REVIEW: Cop Out

30 08 2010

The first joke, so to speak, in “Cop Out” involves the mispronunciation of the word homage by Tracy Morgan’s idiotic cop.  He says it as it appears, phonetically sounding like “home-age.”  Any lover of sophisticated art – or really just anybody with common knowledge, like Bruce Willis as Morgan’s brutalized partner – cringes, and perhaps simultaneously laughs.

Although Morgan’s Paul can’t pronounce the word, he is well aware of its meaning.  He loves to pay homage to cinematic tough guys, particularly the “bad cops,” in an attempt to make himself intimidating to the accused criminals.  It works about as well as an iPhone that’s gone through the spin cycle in the washing machine, which is to say not very well.  However, it does provide amusement for the other guys at the station, as well as us, the audience.  It’s like watching a montage of Tracy Morgan’s “SNL” impressions, and it’s hard not to get a kick out of watching him butcher great lines from classic movies.

The joke of paying homage keeps coming up throughout the movie in bits and fragments, always good for a nice chuckle.  But the movie lags and bores when Morgan has to play the hopelessly pathetic character written for him in the script.  One has to wonder how he can choose such hackneyed fare when his day job is working for Tina Fey, one of the brightest bulbs in the comedic universe at the moment, on “30 Rock.”

And then there’s our old friend Bruce Willis, playing the character as bored as we are.  He’s supposed to be the straight man in the routine, but he just looks bored and ready to head back to his trailer.  While such emotions can be a character choice, there has to be some variety to give off the faintest illusion that he’s not on the screen just to cash the paycheck that follows.  I don’t know what he thinks will come first, the AARP check or the offer to reprise John McClane for “Die Hard 5: Just DIE Already!”

In a year where “The Other Guys” cornered the market on making the stale buddy cop genre somewhat bearable, it seems that “Cop Out” is “The Other Cop Movie” of 2010.  This is a title made even more insulting by the fact that it’s directed by Kevin Smith, the mind behind some of the great independent movies of the 1990s.  I haven’t seen any of his earlier movies, but based on this, I’m not very keen to go back and examine his collection.  It seems to me that Smith is like the M. Night Shyamalan of comedy – a meteoric rise followed by a steep fall.  “Cop Out” isn’t bad enough to be called rock bottom, but any worse and Smith gets dangerously close.  C /


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REVIEW: When In Rome

29 08 2010

I was preparing for the worst when I popped “When In Rome” into my DVD player.  It’s a romantic comedy, so that means a marriage to formula and the same old gimmicks for an easy laugh.  But the thing about low standards is that it becomes a whole lot easier for a movie to really surprise you.  Such was the case here.

Shockingly enough, it’s not half bad.  I’m sure you are shaking your heads, saying it’s not possible for a romantic comedy that looked pretty uninspired from the previews to actually be any good.  And I’m not saying that this a new classic for the genre or that it has successfully introduced a new formula into the romantic comedy lexicon.  It’s nothing highly original or innovative.  All I’m saying is that something about “When In Rome” … works.

At the start of the movie, I was preparing to hate Kristen Bell’s character Beth after she can’t stop rambling to herself about a bad experience in an Applebee’s.  It’s even worse because she’s a high-brow art curator and Guggenheim obsessive, something regular Applebee’s customers usually aren’t too fond of.  Yet at her sister’s wedding in Italy, she gets a little too much champagne in her and makes an impulsive decision, yanking coins out of a fountain of love.

All of a sudden, that paradoxical facade is wiped away, and Beth is someone we can actually like as she is thrown into a crazy situation.  She had never been the kind to actively seek love, but by taking the coins, the men who threw them come looking to her for love.  Four men are over-the-moon smitten for her: a sausage mogul (Abe Froman, anyone?) played by Danny DeVito, an Italian painter played by Will Arnett, a model in love with himself as much as Beth played by Dax Shepard, and a loopy magician played by Jon Heder.

And then there’s a wild card thrown into the mix: the best man at her sister’s wedding, Josh Duhamel’s charming Nick, seems to be quite interested in Beth after they had a connection at the reception.  Her concern at first is that these four men will ruin her chance with Nick, but she soon realizes that he could just easily be one of her head-over-heels lovers.  It’s a bit of a romantic mystery, enough to keep a little bit of suspense throughout the fun and funny “When In Rome.”  B /


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REVIEW: Leap Year

28 08 2010

Why does anyone still bother to see romantic comedies? Look at the poster for “Leap Year” and guess how it ends; the genre has become so formulaic that my previous statement can’t even be branded a spoiler. So why is it that they are still made, and why is it that anyone still wants to see them?

Simply put, it’s because actresses like Amy Adams take roles in romantic comedies that the audiences come in droves.  So you really need me to go into the plot?  Or the production values?  If you truly want to see this movie, it’s almost a guarantee what you really want to see is Amy Adams.

So do you want me to waste both my time and yours by reviewing “Leap Year?”  In a sentence, it’s a stale rehash of all the romantic comedy cliches we’ve come to love and hate.  But the movie isn’t a total waste of time because of all the charm Amy Adams breathes into it.  As Anna, the girl so desperate to get married that she’s willing to travel in dismal conditions to propose to her boyfriend, she manages to turn someone with traits we would generally despise into a character we can actually like.  That’s no small feat.

She doesn’t really get to be funny or sexy, two things you can be very little of in a movie that’s rated PG.  But that girl-next-door sensibility and smile as wide as a mountain range are present, and they somehow make the corny plot more digestible.

If you decide to watch “Leap Year,” you won’t get anything you can’t get from any other romantic comedy.  You’ll wind up feeling about as warm as you do looking at the poster, watching the trailer, or reading a plot synopsis.  But you will get a big portion of jubilant Amy Adams, and that’s enough to make 100 minutes of banalities feel a little less dusty.  B- /


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (August 27, 2010)

27 08 2010

Comedy Week kicks off here on the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” series with a look at “Shopgirl,” an inspiredly funny adaptation of Steve Martin’s novella that is also tinged with a fair amount of melancholic reflection.  The movie takes a look at an unassuming girl entering the urban jungle of Los Angeles to find herself confronted with a choice between two very different relationships with two polar opposite men.

Mirabelle (Claire Danes) didn’t expect much when she moved from Vermont to LA and began working the glove counter at Saks.  Yet suddenly, she is faced with some very big problems, namely love.  Unsure of what it is, how to find it, or how to recognize it, she sits back passively waiting for it to come to her.

Sure enough it does come, although in two very different forms.  First, she meets Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman).  He’s a bumbling fool with no set of social skills, but he does have the best of intentions and all of his heart to offer Mirabelle.

Second, she meets Ray Porter (Steve Martin).  Unlike Jeremy, he’s a smooth operator who always does things with class.  Despite being music older than Mirabelle, they both find themselves falling for each other.  He’s a very wealthy entrepreneur with all of his wallet to share with her, buying her first fitted dress.  Yet he often feels a little too distant, hiding away parts of himself.

“Shopgirl” is everything a romantic comedy should be, scorning formula to provide a thought-provoking rumination on love in the modern world.  In the context of these two relationships, Mirabelle is searching for love although unsure of what shape or form it will take.  The movie doesn’t hold back and is willing to delve deep into the psychological ruin of not finding love.  But it’s precisely because it goes there that there’s just an irresistible charm about this movie.  Even when the going gets rough for Mirabelle, we still feel light as a feather.


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REVIEW: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

21 08 2010

The video-gaming culture that has shaped the lives of my generation has never been so vibrantly alive as it is in “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” a movie with as much frenetically spontaneous action as you can handle without toggling a joystick.  Based on a comic-book series, Edgar Wright’s third film takes a reality from in front of a console and puts it on screen: any loser, even if they are as frail or feeble as Michael Cera, can kick butt and take names in the world of the video game.

Cera’s Candian chump, Scott Pilgrim, is a pathetic twenty-something bunking with the affluent homosexual Wallace Wells (Keiran Culkin, Macaulay’s little brother) and playing bass for the band Sex Bob-Omb.  Much to the dismay of his friends, he starts dating high-schooler Knives Chau (whose name should have been a warning).

But everything falls away when he sees pink-haired Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) delivering a package on roller-skates in the Toronto snow.  After some casual stalking at a party, they get together, drawing Scott into a world of violence he can’t even fathom.  He has to defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes (not ex-boyfriends, as she consistently reminds him) in order to date her.  Unfortunately for him, they have formed a League to hunt him down, and their union includes a music mogul (Jason Schwartzman), an egotistical skateboarder-turned-movie star (Chris Evans), and a vegan with powers (Brandon Routh).

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F.I.L.M. of the Week (August 20, 2010)

20 08 2010

It’s the one-year anniversary of the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” column!  I thought the best way to celebrate that milestone would be by featuring one of my-all time favorites, “Almost Famous.”  It’s not exactly little known given its pretty devoted following and its awards season haul, which included an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and a Golden Globe for Best Picture.  Although it was criminally snubbed by the Academy for a shot at the top prize, it is still more than worth your time.

The movie, written by director Cameron Crowe, is semi-autobiographical.  As a teenager, he wrote for Rolling Stone and had the pleasure of touring with bands like Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Jealous, anyone?

Young William Miller (Patrick Fugit) discovers music after his rebellious sister (Zooey Deschanel) flees the tyrannical reign of their mother, the strict fundamentalist Elaine, played with brilliant propriety by Frances McDormand.  As a young boy, Elaine thought her son to be so smart that she moved him up two grades in school, thus socially crippling him.  His sister leaves behind a giant record collection, and William’s obsession with music begins.

Not unlike myself, he begins writing about his passion.  We differentiate, however, in the fact that William’s work gets picked up by Rolling Stone.  The industry-leading magazine asks him to follow Stillwater, an up-and-coming rock band, on their tour and write an article on them.  He meets an interesting crowd aside from the band, who are always skeptical of his intentions, particularly lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee).

The most intriguing figure by far and away is the so-called Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), whose name, age, and intentions are always clouded in mystery.  Penny is a different kind of groupie, offering herself to help the band more as a muse to inspire artistic inspiration than to satisfy lustful desires.  She and William, both in their teen years, form a very interesting relationship while on the road.  Hudson, only 21 at the time of the movie’s release, gives an absolutely masterful performance, and her virtuoso turn is only made more astonishing by her age.

But the movie’s real heart and soul comes from William’s friendship with guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup).  It is he who teaches the young journalist to enjoy the ride and love every minute of being able to do what you love.  Indeed, we watch “Almost Famous” with the same sense of wide-eyed wonder of William on the road, and the movie is an exciting experience that inspires our own fantasies of living out a childhood dream.  Even if that doesn’t involve music, Crowe’s true masterstroke will still be able to delight your latent aspirations.


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REVIEW: The Crazies

17 08 2010

“The Crazies” is a hodgepodge of all our favorite horror premises.  There’s the apocalyptic disease aspect that reminds us of “28 Days Later.”  There’s the last people on earth vibe that emanated from “I Am Legend.”  There’s also the sick zombie action that has led to four “Resident Evil” movies.

You would think that a movie that makes us recall such titles would be worthwhile.  But instead of having something for everyone, there’s is nothing for anyone, granted that they’ve seen any movies in those sub-genres.

Uninspired even by remake standards, “The Crazies” just feels like a waste of time as you watch it.  For an hour and 40 minutes, we trudge through the typical escalation of a viral epidemic that ravages a small town in Iowa.  After 48 hours, the virus turns its victims insane to the point that they would kill friends and family.  The sheriff and his pregnant wife (Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell), among the few uninfected left in the town, have to battle off the zombies to escape to safety.  Not only do they have to fight the crazies, but they are also up against the company that accidentally dispersed the biological weapon, trying to hide their mistake.

Sound familiar?  It’s not just a remake of the 1973 George A. Romero original; it’s a rehash of every horror movie since.  Eventually, enough is enough, and cheap jumps and thrills only spell out boredom.  The movie gets harder and harder to enjoy as it drags on … and on … and on.  We know exactly what’s going to happen just from hearing the premise.  Maybe the perceived lack of originality speaks to how influential the first movie was.  But I missed the memo that the original was some kind of cultural watershed, so I’m just going to interpret this rendition of “The Crazies” as the latest dull entry into the woefully overflowing “been there, done that” category.  C- /


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REVIEW: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

16 08 2010

“Never judge a book by its movie,” says J.W. Eagan.  But if you were to go against the wise sage’s advice and judge, you might think that Rick Riordan’s novel “The Lightning Thief” is some campy piece of kid-lit just a few rungs above Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series,” on the class ladder.  It’s like “Harry Potter,” only written by that awesome history teacher you had in middle school.  I have had the pleasure of meeting Riordan and talking with him about his book, and it is so creative, weaving together all sorts of Greek mythology to create the narrative of modern day demigod Percy Jackson.

“Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” bears a title that suggests a whole Hollywood franchise in the works, and it’s precisely that influence that tarnishes a perfectly good book.  If anything you have seen about the movie seems interesting, I implore you to read the book – or if you don’t have that much time, stop watching the movie when Ke$hA’s “TiK ToK” plays in a casino and start reading from there.

The beginning of the movie is pretty good, managing to capture some of the spirit of its source.  Logan Lerman takes on the titular character, a frustrated dyslexic adolescent who finds out unexpectedly that he is the child of a Greek god.  Hunted by the forces of evil, his best friend (Brandon T. Jackson, best known as the Lance-loving Alpa Chino from “Tropic Thunder”), who turns out to be a satyr hiding his goat legs behind a wheelchair, transports him to Camp Half-Blood, a save haven for demigods.  There he meets other kids like him, the offspring of god-human relations.  Before long, Percy must embark on a quest to clear his name after being accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning.

The adventure is fairly amusing, littered with plenty of celebrities to make you grin.  There’s Steve Coogan as Hades and Rosari Dawson as his prisoner, Persephone.  Uma Thurman plays stone-cold killer Medusa in a very slow sequence.  The always reliable Catherine Keener plays Percy’s mom, and Joe Pantoliano plays her scumbag boyfirend.  Although he doesn’t appear in this phase of the movie, you definitely can’t discuss the movie’s acting without bringing up Pierce Brosnan, who apparently forgot how to act after a disastrous turn in “Mamma Mia.”  He’s still brutal to watch, and if you’re still complaining about Daniel Craig as 007, this movie will make you thankful for the blonde Bond.

But it’s the climax that Columbus and the Hollywood goons absolutely destroy.  It’s an incomprehensible disaster, a cinematic trainwreck in every sense of the word.  Anyone who hasn’t read the book will scratch their heads in confusion at the muddled mess unfolding in front of them.  And those like me, who have read, will marvel at how effortlessly a thrilling literary ending is derailed by the desire to provide cheap blockbuster excitement.  The book’s final twist is revealed in the last handful of pages, leaving the reader gasping in surprise.  The movie, however, jumps the gun and lets the cat out of the bag way too early, robbing the moment of any suspense.

So while it will pass for entertainment, there’s still much to be desired.  A whole lot more can be pulled from Riordan’s rich novels, and a whole lot more of Chris Columbus’ moviemaking magic can be utilized.  B- /


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (August 13, 2010)

13 08 2010

Much like Christopher Nolan, whose brains have been the recipient of much praise this summer, Charlie Kaufman knows how to write some intelligent movies.  His third film, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” was a wildly engaging mystery and won him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.  I think one thing Kaufman has over Nolan is an ability to keep us spellbound while we are perplexed, not scratching our heads.

But before he was Academy Award winner Charlie Kaufman, he wrote a movie called “Adaptation,” which may just be the best movie about writing I’ve ever seen.  It’s been pushed down the calendar to run in the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” column all summer, but that doesn’t mean it is worse than any of the movies I’ve featured for the past three months.  This is easily the brainiest, most complex movie of the bunch.  And don’t think that it isn’t funny because it’s brainy; it’s brilliantly hilarious.

The movie, directed by Spike Jonze, tells the tale of Charlie Kaufman (played here by Nicolas Cage) as he struggles with writers block after “Being John Malkovich.”  His task is to adapt “The Orchid Thief,” a non-fictional book by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) about orchid poachers in Florida.  There’s just always some element he can’t get quite right, and it causes him anguish so painful we can feel it on the other side of the screen.

Add into the mix an equally neurotic twin brother Donald (also played by Cage) who’s obsessed with writing a script for the next blockbuster.  He has moved into Charlie’s home to mooch off him while also constantly asking advice on how to improve his screenplay.  Charlie constantly belittles his brother, refusing to acknowledge that he could actually have any talent.  Yet after seeing a screenwriting guru (Brian Cox), Charlie discovers that he needs his brother’s help to finish “The Orchid Thief.”  What results is the wildly self-referential “Adaptation,” a feast for the writer in all of us.

All three marquee names received Academy Award nominations for their performances – and deservedly so.   Chris Cooper, the so-called orchid thief of Orlean’s book, is a powerful force as a conman with uncanny intelligence.  Meryl Streep lets loose like seldom before (save perhaps her baked moment in “It’s Complicated), and it’s such fun to watch her do something a little different.  Cage doesn’t play two characters so much as he masters them, making them similar yet distinct.  He makes all the idiosyncrasies of the characters read well and milks them for some good humor.  Cage is so good, in fact, that you’ll surely scratch your head wondering why he’s strayed so far from these roles.


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REVIEW: Eat Pray Love

12 08 2010

The big tagline advertised for “Eat Pray Love” is “let yourself go.”  Indeed, as millions of readers across America have discovered, Elizabeth Gilbert (played here by Julia Roberts, who looks every bit as good as she did 20 years ago in “Pretty Woman”) did just that after she couldn’t find fulfillment in her everyday life.  Her publisher allows her to spend a year traveling to Italy, India, and Bali as she attempts to discover how to forgive her past while finding happiness for the future.

Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation of Gilbert’s memoir, however, doesn’t do itself the favor of following the author’s lead.  Rather than letting itself go, it keeps all its emotions bundled up inside.  There are some definite moments of profound revelation that are wonderful to watch, but the movie comes off as feeling rather cold.

We get to smile on occasion; there is a laugh every once in a while, but we sit through the majority of 130 minutes with a stoic stone-faced look.  Even as Gilbert eats delicious food and falls in love, the movie still keeps a melancholy and vaguely plaintive tone, which really puts a damper on how much we are able to enjoy ourselves.  That’s not to say the movie is off-putting because Gilbert spent a great deal of her year in solemn reflection.  Murphy just doesn’t indulge us often to share in her moments of bliss.

People who have read the book tell me that Elizabeth Gilbert has a wonderful sense of humor and a compellingly entertaining voice.  It’s a near impossible cinematic feat to lift both of those off the page and onto the screen, and the script, written by Murphy and Jennifer Salt, doesn’t seem to do her writing talents justice.

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REVIEW: The Book of Eli

10 08 2010

If you stick with “The Book of Eli” all the way to the end, you’ll notice that the movie had two directors, The Hughes Brothers. My theory now is that the two brothers decided to split up the movie, one taking the first hour and the other taking the second. It’s the only way I can explain its complete bipolarity. Whichever brother directed the second half should disown his brother and then make movies on his own because he is capable of making an exciting, captivating ride.

On the other hand, his brother undermines its effectiveness makes a laughably dreary bomb.  It’s almost made with the cocky assumption that we’ve never seen any sort of apocalypse or post-apocalyptic world.  Apparently he was under a rock for all of 2009 when moviegoers saw “Knowing,” “Zombieland,” “2012,” and “The Road.”  That makes five in the span of just one year.  He leads us almost silently through this land of ruin for the movie’s first twelve minutes, a cheap rip-off of Paul Thomas Anderson’s technique from “There Will Be Blood.”  This world just looks like a desert in Arizona with a gray tint.  Aside from being incredibly tedious and boring, it’s entirely unnecessary.  Feel free to fast-forward right on through when you watch.

And then he finally gives Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington the opportunity to do something other than wander silently through the destruction.  Unfortunately, it’s just to chop off people’s hands and do some ridiculous martial-arts inspired fight sequences.  Washington’s Eli looks like a middle-aged version of Will Smith’s Hancock from two summers ago, a mess who looks like he’s fighting off the hangover of a lifetime.  So to see Eli pulling out all these moves only serves to make us laugh.  He then proceeds to find his way into a po-dunk town, mumble to everyone, anger the authority (Gary Oldman) to the point where he flees, and picks up the very attractive Solara (Mila Kunis) to accompany him on the road.

The second half almost redeems the first, seemingly a gift to all those who can bear the dismal farce.  It takes a page out of “Fahrenheit 451” – the last pages, in fact – and makes an exciting race to the West Coast for control of a powerful book that Eli is in possession of.  If you don’t already know, I’ll give you three guesses as to what book could be so valuable or powerful.  Denzel Washington begins to act, although only at a fraction of his full capabilities.  Then again, that’s still enough to draw us back in after the first half leaves us high and dry.

In the end, I was glad I didn’t allow myself to become totally disengaged.  There are some nice surprises and shocking twists at the end, two things I totally wasn’t expecting.  And in addition to the turnaround the movie made, I was left pretty satisfied.  The movie also has some interesting things to say about faith, a thematic connection that really worked.  It would have worked more, though, had it been present in the first half.  B /


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SAVE YOURSELF from “Ali”

8 08 2010

And you thought I had forgotten about this series.

I’m back again with another movie in the “Save Yourself!” series, which is designed to steer you clear of movies that will serve no purpose other than to waste your time.  I see plenty of movies, and better me than you, right?  I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I do.

This pick might shock you a little bit because it certainly shocks me.  Will Smith is the man who can do no wrong; he basically walks on water at the box office.  And director Michael Mann almost always delivers – I’ll forgive “Public Enemies” because “The Insider” and “Collateral” were both great.  And when you throw in a cast that includes Jon Voight, Jamie Foxx, and Jeffrey Wright, that’s another good sign.  Heck, they even got LeVar Burton, who is known to my generation as the guy from “Reading Rainbow,” to play MLK!

Don’t let the signs fool you.  “Ali” is a bore from beginning to end.  Rather than float like a butterfly, the movie drags like a bag of bricks.  And instead of stinging like a bee, the movie lands with so little impact that you could mistake it for having no ambitions at all.

But surely you have your doubts.  How can it be boring when it has Will Smith?  And in an Oscar-nominated performance, no less!  It’s simple: there’s too much Will Smith in the movie and not enough Muhammad Ali.  It’s as if he found the pride of the famous boxer buried deep inside of him and then decided to play only that emotion.

And don’t even get me started on Jon Voight, whose Academy Award nomination for this role is an absolute travesty.  He appears in the movie for literally no more than five minutes, and when he does, there’s no emotion.  There is nothing that moves you, no moment where you step back and say, “Wow, this is a great performance.”  From what I can tell, it’s a very good impersonation of Howard Cossell.  But if he can get that close to Oscar gold for just that, so can any decent celebrity impersonator on the streets of Vegas.

Honestly, I wonder if Michael Mann actually directed this.  He’s made longer movies than this, yet he has always managed to keep them moving at a brisk clip.  “Ali” is like a exercise in hubris, with ridiculously long drawn-out sequences in which very little happens.  In these ten minute stretches, we see more of a nightclub singer than we do of Muhammad Ali, which is who we watched this movie to see.  Mann, with the help of a good editor, could have cut at least 45 minutes from this bloated biopic, although I’m not sure if I would even want to see the movie then.  I can watch Will Smith be himself in plenty of other entertaining movies; I don’t need to see him pretend to be someone he’s not, all the while still being himself.


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REVIEW: The Final Destination

8 08 2010

It’s not easy to make death laughable, but “The Final Destination” does it with ease.  Never has death been so fun or bizarrely hilarious.  The movie doesn’t deliver on horror or thrills, largely because we know the end result: everyone is going to die, and the fact that the set-ups are so ridiculous doesn’t help to build any suspense.

The movie is another glorious entry into the “so bad it’s good” collection, all because it can successfully make entertainment out of the morbid.  I’m not sure if they intended it to be so comedic, but it’s not like these people are dying of heart attacks or cancer.  They die from being sucked into the bottom of a pool and being nailed by a rock ejected from a lawnmower. These are bloody, gruesome deaths being displayed in front of our eyes for amusement, which is actually kind of sick.  It’s able to bring out the sadist in all of us, a fairly impressive feat.

The deaths keep coming and coming for 75 minutes, which is probably what you want if you decided to watch “The Final Destination.”  You might be better off watching one of the first three entries in the series, which apparently have a little more originality on top of the predictable plot.  But if you’re looking for shameless, unabashed joy in watching people die and nothing else, the plotless fourth installment is the best bet.  C /


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REVIEW: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

7 08 2010

In “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” two kidnappers (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston) hold the daughter of a rich businessman hostage for a hefty ransom.  It goes all according to plan in the first stage, but it all seems to go wrong after that due to a series of blunders.

Funny enough, our reaction to the movie echoes all the plot developments.  The movie is gripping for the first thirty minutes, particularly as we watch the kidnappers set up for the abduction and the period following.  There’s something very chilling about how meticulously organized their process is, and it’s made even more eerie by their silence.

In typical minimalist indie fashion, we don’t see the actual kidnapping, but the aftermath is just as scary.  They bring Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton) into a soundproofed apartment where they quickly strip her, gag her, and tie her to a chained-down bed.  And once they have her securely in their grip, the movie starts to lose its grip on plausibility.  The respect that we had built up for it slowly begins to diminish for the next hour until the thriller practically devolves into a comedy.

Just when we expect the movie to wow us with originality, it takes a series of bizarrely typical twists of the genre.  There are all sorts of hackneyed gimmicks designed for a quick thrill.  The situations are robbed of any suspense because we’ve seen it done a million times, and the ultimate unintended result is laughter at their predictability.  In a summer where laughs have been hard to come by, I’ll take them where I can get them.

Really, the unexpected relationships between the characters are the only things unique about the movie.  There are literally three people in it, no extras, no voices on the telephone, no random people in the background.  Just Marsan doing the same old cantankerous villain, Arterton baring it all while getting away from her 2010 tentpole action movies, and Compston making a blip for the first time on my radar.  These aren’t three random people, as we find out.  But for the same of keeping the atmosphere of a thriller in “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” maybe they should have been.  B /


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REVIEW: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

7 08 2010

Honesty is something rare in Hollywood.  We are shielded from the true identities of our favorite stars; they hide behind closed doors and allow their publicists to spin our image of their lives.

But thanks to a year’s worth of dedicated work by a documentary crew, we get the privilege to go underneath the plastic and makeup to see the real Joan Rivers.  They managed to filter everything down to an hour and a half to create the often shocking but always honest “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” a film full of profound revelations about show business.

It’s a complete and thorough look at the comedienne.  We get to see how she lives, how she works, and how she deals with everything going on in her life after she turns 75.  What makes the movie special, though, is that it delves into why she works.  At her age, most people choose to settle down and retire.  So why is she booking gigs at hole-in-the-wall New York clubs and small Wisconsin towns?  Like Sgt. James of last summer’s “The Hurt Locker” showed us, it’s possible to be addicted to things other than drugs, and Joan Rivers is simply addicted to working.  She has to be booked to keep her world afloat.

We would all think that someone with Rivers’ fame (or infamy) could keep her busy all the time, but she reminds us what a fickle business the entertainment industry can be.  The fearless woman comic that everyone wants is not her anymore but rather Kathy Griffin.  It’s strange to think that fame can still be ephemeral even for someone so well established in comedy as she is, and Rivers doesn’t ever hesitate to remind us of it.  She lets us see all of her insecurities, as reticent in front of the camera as she is doing her stand-up act, which is to say not at all.

The filmmakers also do a fantastic job of putting her recent triumphs and struggles in a historical context, giving us flashbacks to her days of discovery by Johnny Carson, her trail-blazing early years in comedy when she dared to make a joke about abortion, and her tumultuous family life.  While there’s the joy of meeting her husband Edgar and quickly marrying, there’s also the pain of his suicide and the ruin that it left her.  While there’s her fame that comes from being Carson’s golden girl, there’s also the heartbreak of being blacklisted by NBC when he felt betrayed by her getting her own show.  Have no doubt about it, Rivers has had no cakewalk of a life.  Yet throughout it all, she’s kept working because she needs it.

As in all documentaries, we find it fascinating to see the subject as the camera crew sees them.  Yet “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” takes our vision one step deeper; we get to see how Rivers sees herself.  In her mind, she’s an actress, not a comedian, and she can’t take anyone insulting her acting.  Simply playing herself here is a great performance, certainly one we won’t soon forget.  A /


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