F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 24, 2010)

24 09 2010

This week’s “F.I.L.M.” is “A Mighty Heart,” the movie that chronicles the 2002 search for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.  Running parallel to the hunt is the story of his pregnant wife, Mariane (Angelina Jolie), as she deals with his disappearance – and ultimately, his death.

(I think the story of Pearl’s captivity and beheading is well-known enough that I didn’t need to preface that with a spoiler alert, but if anyone thinks I’m ruining the surprise, let me know and I’ll take out that last part.)

On his last day on assignment on Pakistan, Daniel ventures into some sketchy areas to interview a very mysterious but powerful figure.  When he doesn’t come home that night, Mariane instantly fears that his disappearance was a kidnapping.  And as the days go by without word from him, the investigation takes on a graver importance.  The Department of Justice takes over the search; the CIA releases a report denouncing allegations that Daniel was an agent for them; even Colin Powell acknowledges the situation.

While the hunt for the kidnappers is mostly gripping, it doesn’t feel like anything we haven’t seen before.  “A Mighty Heart” works best when Angelina Jolie is on camera giving her tour-de-force performance as Mariane Pearl.  Clearly people that dismiss her celebrity as due to her beauty clearly haven’t seen “A Mighty Heart” (or, for that matter, any of her Oscar-nominated and -winning roles).

Jolie has a pitch-perfect range and totally nails Pearl’s every move.  While at the beginning she doesn’t show much emotion, we don’t feel distant at all.  In fact, it only draws us in more.  When we reach the tragic end, it’s absolutely heartbreaking to watch her let it all out.  It’s Angelina’s movie, and she owns every moment of it with as much grace as she has on the red carpet.


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REVIEW: Easy A

20 09 2010

Finally, I get a high school movie for my time in high school!

For the past three years, we’ve been left quoting “Mean Girls” left and right, yelling out “She doesn’t even go here!” in situations when it doesn’t even make sense and putting on the strict face of authority to say, “If you have sex, you will get chlamydia – and die” whenever the practically taboo topic is brought up.  We get all the jokes now, but in 2004, high school was as foreign a place as Afghanistan.  Even in the six years since Tina Fey’s first big splash (and Lindsay Lohan’s last big splash), high school has changed, and we can thank Facebook, YouTube, and iPhones for that.

I was afraid that I might graduate high school with only a dated high school movie to show my kids what it was like to be my age in 2010.  Thanks to “Easy A,” such concerns are no more.  It’s a near perfect reflection of the realities of living in a sphere where gossip travels as quickly as text messages can be sent over a 3G connection and reputations can be ruined in the split-second it takes to update a Facebook status.

It’s also remarkable that while the movie is very current, it isn’t entirely grounded in 2010.  It takes a page from one of American literature’s finest, “The Scarlet Letter,” and plops it down in front of a webcam.  And darned if we aren’t convinced that Nathaniel Hawthorne would have vodcasted his classic story through YouTube had it existed back in the nineteenth century.  The movie is a testament not just to the creativity of the writers of “Easy A,” but also to Hawthorne for spawning a story that is still relevant centuries after publication.

Read the rest of this entry »


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 17, 2010)

17 09 2010

I don’t know why I have let “I Am Sam” wait in the wings so long for its moment in the sun through the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” column, but it certainly reflects nothing on the quality of the movie.  For those of us who like to feel good, this a movie that will comfort your soul – although it will take you on an emotional rollercoaster ride leading up to your eventual soothing.

The title may be taken from the opening sentence of “Green Eggs and Ham,” but “I Am Sam” owes more to The Beatles than it does to Dr. Seuss.  The movie follows Fab Four fanatic and Starbucks employee Sam, played with complete control by the virtuoso Sean Penn, as he fights to maintain custody of his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning in her breakout role – at the age of 7).  The state has good reason to take her as Sam is mentally challenged; Lucy came into the world because her mother exploited Sam’s lacking logical capacity.

Despite whatever cognitive disabilities he may have, Sam’s ability to love his daughter is uninhibited, and he makes a wholehearted attempt to keep her.  He consults a harried lawyer, Rita Harrison, (Michelle Pfeiffer) for help, who on first glance won’t give his case the time of day.  But for entirely misguided and selfish reasons, she agrees to take Sam on pro bono.  As she gets more involved with the case, Rita winds up being taught how to feel by his undying love for his daughter.

I know it sounds clichéd to say that a movie about the power of love is a really moving thing, but every once in a while, there comes a movie that comes along that can repackage old emotions and make them feel warm and cozy again.  “I Am Sam” tackles a tough ethical question: should a mentally handicapped person be able to have custody of a child that is more intelligent than they are?  No matter what your opinion on the matter is, it’s pretty hard not to be affected in some way by this testament to love that can transcend any boundary.


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REVIEW: The Joneses

14 09 2010

American culture gets a good examination every once in a while from some ambitious writers and directors. But in Derrick Borte’s “The Joneses,” culture doesn’t get examined so much as it gets slapped in the face. It’s an address on the state of the American Dream in 2010 where the goal is no longer to better ourselves but to be better than everyone else.

Our image-driven consumer society hasn’t been so heavily satirized in quite some time, and because it’s a movie that speaks to our recession-weary minds, “The Joneses” arrives at the perfect time. Companies with something to sell hire family units like the Joneses to promote their products in affluent neighborhoods. Much like staging a house to sell it, the Joneses move into a neighborhood to sell an image. They are a true model of excess, decked out with the latest gadgets, fashions, and utilities. Reflecting the corporate values that more things makes you happier, each member of the family waltzes around town with a fixed smile and an aura of mystery, arousing curiosity and spiking sales.

The movie is spot-on with its lambasting of consumerism, yet it shows a few minor flaws when trying to delve into typical romantic comedy territory with subplots. It’s just business between “Kate” (Demi Moore) and “Steve” (David Duchovny), but he wants to add a little bit of pleasure to their fake relationship despite her insistence on keeping everything matter of fact. Much more tolerable are daughter “Jenn” (Amber Heard) and her scandalous affair on the side and son “Mick” (Ben Hollingsworth) as he struggles with identity issues.

In spite of everything, though, “The Joneses” still emerges victorious as it hammers the main focus home through and through, even daring to deliver a heartbreakingly devastating and jarring conclusion. Borte integrates humor and a thought-provoking critique of contemporary society so flawlessly that you’ll wonder why all comedies can’t be this good. A- /


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REVIEW: The American

13 09 2010

Everyone can attest to the fact that “The American” is a beautiful movie to look at. The gorgeous Italian countryside, the charming architecture, and the suave George Clooney coupled with some elegant cinematography make Anton Corbijn’s sophomore directorial venture seem like the film adaptation of a coffee-table book.

But really, Corbijn only wants you too look at the surface of his movie.  Unfortunately, anything beneath that is a virtually void space, and whatever material does still lie down there is incredibly vapid.  There’s nothing wrong with staying all in the visual and never delving into the visceral.  However, a point does exist where being so excruciatingly emotionally reserved just comes off as superficial.

With its paper-thin plot, “The American” could have been a ten-minute movie in the hands of Michael Bay. Clooney gets to play an angst-ridden version of 24‘s Jack Bauer (coincidentally also named Jack), a merciless killer but tender soul.  He leaves comfortable living in Sweden after being discovered to take a vague final assignment building a murder weapon in Italy.

The movie chugs along like molasses for 100 minutes, familiarizing us with Jack’s routine but never Jack himself.  We are kept at such a distance from any sort of emotion that it watching the movie feels like looking at a painting.  It’s an implausibly orderly universe that the characters inhabit, where every house and restaurant is tidily organized and every street is appropriately deserted.  There’s also that same sense of calm and placidity that art-gazing provides; the theater chairs in need of WD-40 wound up being noisier than the movie itself.

An art-house movie that puts the emphasis on making beautiful art rather than pleasing the house is not any sort of criminal act.  Every frame exudes enough precision and expertise to keep all eyes drawn to it.  The problem is that Corbijn tells the story through tactics so subtle that they become obvious.  Before taking up filmmaking, he was an accomplished photographer, and his knack for the still frames is remarkable.  Endowing that same stillness on the silver screen, however, inspires an awe laced with sleepiness and boredom.  B- /


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Classics Corner: “2001: A Space Odyssey”

12 09 2010

Gut reaction to Stanley Kubirick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” – WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!?

I just had to put that out there.  From my past experiences with Kubrick, which only include “Spartacus,” “The Shining,” and “Full Metal Jacket,” I was definitely expecting a head-scratcher.  But I can honestly say that in my nearly 18 years of watching movies, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie so cryptic.  I feel like I’m going to be left baffled for the rest of my life, and somehow I feel like Kubrick is grinning mischievously down at me from the afterlife, sniveling “I’ve got him just where I want him!”

Honestly, how did they discuss this movie in the 1960s?  Without the Internet to bounce ideas and theories off each other, did people just accept the fact that they couldn’t understand it since they didn’t have access to the geniuses who post things on the Web?  I can’t even fathom how dinner conversations might have gone in discussing such an innovative movie.

As you can see from the poster, the movie is advertised as the ultimate trip.  It truly is … the ultimate ACID trip.  I strongly advise anyone who might be under the influence of certain influences to stay away from this movie, not because of the content, but because the style might cause you to have some kind of seizure, stroke, or spasm. But what makes this movie a classic?  I can tell just from my first viewing that it has had an enormous influence on filmmaking in the 42 years since its release.  I felt a particularly urgent desire to watch “2001” now because Christopher Nolan named it as an influence of “Inception.”  Here are the specifics according to The New York Times:

The influence of the director of ”2001: A Space Odyssey” is readily apparent in a ”dream-gravity” sequence during ”Inception” that tracks Joseph Gordon-Levitt through an environment of rotating rooms followed by a period of total weightlessness. ”Kubrick to me always had a wonderful sense of calm and specificity in everything he did,” Mr. Nolan said. ”Every detail had a specific meaning and purpose. That’s something I always try to aim for in my filmmaking. It’s not a specific thing. It’s an approach of saying: ‘Why is this thing here? What are we doing with this detail, this element?'”

I can definitely feel a sense of overarching purpose in both the works of Nolan and Kubrick. The former, however, is much more forward while the latter is more subtle, really requiring us to trust in his directorial abilities.  In 2010, a time where Kubrick has been given God-like status among filmmakers, it’s very easy to do that.  But in 1968, I can imagine I might have been a little more skeptical.

The movie is packed with all sorts of themes, imagism, motifs, and symbols, many of which I have absolutely no idea how to interpret.  And I’m not even going to try (to quote “A Serious Man” despite the fact that I despise it, “accept the mystery”).  On the surface, the most accessible thematic element is that of artificial intelligence.  We build computers to be smart, even machines like the HAL-9000 that can supposedly make no errors, but when will come the time that they become smarter than us?  This idea has definitely been echoed quite a bit ever since, often times in a more paranoid tone (see “The Matrix”).

There’s also the ground-breaking special effects, which wow me even in 2010.  Crowd reaction must have been like “Avatar” on steroids.  The fact that someone can watch visual effects over four decades old and not be able to laugh at them is practically unfathomable, yet here is “2001” with spectacles that are barely even dusty.  And beyond the graphics, the movie also boasts some very appealing cinematography and skilled make-up artistry.

And of course, no discussion of “2001” can be complete without discussing the music.  I swear that “Requiem” was used in “Inglourious Basterds” when the Nazis killed Shoshana’s family, but I can’t confirm it anywhere (and thus risk looking like a fool if I am refuted).  But the eccentric, or as some would say, innovative, sequences where the only thing we is hear is instrumental music are definitely incredibly influential.  Not to mention the incredibly eclectic nature of the film’s music, which often times feeling entirely out of place, that I say for sure manifests itself in today’s movies.  Look no further than Quentin Tarantino for that.

I’m not ready to crown Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” one of my favorite movies of all time, although I know many would include in their pantheon of fantastic films.  However, I am thankful that this movie was made because it got the ball rolling for the future masters of science-fiction and fantasy to further expand the possibilities for the genre.  I think it’s a topic to debate whether this still reigns supreme or if any of the movies it has inspired have eclipsed it.

*NOTE: I wrote this entire review without consulting any source that would attempt to explain the mystery that is the movie to me.  That has to count for something.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 10, 2010)

10 09 2010

There’s been plenty of attention paid to the Oscars on this site recently, and there will be significantly more starting next week.  The Venice Film Festival will wrap tomorrow; Toronto began yesterday; Telluride came and went.  The race is now beginning to take shape.  Exciting, isn’t it?

I find myself getting a little too carried away with the whole awards season, as do many other people.  We think that Hollywood is obsessed with the Oscar hunt, spending millions upon millions pushing their movie in an attempt to secure it a place in cinematic history.  But not everyone is amused.

Case in point: Christopher Guest.  His 2006 ensemble comedy “For Your Consideration” is a dead-on satire of the Oscar chase, seen from the eyes of the people whom the outcome directly affects.  It’s a reminder for those of us who get caught up in the craze that the whole thing is really a silly game and doesn’t deserve the serious attention we give it.  So I’m hoping that by entering it into the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” series, I might remember how trivial these awards really are in the grand scheme of things.

It all starts with a rumor as some idle Oscar buzz around Marilyn Hack, played with hilarious gusto by the ever hilarious Catherine O’Hara, and her performance in “Home for Purim” gets the star’s attention.  The movie is still shooting when the word gets out, and all of a sudden, it becomes all that anyone can can talk about.  The actors, the directors, the writers, the technical crew, the producers, the agents – everyone suddenly begins to believe they are a part of something special.

Dynamics begin to change around the set as the arbitrary layer of prestige is added to the production.  Hack’s performance is affected as she tries to pull typical over-the-top emotions just begging for Academy attention.  Beyond Hack, everyone starts acting solely out of self-interest to push themselves into awards contention as well.  This is more than just a movie about the Oscars; it’s a cautionary tale of what can happen if we get too wrapped up in layers of self-importance.

There’s a great exchange between Harry Shearer’s B-list actor Victor Allan Miller and his makeup artist.  While fixing his hair, the artist says, “The Oscars are the backbone of this industry,” to which Miller replies, “In an industry known for having no backbone.”  In just two lines, Guest smacks the nail on the head of Oscar frenzy.  Actors are involved in more compelling drama off screen than on, and their lives become an act to satisfy the politics of awards gimmicking.  The Academy or any other significant voting body couldn’t in their right minds honor a movie that so deftly lambasts their institution, but “For Your Consideration” has a home here.  I’m an Oscar maniac and won’t hide it; however, I’ll have Guest’s movie in the back of my head all season telling me to recognize these movies for their art, not their campaigning.


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REVIEW: The Ghost Writer

7 09 2010

There are plenty of political thrillers thrown at us each year, and despite being directed by Oscar winner Roman Polanski, “The Ghost Writer” has little to distinguish itself from the countless other entries in the genre.  Thanks to solid direction and capable acting, it definitely ranks among the upper echelon of similar movies.  Yet at the same time, there’s nothing that jumps out and makes you think “now THAT is the work of an Academy Award winning director.”  (It’s almost impossible to top “The Pianist,” and I don’t expect Polanski to do so.)

It’s your prototypical tale of intrigue involving the usual chain of events: suspicion, investigation, and ultimately startling discovery. Ewan McGregor’s Ghost takes on the lofty task of adapting the verbose memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after the first ghost writer drowns.  The Ghost senses that there might be foul play afoot in the unforeseen disappearance, and sure enough, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  He stumbles upon a web of deceit and betrayal where allegiance and alliance are never certain.

There are some nice twists in the end, but the build-up can get a little tedious at times.  Nothing is ever boring because it is a Polanski movie, after all.  There is often an occasion where the movie thinks it’s a lot better than it is.  Maybe it’s this Polanski-instilled confidence that elevates the movie a few rungs above mediocre.  He does a good job of escalating the tension slowly over the movie until the end when it could be cut with a knife.  The tautness is also due in large part to Alexandre Desplat’s brassy score, sometimes quirky but always blaring.

In short, “The Ghost Writer” doesn’t quite measure up to the Roman Polanski standard.  But not quite measuring up to his standard is exceeding a whole lot of other ones.  B+ /


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REVIEW: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

6 09 2010

With the sense of wonder of a child and the intelligence of an adult, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is a truly dazzling film. From the mind of Terry Gilliam, this Faustian fairy tale indulges our imaginations, often growing dusty from years without activity and becoming more seldomly used with each technological advance and each passing year. I feel like I saw in this movie what the multitudes saw in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” but I found the bubbly exuberance on display here was ultimately much more winning.

The titular Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is traveling England doing an antiquated theater and magic show in a horse-and-buggy. He has sold his soul to Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), an incarnation of the Devil, to counteract the immortality he won from the big red guy down below in a bet several hundred years before. Parnassus soon has to give back his 16-year-old daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), to Nick, and he’s especially dreary given those circumstances. It doesn’t help that his “imaginarium” has become somewhat of a laughing stock.

But everything changes when they rescue a hanging man (Heath Ledger), later discovered to be a philanthropist named Tony. Parnassus’ crew discovers first, though, that Tony has a true knack for the theatrical, and he revolutionizes their marketing approach. Soon enough, all sorts of high-class mall shoppers are entering their mysterious mirror into a world of untapped imagination. But soon enough, they find out that Tony was involved some shady dealings, and the troupe is subsequently brought into this world of danger along with their newest member.

The movie has the unfortunate distinction of being Heath Ledger’s final role. As it was widely publicized, he was still in the middle of filming this movie when he passed. While his performance as the anarchical The Joker will forever make him an icon and legend in cinematic history, it was a role that certainly did not represent Ledger’s off-screen personality. As the mysterious Tony, all the charm and artistry that made him one of the movies’ golden boys is on display. It’s really comforting to know that Ledger’s final movie shows us the Ledger we want to remember.

I was worried that the movie would be too much of a memorial to Ledger and that Gilliam couldn’t figure out a way to downplay his death. His solution is executed with poise, having Ledger play Tony in the real world and three capable actors (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell) play different incarnations of him inside the mirror. Depp, Law, and Farrell are all great, bringing their distinctive acting skills to the role while also keeping in line with Ledger’s version of the character. It’s also nice to know that their dedication extends beyond the screen as they all donated their salaries for the movie to Ledger’s daughter, Matilda.

But let’s not dwell on the past too much because this movie gives us a great opportunity to look forward to the future. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is one of the first roles for Andrew Garfield, recently cast in the reboot of the Spider-Man series. Audiences will probably look back and see “Never Let Me Go” and “The Social Network” as the movies in which they discovered him, but here we get a very nice introduction to the actor who is poised to make a big splash in Hollywood. With charisma, nobility, and sensibility, not so unlike Ledger, Garfield should be a welcome addition to Hollywood’s A-list.  A- /


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SAVE YOURSELF from “Lost in Translation”

5 09 2010

Plenty of people will tell you to run to “Lost in Translation;” I, however, am not telling you to walk. I’m telling you to run in the other direction and SAVE YOURSELF!

Now, by all means, if you want to spend an hour and a half of your valuable time watching an excruciatingly subtle movie that shows not the slightest bit of emotion, this could be your movie. Some people take pleasure in seeing movies like this because they, in some form or fashion, feel like they have power because the filmmaker has let them fill in the emotional blanks. I like movies that show people living their lives, no matter how dismal or boring that may be. Sofia Coppola gives us in this movie a portrait of two people who might as well be dead because they show such few signs of life.

It’s a 90-minute movie that feels like 90 hours in moviewatching hell – or, as Coppola sees it, Japan. We get to see plenty of a much younger Scarlett Johansson (here in her breakout role), but if you want to go ScarJo watching, there are plenty of magazines and websites for that. In “Lost in Translation,” Coppola gives us these ten minute asides of Johansson visiting various tourist locations looking perplexed and bored to tears. I’ll give her that she really communicates the later of the two emotions to the audience, as our impatient American mind yells, “GET ON WITH IT! SEE THE DARNED SIGHTS AND GET THE PLOT MOVING!”

The movie drags on following two bored souls in Japan, the photographer’s wife left to stew in her own juices played by Johansson and a burnt-out alcoholic actor played admirably by Bill Murray.  I won’t pretend like Murray deserved a Razzie for his work here because it wasn’t awful.  But in terms of the kind of performances the Oscars have rewarded and nominated in the past decade, this just falls short of expectations.  In essence, it’s Murray playing the same character we’ve laughed at for two decades, only now we are supposed to pity him because this funny guy has suddenly turned vapid.

The two strike up friendship unexpectedly and begin to converse on occasion.  Talking makes up only about a third of the movie, however.  Coppola left me wondering how on earth I’m expected to buy their relationship, but more importantly, why I should care an iota.  I’ve been more invested in the characters that populate corny romantic comedies than this, something that should not be able to describe any Best Picture nominee.  The counteracting of my argument is that Coppola is using the European technique of letting the dialogue provide the mood and the emotions to tell the story.  I have no problem with this, but “Lost in Translation” is so frigidly distant that I felt there was never an opportunity to make any sort of connection to it.

By the time the movie wrapped up, I could have cared less about how to interpret the open-ended conclusion. It’s as painfully reserved and wistfully distant as the shy kid in middle school.  All politeness aside, that’s NOT the person I want to spend my valuable time with.  The Coppola last name is the stuff of legends, and it’s a shame that Sofia can just tote it around because she was born with it, not because she truly earned it.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 3, 2010)

3 09 2010

My so-called Comedy Week comes to a conclusion today with this “F.I.L.M. of the Week,” a little indie comedy by the name of “Rocket Science.”  It’s a great high school movie, covering a group that gets very little cinematic coverage – the debaters.  Conceived by documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz after observing Spelling Bee contestants and reflecting on his own adolescence, he creates a very authentic high school environment where youth is neither sneered at nor idealized.

The movie’s hero is perhaps one of the unlikeliest debaters, a fifteen-year-old with a stutter by the name of Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson).  With his speech impediment, he is not naturally drawn to the art of rhetoric.  Like so much in life, he winds up doing it to get a girl, in this case the team’s star debater, Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick).  After her previous partner dropped out of school because of an embarrassing mid-speech moment at the state championships, Ginny enlists Hal to be her new sidekick.  His venture into the world of debating is a funny-sad mix of love, lies, and betrayal (only not set against the backdrop of an implausibly corny ABC Family series).

Blitz and the movie received plenty of accolades from the Sundance Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Awards, and all laurels are much deserved.  “Rocket Science” is an honest look at the development of our selves and values in high school, something everyone goes through in those for years.  As someone still undergoing these changes (albeit in their final year), I definitely found that the film spoke to me on a very personal level.  Much like you don’t need to be Greek to connect with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” you don’t need to be a debater to get this movie.  The lessons can apply to any group or activity in high school.

Want to know how Anna Kendrick became Golden Globe, SAG, and Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick?  Look to “Rocket Science” for the answer.  Jason Reitman, writer/director of “Up in the Air,” wrote the part of Natalie Keener specifically for her after seeing her play Ginny.  I certainly wouldn’t have stumbled upon “Rocket Science” had it not been for Kendrick’s wowing turn in “Up in the Air,” and I’m certainly glad I discovered both her and this both heartwarming and contemplative movie.


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REVIEW: Death at a Funeral

3 09 2010

It’s a funny thing, the remake of “Death at a Funeral.” The British original in 2007 turned the title, which implied the melancholy proceedings of a sacred ritual, into something totally unforeseen – a laugh riot.

There are those of us who think two decades is too soon for a remake, but Neil LaBute turns around the hilarious original for a Hollywood treatment in under three years. Essentially, there’s no reason for this remake to exist other than to make the script more digestible to a mainstream audience. Nothing new is brought to the table, no retooling or adding is done. It’s practically a shot-by-shot remake, claiming that swapping accents is enough to warrant the millions of dollars to produce the movie.

It’s a strange experience to watch these often funny stars, including Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, and Tracy Morgan, running around doing a half-hearted version of the original movie.  In fact, it’s almost like an out-of-body experience as we watch them utter virtually the same lines and run through the same motions as the British actors did – but never come close to matching their comedic brilliance.  Surprisingly, the funniest member of the ensemble is James Marsden, who truly embraces the farcical nature of his character and plays it up to hilarity.  However, we only get to see glances of the zonked Marsden, never prolonged scenes.

I find there no reason to watch this movie when a clearly superior alternative exists.  Sure, this version has a few laughs and is hardly unfunny, but why choose chuckles over the howls that you can have watching the original?  If you had the choice between a rotting apple that looked nice and a fresh apple with a little bit of dust on top, which would you eat?  This “Death at a Funeral” looks nice on a poster, but at its core, the movie is pretty rotten.  There’s no reason NOT to go off the beaten path to watch the British version.  C /


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REVIEW: Hot Tub Time Machine

2 09 2010

Walkmans and legwarmers and tracksuits, oh my!

It’s a blast back to the ’80s in “Hot Tub Time Machine,” the raunchy romp that defies the laws of physics.  A sort of irreverent “Back to the Future,” the movie has no science to back up what is happening.  Then again, do you expect much to back up the premise that a hot tub could transport a group of four drunk guys 25 years into the past?

Thanks to the bubbling portal, the four losers in 2010 get a chance to be their younger, cooler selves in 1986 (with the exception of Clark Duke’s gaming Jacob, who has yet to be born).  In their hangover logic, they decided that they need to do exactly as they did when they lived the weekend the first time.  For some of them, it means promiscuous escapades; for others, it means taking punches.

For those of us who didn’t live through the decade, for better or for worse, the movie still manages to be funny.  It’s not some giant ’80s inside joke; there are some nods to “Back to the Future,” both through situations and the perfectly cast Crispin Glover as a creepy bellhop, but they don’t make the movie any less accessible for those who haven’t seen it.  There’s plenty of universal humor that anyone can laugh at – provided they check their maturity at the door.

The bulk of the comedy comes courtesy of Craig Robinson, who plays Nick, the guy whipped by his unfaithful wife to the point that he takes her last name.  Robinson has been gold on “The Office” for several years now and has done many memorable supporting roles, often times being a highlight of those movies.  If “Hot Tub Time Machine” isn’t enough of a testament to his comedic talent to give him a headlining role over Chris Rock (or any other tired comedian, for that matter), there is truly no justice in the world.

Everyone else is good too, just no one on the level of Robinson.  Most of the jokes centered around John Cusack come at the expense of his own fame in the ’80s.  The woebegone Lou, played by Rob Corddry, is the most crass of the bunch, which guarantees a few laughs.  Duke’s Jacob is great for those of who didn’t live in the decade as he gapes in amazement at the social climate.  And then there’s Chevy Chase as the hot tub repairman, who is just plain creepy.

But the movie’s best facet (and the one that will make it stand out among recent comedies) is its willingness to forget teaching a lesson and just have fun.  It doesn’t pretend to have scrupulous morals; really, it doesn’t pretend to have any morals at all.  “Hot Tub Time Machine” is four guys having fun, and for once, Hollywood’s rules don’t spoil it.  B+ /


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REVIEW: The Bounty Hunter

1 09 2010

Have you ever watched a movie and wondered what could make an actor’s standards drop so low?  Even if you haven’t before, you will watching Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston slog through the miserable “The Bounty Hunter.” You may not have held either of these actors in the highest of regards anyways, but it’s easily a career low for both stars.

The movie is an action comedy – well, if you count Butler punching a few people as action and a few pity sneer as comedy.  We’ve never quite seen a plot like this, where exes fight with stakes as high as prison, but it never feels the slightest bit original.  In fact, it just feels like an old trip down Memory Lane, mimicking every sort of used gimmick with ex-lovers.  But boy, Memory Lane has never looked so run-down or shabby.  It’s time for some renovation.

It’s the typical “hate turns to love” romance story as Butler’s bounty hunter Milo gets to track down ex-wife Nicole, Aniston’s flighty news reporter who foolishly misses her court date over an article.  He finds her and begins hauling her to jail, and on their journey, they suddenly start to realize that they never gave their marriage a fair shot.  I’d call it a dumbed-down Stockholm syndrome, but something tells me the writers of this movie don’t even have the intelligence to use Wikipedia and look it up.

Don’t even mention the writers adding insult to injury by trying to add complexity to the plot by adding in other storylines.  Honestly, if anyone wants to spend nearly two hours of their life watching this movie, they want to see it for Butler and Aniston.  The last thing we want is to have our time wasted by anything that detracts from the main story – sorry, Jason Sudeikis, but you really stink here, and Lorne Michaels would fire you if you ever did anything this bad on “SNL.”  D /


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REVIEW: She’s Out of My League

31 08 2010

“She’s Out of My League” makes an entire movie out of the question we asked all during 2007’s “Knocked Up” – wait, how can that attractive woman be with this disgusting slob?  No chance they would be together had he not gotten her pregnant, we thought to ourselves.

It could have been a movie about inner beauty, about falling in love with someone’s personality rather than their appearance.  Yet it’s exactly because Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is a little lacking in the looks department that Molly (Alice Eve) decides to give him a chance.  Tired of the narcissism of guys as good-looking as she is, she drops her standards a little bit in the hopes of finding a decent guy.  The fact that someone as beautiful as her could fall for an average joe like Kirk shocks his immature friends at work, a circle of four that serves as a poor man’s version of Seth Rogen’s stoner pals in “Knocked Up.”

This isn’t a movie from the so-called “Apatow Factory,” and it shows in several key missing components.  Aside from Kirk and Molly’s relationship, we don’t really buy any of the other characters or their relation – Molly’s foul-mouthed best friend, Kirk’s strange family and ex-girlfirend situation, or any of his work friends.  They are an incredibly improbable bunch – a confident self-obsessor, a loser who claims to have all the answers, and a married dork.  And maybe I’d have an easier time getting to like them had the actors not been substitutes for the people who could actually play them right.  In an ideal world, Jason Segel would be the self-obsessor, Jonah Hill would be the loser, and oddly enough, Baruchel would probably be playing the dork.

But thankfully, Eve and Baruchel work as the 2010 make of the Katherine Heigl-Seth Rogen pairing.  Eve manages to be a lot more likable and down-to-earth than Heigl (which apparently isn’t too hard), and Baruchel has a very dorky charm about him that proves to be quite winning.  Yet this appeal and chemistry can’t atone for the dearth of laughs in the movie.  Frankly, it just isn’t funny, something that I blame mostly on the uninspired script.  Baruchel tries his best to breathe some life into it, but nothing really works.

It’s a shame that this movie wasn’t better for Jay Baruchel, who really has a likable, average-joe charm about him.  He really deserves a breakout role to make him a marquee name, but he’s more recognizable for a movie where he didn’t show his face, “How to Train Your Dragon,” than he is for anything else.  It will come one of these days, but for now, we wait.  C+ /


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