and leisurely paced when Pitt enters, but with his arrival we finally get characters who are somewhat interesting to watch and listen to, so overall the movie does improve immensely.  Pitt aside, other noteworthy players include Richard Jenkins, who’s perfectly cast as a dweeby, Nervous Nelly Mob lawyer who acts as a go-between for Cogan and the Bosses, as well as James Gandolfini as another hitman, with an insatiable appetite for booze and hookers, who Cogan calls in to assist on the job.  Gandolfini is fantastic and steals the scenes he’s in, but with the way his character’s subplot plays out, he does seem rather extraneous.  For the sake of spoilers, I shall spill no more, it’s just that given the amount of screen-time he has, his appearance in the overall story is rendered rather pointless, which is disappointing.

The credible performances from the film’s solid cast is supported by the overall bleak tone that Dominik gives the proceedings.  He does an exceptional job of making New Orleans look like a grim, ruined shell of a city (I felt like I needed to literally scrub the grit off of myself after seeing it), where it really feels like the only way anyone has a chance of getting ahead is by picking up a gun and robbing someone.  The desperation of these characters, as well as the town itself, very much comes across.

Unfortunately, this leads me to an aspect of the film I truly didn’t care for.  The events of the movie are set in 2008, against the backdrop of the U.S.’s economic meltdown, with which Dominik draws a parallel to the Mob’s financial crisis.  I wouldn’t have minded a few subtle allusions to this, but there’s nothing subtle about Dominik’s approach as he practically beats us over the head with this subtext, constantly having news footage from the time playing on the TVs or the radios in the background.  George W. Bush and Barack Obama get so much screen time that I felt like checking the end credits to see if they were actually billed with the rest of the cast.  If people dislike the film for its slow pace, then the heavy handed metaphors are really going to be the icing on the cake.

So while Dominik may have gone overboard with the political allusions, he did nail the violence almost flawlessly.  Every beating, every killing is effectively built up, then executed brutally.  If there were any missteps made on this front, it would be with one shooting death that plays out in overly stylized slow motion that feels completely out of place with the otherwise low key, realistic style of the movie.  But even though it doesn’t really belong, it’s definitely well done and grabs your attention.

It’s that kind of mixed criticism/compliment that pretty much reflects my feelings towards Killing Them Softly as a whole.  I mildly enjoyed it and I moderately recommend it . . . with reservations.  It’s a gangster film that’s slow, dialogue heavy, and requires more than little concentration.  If you don’t know the names of all the characters, you will no doubt get very lost very quickly, as certain characters are talked about more than they’re actually seen, hence it demands a level of attention that not many audiences will be able, or willing, to give it.  I was able, after too long a time, to get into it, but others in the screening I attended were not, and there were more than a few walk outs.  If you enjoy dark, mature themed dramas, then take a risk and buy a ticket.  Otherwise, wait till it hits a Redbox near you.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

At the screening for Anna Karenina, there was a large pamphlet on the chair covered in quotes praising the film up and down. Some stated lead actress Keira Knightly getting Oscar nominated for her performance, the art direction, a directing nom for Joe Wright, etc. Well, don’t believe the hype.

Anna Karenina is a love story. Love stories have been played out over and over since the beginning of art. This isn’t even a very original love story at that. Anna Karenina falls for Vronsky, played by Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass), while still married to her husband Karenin, played by Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes, Cold Mountain). This love triangle pulls at the three of them, tensions rise, and slowly drives Anna Karenina into madness.

There are a few subplots to this film that did nothing more for me than drag down the pace of the film. Throughout the movie, I found myself fading in and out of interest. Every side story seemed to be lingered on 10 minutes too long. This was also a detriment to the main story as I felt there was never enough development for me to remain emotionally attached to Anna and her plight.

The biggest save this film has is the art direction and direction by Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement). Essentially, the film is setup as if being performed on a stage. Backdrops are meant to appear as hand-painted set extensions. There are only a handful of moments where we see establishing shots of the outside world. Curtains are pulled up, doors are opened to move us on to the next scene. Joe Wright is known for his single-take shots, and this film shows them off with a nice touch of movie magic. Seamless cuts and sudden set changes within the frame were always a welcomed visual treat. This unique, creative decision to do the film this way is really what saved it from being unbearable.

The film seemed to want to reach for an epic scope and heavy dramatic weight, but fell short of that. Anna Karenina is the type of film that could be studied for its unique execution, but narratively it leaves a lot to be desired. Anna Karenina does have some beautiful moments placed throughout the film that do live up to the expectation I believe the director had for the film as a whole. A dancing scene that is fairly early on in the movie, stands out in my memory.

I believe that the art direction definitely deserves lots of attention. The attention to detail and the effort, both creative and physical, it would take to pull off a film like this is insurmountable. But will general audiences really have enough appreciation for the art direction to enjoy this film? I don’t believe so. That being said, the audience I saw the film with was fairly receptive. Later on during the film, I felt the audience begin to lose interest. There were theater-wide laughs at moments that weren’t meant to be funny; even moments that were considerably dramatic. There was a certain kind of anxiousness from the audience. They wanted the movie to move along.

The third act of the film does pick itself up in an almost redeeming way. The story lines come to their logical end which isn’t wholly satisfying, but also not necessarily disappointing. That is the sort of grey area the entire film sits in. As a whole, the film is pretty forgettable, but not a regrettable experience. I wouldn’t recommend this film to the average movie goer, but there are worse options out there.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

“For them, this is just a place.  For us, it’s home!”

Swift shot: This is not your father’s Red Dawn, this new Red Dawn is a homogenized, watered-down version with a lot less story and a lot less relevance.  I started a rule about comparing remakes with the original when more than 20 years has passed, so I won’t draw many more comparisons with the original.  But, it should be noted, Red Dawn (the original) is one of my favorite movies, probably of all time.  Let that say about me whatever you want it to, but when I saw that film as a kid, the Soviets were still a very real threat, as was the worry about a nuclear Holocaust.  So, a film about normal Americans standing up, as partisans, and keeping their streets free . . . inspired me but the characters were compelling and interesting.  I can’t really say the same about this new Red Dawn; it feels so mushed up and edited together after the fact.  There is something to be said about a film that pusses out and changes the enemy to the North Koreans, because a more realistic scenario involving the Sino-Russian Axis (SCO) drew too much negative press.  So already, strike one, right there, for not having the testicular fortitude to be honest with your audience.  I hate that!  To be clear, I didn’t hate this new version, as a stand alone action flick, it’s fine, but I doubt it will inspire much real national pride.  It will just be one of another countless, pointless action films that should only be judged by how many explosions or kills can be tallied.  In short, Red Dawn 2012 is fodder for critics that will lament . . . “who cares?”

Click Here: Back in 2009 I posted a teaser about this film!

It’s football night in America, high school football to be exact, and the home team Wolverines are playing in a title game with their cross-town rivals.  The Wolverines are helmed by QB Matt Eckert (Josh Peck) who has a lot of passion but falls short when the game is on the line.  Still, he manages to get the girl, Erica (Isabel Lucas) . . . for the time being anyway.  His brother, Jed (Chris ‘Thor’ Hemsworth), is a United States Marine, on R&R from his last op overseas.  He has two weeks to relax at home before being sent off God knows where.  See, the globe is in a state of utter free-fall (not too far-fetched), and the global experiment seems to have been a failure, as Europe falls, NATO disbands, Asia rises up etc etc.  The first salvo of the film develops the “how we got here” scenario, so I won’t bore you with it here.

Into the early hours, the townsfolk are doing what small town America does during the witching hour, drinking, shooting pool, hanging out in general, and when dawn hits, the invasion is upon them.  Paratroopers, troop transport aircraft, helos, assault vehicles, HUMVEEs, everything short of tanks at this point, descend upon Spokane and Matt and Jed’s father, Tom (Brett Cullen) is the Sheriff of a town, now in name only.  Being in a position of authority during an invasion affords one only two clear choices . . . cooperate or be killed.  See if you can guess which one the Sheriff chooses.

A small group of teenagers escape the civilian round-up, loosely gathered by Jed, they hole-up in a nearby cabin and begin to face reality and plan a survival strategy.  One of the kids decides to challenge Jed’s authority, and it doesn’t work out too well for him.   Seems Erica didn’t make it out though, and she was captured by the provisional North Korean government.  Matt is beyond devastated, as he is trying desperately to hold onto any semblance of family, love, normalcy he can embrace.  He feels like he has abandoned Erica throughout the entire film and it clearly drives his actions.  Don’t ask me about several of the other Wolverine’s motives though, because I challenge you to pinpoint their personalities after seeing this film.

Adrianne Palicki, who I really wanted to see more from in the film, could have basically not existed at all, she was Toni and apparently some psuedo-love interest to Jed and not much else really.  The peripheral characters in Red Dawn were so uninteresting they felt like they were written to be written-off ala the cornucopia scene in The Hunger Games.  Tom Cruise’s kid Connor Cruise played Daryl, whose father has turned Quisling (ptooey) as the Mayor who cooperates with the invaders to save his skin.  Daryl struggles with his father’s weakness throughout the film, and in one pretty powerful scene he must choose between his family and his friends.  One aspect I rather liked in this new version was the obvious entrance of collaborators, “it had to happen,” Jed frankly explains.  But, it’s interesting that in the Milius version they were only alluded to and not shown on screen.  Could this be a political climate change and sign of the times that America’s fiber has become weaker and more accepting of such truths?

There was a scene where a Wolverine supporter is dealt with by the Chinese, errr, I mean North Korean contingent.  But then there was also a gratuitous product placement of Subway (which I love by the way) that was so cheesy it came across as funny.  I must admit it got a laugh out of me, and maybe that is the best way to go about product placement . . . make it so obvious that people can’t help but laugh.  And, with a script devoid of much character development, I guess that counted as a bit.  Anywhere I could get a glimpse of ‘character’ was a treat.

Red Dawn offers a grim reality to people who might otherwise glorify war, that it isn’t a video game, you don’t re-spawn, your father isn’t there anymore to tell you what is right, what is foolish and what is honor, those are decisions that become immediately thrust upon the Wolverines as they wreak havoc upon the enemy . . . to secure their liberty.

One saving grace to a film that almost becomes unwatchable as anything “serious” is the introduction of Tanner (Jeffrey Dean ‘The Comedian’ Morgan) as the film’s American military presence . . . assuring us in the audience that we won’t just let a town fall without a say-so.  The operators bring some comedy relief to an otherwise flat team, with Smith (Kenneth Choi) and Hodges (Matt Gerald) who plays a tight, albeit stereotypical jarhead.

Something I really appreciated as a ‘clinger’ was the sense of pragmatic weapons knowledge that Jed brought to the team, remarking at one point that a weapons cache they find hidden in the woods is essentially useless unless you are about 10 yards away from your enemy.  This is often over-looked in Hollyweird, that it is very difficult to accurately hit your target with a fully automatic weapon with a shortened barrel and almost no weight compensation . . . ala the Intertec-9.  Sure, you might get lucky, but when your army is all kids, luck has to be removed from the equation as much as possible.

And, therein lies the rub, these kids go from zero to hero in NO TIME.  They don’t start off awkwardly engaged in their first combat scenarios, they literally pop up as trained killers.  I just didn’t buy that these punk kids’ first combat action wouldn’t come out with any Wolverine casualties.  A lot of the film relies on that convenience factor, which probably only exists in movies.  I suppose a Wolverine type squad could exist, for a short time, but I find it hard to believe they would be anywhere near as effective as portrayed in the film.  Still, it’s nice to believe that Americans, deprived of freedom, would rise up against a threat to their liberties.

All in all, Red Dawn 2012 is a pretty solid action film, but it lacked something the original had . . . potency.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

Sparkly vampire fans rejoice!!

The time has come for the grand finale, the….wait for it…SWAN SONG (Swan like Bella Swan) of the vampire love story otherwise known as “The Twilight Saga”.

With “Breaking Dawn Part 2” Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) is now Bella Cullen, mother, wife, and…vampire.  As a newborn vampire, Bella has to adjust to her new life, which makes for some humorous scenes.  She and her eternal love Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are parents to what appears to be a human baby, Renesmee.  But Renesmee isn’t any normal human baby.  Her mother was human when she was born, but her father is a vampire.  As a result, Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy) grows at an accelerated rate and within a short time, she is about ten years old.

If you’ll recall, at the end of Part 1, Jacob (Taylor Lautner) imprinted on Edward and Bella’s daughter (imprinting is the involuntary mechanism by which shape-shifters find their soul-mates).  When Bella finds out about that, you’re in for a laugh!!  Kristen Stewart actually showed a shred of emotion!!  Anyways, you might be thinking “gross, Jacob has the hots for this child” but it’s not like that.  Remember, Renesmee is fast-growing.  At this point, Jacob is more like her protector than anything else.  As a result, he is always around.  Hanging at the Cullen’s house.  Always.  However, this time the rivalry between Edward and Jacob is non-existent.  It was kind of nice to see everyone getting along, one big happy vampire/shapeshifter family.

Of course, that was not meant to last.  One of the Cullen’s cousins, Irina (Maggie Grace) was spying on the family (I’m not really sure why, I can’t remember why that happened in the book) and she went and reported back to the Volturi (the vampire league in Italy, the really powerful and power-hungry vampires) that the Cullens created an immortal child, which is against vampire law.  So Alice (Ashley Greene) has a vision that the Volturi are coming to Forks to punish the Cullens (by the way, in this movie, to kill a vampire there is no staking.  They simply crack off the vampire’s head to kill them).  Well Edward’s “father” Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) thinks they can stand up to the Volturi if they have enough witnesses to convince the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal child but a human child, which leads to the Cullens travelling the world to recruit fellow vampires to help their cause.

When the Volturi, which includes the leader, Aro (Michael Sheen), his right-hand man Caius (Jamie Campbell Bower), the evil Jane (Dakota Fanning) and her brother Alec (Cameron Bright) arrive, they have an army of their own.  Although the Cullens have their vampire friends as well as the shape-shifters, the odds are not in their favor (yeah that was a “Hunger Games” shout-out).

If you’ve read the books, you don’t know what happens next!!  Yes there is a deviation from the story.  I was sitting there thinking “I don’t remember that happening in the book” a few times before the big reveal, and it is a GOOD one!!

Team Jacob fans will be happy that within the first twenty minutes of the movie, Jacob strips down to nothing (although sorry, we don’t get a peek at his cheeks) to reveal his true form to Bella’s father, Charlie Swan (Billy Burke) in an attempt to stop the new family’s original plans to move away from Forks. See, if Charlie thinks Bella is dead, they can’t stay living in the same town where he lives.  The truth isn’t really fully revealed, it’s just on a “need to know” basis.

If you don’t want to find out the plot twist, stay off the message boards on imdb.  I saw a slew of threads that revealed the twist in the subject line.  Not cool.  Also, stick around during the credits.  It’s a whose-who of the main and supporting characters from the entire series.  It was like the “In Memoriam” segment of the Oscars, but only some of the characters are dead.

Just like in the previous installment, I was surprised, because amidst all the gaggy love scenes (and there were some doozies in this one!!!  Yuck), there were some funny moments.  There were also some corny moments.  Cheesiest line said by Edward to Bella “we’re the same temperature now”.  Barf.

The acting is still sub-par, but again, I don’t think people like these movies for the terrible acting and dialogue.  Which makes me wonder, how many people will still go see this after the Kristen Stewart and her “SWATH” Cheating Scandal of 2012??  Supposedly the real-life Edward and Bella are back together, but is that just for show??  Or was the entire scandal a set-up??  I guess we’ll never know the truth about that.

Overall, it doesn’t really matter what I, or any other film critic, says about “Breaking Dawn Part 2”.  The Twilight fans (I won’t use the ridiculous term) will most likely flock to the theaters, despite any real-life drama, to see their beloved Edward, Bella, and company in their grand finale.  Even though it was no “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 or 2”, it was still a satisfying ending to the series.