The Daily Digest

Prey - cinematic drivel destined to land in Obscureville

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 02:53:20 GMT

“Prey” is the arnch-tastic, bite-olicious, cinematic drivel destined to land in Obscureville or Makefunofland. This chomp-olistic mess is shamefully directed by Darrell Roodt and the downright pudency of writing is brought to us by Beau Bauman, Jeff Wadlow and Darrell Roodt.

When Dad the engineer is sent to Africa to work on a dam, he brings his two children, a pre-teen son David and teenaged daughter Jessica, and new wife Amy along for a trip of a lifetime. Jessica, played by Carly Schroeder, shamelessly goes after Amy, driving the my-mama-was-replaced-by-your-skinny-stupid-ass-sword deep into her with a series of uncalled for low blows and teenaged angst. After spending a night in their plush accommodations, Amy, Jessica, and David, head off to see African animals in their natural habitat as Dad goes off to work on the dam. When Jessica, gets annoyed she is seeing no animals, the ranger driving them around to see the animals decides to go off off-roading. David has to go to the bathroom and he and the ranger get out of the car. This is where the fun begins.

A lioness, hiding in the lion colored grasses appears and begins to stalk David. Luckily, the hawk eyed ranger helps David escape the jaws of the hungry lion. Unluckily though, the ranger is eaten, his blood poured all over the car in the mauling. Now stuck with no keys to the ranger truck, they are stuck waiting for someone to come and find them. Lion after lion attacks them, attempts to eat them and has no luck. Dad hires a private hunt guide, and attempts to find them.

I don’t know how the people in this movie even survived the birthing process they are so stupid. Every person who is killed in the movie is killed because they were being Gomer Pile stupid! They might as well kill a gazelle, roll around in its blood and walk up to a starving pride of lions, screaming. They constantly put themselves in the position to be eaten, try to outrun a lion, and drive like they’ve never actually been behind the wheel before.

The lions can’t even be consistent. They will attack a group of two but not a group of four but a little later they’ll attack a different group of four. They happily attack the toe headed blond Anglo folks but at first seem to have no taste for African people. The lions are also the most precise eaters in the history of the animal kingdom. During their feeding, people stay in their death position and when they’re done, there is a perfect and complete bloody skeleton left on the ground. Contrary to nature, in yet another way, the male lions even help in the hunts. Some of the lions will attack the truck but others will not. The lions are the only reason to watch the movie though; the acting isn’t going to draw anyone to the movie.

Amy, played by, Bridget Moynahan, gives a yawn inspiring performance. She is frightened when she should be calm and calm when all good sense says to be afraid. There are scenes where she is incredibly irrational even when she finally has the upper hand.

Dad, Peter Weller’s character, tries to be a bad ass but he couldn’t stretch his machismo around his waist. Oh yeah, and he is stupid. There is a scene where he drives to the top of a hill and he sees something at the bottom he wants to check out. Does he drive his car down the hill? Wouldn’t that be: Faster? Easier? Use less personal energy when in the dessert? Yes. Is it what he does? Not by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin. He runs down it, for what seems like a mile, through the lion colored grass. By that point in the movie I wished he’d be eaten by lions, drop from dehydration and have vultures eat his eyes while he was alive.

“Prey” needs to pray for a screen play, better actors, a better director… You know, I’m wrong. “Prey” needs to pray that no one remembers how bad this movie is! Is there such thing as retroactive production?

LaRae Meadows
www.justpressplay.net
laraemeadows@gmail.com
http://laraemeadows.livejournal.com
http://www.myspace.com/laraemeadows
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Marie Antoinette - Barf

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:07:51 GMT

“Marie Antoinette”, left me fielding requests from my ears and brain to be strapped to excessive levels of dynamite and ignited. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, “Marie Antionette” gives us another example of why it is rarely a good idea to have all of the ideas coming from one person.

Marie Antoinette, Kirsten Dunst’s character, an Austrian Arch Duchess, is married off to the Crowned Prince of France, Louis XVI. Antoinette settles into her life of luxury, opulence and misery. Longing for a child or even sex with her husband, Antoinette waits for years trying to get her husband to consummate her marriage. As the whole country gets angry with her for not getting pregnant, she continues to spend as if there is no end.

Sofia Coppola foregoes any actual attempts to creatively show Marie Antoinette’s spending sprees and instead inserts a solid hours worth of poorly edited spending montages into the movie. Feathers, fabric, rows and rows of shoes, discussions about trees, and of course, opulent food being indelicately eaten by an endless number of royals and nobility is supposed to add to the enjoyment of the movie? Only if I’m watching television and I don’t have a Tivo to weed out the late 1700’s commercials. Their natural annoyances aside, they are splattered through the movie like Sofia just threw beans on the plot board.

The music in the movie was one of the chief complaints of both my brain and my ears. The music, 21 century rock-ska-garbage that takes you completely out of the royal propriety mood and into the “hey, pull up your pants, whipper snapper” feeling. I felt like someone came by with a nun’s paddle and hit me aside the head, completely removing me from the movie and into being perfectly aware of every filling I’ve ever had. It’s eye rolling ridiculousness.

Kirsten Dunst gives a notably un-royal performance as the dutchess, princess, queen person. Contrary to her acting coach’s teaching, crying is more than opening your mouth and shaking your shoulders. I expected tears to comically jump off her face sideways. I didn’t believe her acting when she was happy either. She would wander with her friends through the castle gossiping. No one told Dunst that she was supposed to be interested in what she was saying or what her friends were saying. Unfortunately, Kirsten Dunst has about 90 percent of the face time, stunting the movie’s potential tremendously.

Kirsten Dunst isn’t the only actor whose performance leaves something to be desired. The entire cast’s portrayal of nobility rivaled a high school play. The characters stopped just short of laying their hands, palm up, over their foreheads and sighing deeply. The only exception was Steve Coogan. He played Ambassador Mercy with the dignity and regality necessary for a man in his position.

There is one saving grace for “Marie Antoinette.” If you watched the movie on mute your experience is exponentially better. Marie Antoinette is filled with beautiful sets, costumes, fabrics, and scenery. Even the carriage she comes from Austria to France in is sheer eye candy. The montages are annoying but they are wonderfully shot. The costumes have a luxurious quality. The embroidery on some of the dresses is so ornate it seems you could feel the texture if you reached out. Pay attention of the costumes and set in the masquerade ball. There is a wonderful attention to detail. The pastel colors Sofia Coppola dressed her characters and sets with give a feminine feel to the entire movie. This would be an excellent movie if there was as much attention to the acting, writing and directing as it does to the visuals.

The writing in “Marie Antoinette” was adolescent. There are extraneous characters, sub plots that go no where, and millions of loose ends left at the end of the movie. Sofia Coppola’s presentation of the story of this fascinating historical figure is so incredibly off the mark, if she were playing bar darts she would hit the bartender in the leg with her dart.

Watch “Marie Antoinette” with the mute button on. Trust me, you’ll be better off that way!

IMDB Link
Official Site

LaRae Meadows
www.justpressplay.net
laraemeadows@gmail.com
http://laraemeadows.livejournal.com
http://www.myspace.com/laraemeadows
http://blog.myspace.com/laraemeadows

Marie Antoinette - Barf

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:00:07 GMT

The Painted Veil - A lovely movie

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:15:59 GMT

“The Painted Veil” is a beautiful movie about the power of anger as shown through a wife and husband who travel to rural china to treat a cholera epidemic. Director John Curran uses beautiful scenery and sets to frame great acting and a well written story based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham.

Kitty, Naomi Watt’s character, lives with her parents who ridicule her to find a husband so they don’t have to care for her anymore. She meets Walter Fane, Edward Norton’s character, at a party that her father hosted. Walter falls madly in love with her and proposes. Kitty explains to Walter honestly, that she does not feel for him the way he feels for her. The pressure of her parents to settle down is disheartening to Kitty. In an act of desperation and nothing else, she agrees to marry him. They marry and move from London to China. When Kitty does something that angers Walter, he makes a radical decision. He decides to move Kitty and himself into a rural region that is having a severe cholera outbreak. In his anger he willfully puts Kitty in danger and purposefully tries to create her discomfort.

The screen play is emotionally engaging, infuriating and sweet but the ending is predictable. Still, I didn’t regret seeing the movie. The relationship between Kitty and Walter is realistically complex. “The Painted Veil” is not a forbidden love story or a struggle to stay together. It’s far more complicated than what we are used to seeing. It is much more about how grown ups fall in love than it is about the idealistic ideas the media usually projects onto love.

“The Painted Veil” will not win any awards for acting but its acting isn’t a complete wash either. All of the characters were convincing but they are missing the intangible something that makes a great film. Norton’s performance feels flat in the beginning, but the complexity of the character later in the movie enlightens why the flatness is relevant and important. The formality of the script didn’t lend itself naturally to Norton’s style and his performance at times feels forced. Watt’s performance suffers the same problem. Her style is no more compatible with the rigid formality in the beginning of the story. Once the story leads the characters away from the British formality the acting becomes far more natural, the birth given talent of both actors free to radiate the sadness and joy of the characters.

The supporting cast is does not suffer from the painfully formality that Edward Norton and Naomi Watt did. Liev Schreiber plays Charlie Townsend, a friend of Kitty’s family. Schreiber’s acting style thrives on formality and seems to flow more naturally into and out of the formal worlds these people run. His performance is aggravating, but purposefully.

Diana Rigg plays the Mother Superior in the orphanage-hospital in the rural town in China. She avoids entirely the super-nun-with-a-ruler mentality most Mother Superiors are portrayed as. At the end of the movie, her explanation of her relationship with god is touching and surprising.

The acting and script are outshined by the amazing Asian setting. Cinematographer Stuart Dryburg, understands how to create an angelic aura over “The Painted Veil.” The natural aspects of the movie are steeped in untouched beauty. Mountains reaching to the sky, covered in brilliant green grass, surrounded by quaint housing and glistening blue waters are create a magical backdrop for this tragic village. The awesome scenery gives more emotional weight to the horrific cholera ugliness.

The music in the movie is absolutely wonderful. Even though the movie is a wonderment to watch, take the time to listen to the music with an active ear.

The movie isn’t entirely angelic; it’s dark and frightening when the doctor sees the cholera or is working with cholera stricken patients. Stuart and Curran don’t go crazy with the darkness though, making sure you can see the illness in its scary natural state. It’s like they wiped the Vaseline off of the lens and shot it with a painfully uncomfortable earnestness.

I enjoyed watching this lovely film. It isn’t a “Best Of” but it isn’t garbage.

IMDB Link
Official Site

LaRae Meadows
www.justpressplay.net
laraemeadows@gmail.com
http://laraemeadows.livejournal.com
http://www.myspace.com/laraemeadows
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THe Painte

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:15:47 GMT

The Last King of Scotland-sticks in your mind and heart like a battle scar!

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:56:18 GMT

“The Last King of Scotland” based on the book by Giles Foden, is the intense story of charismatic and horrifying Ugandan leader, Idi Amin. Exceptional writing by Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, acting, and directing make a must see movie that sticks in your mind and on your heart like a battle scar.

James McAvoy plays new doctor Nicholas Garrigan. When Garrigan decides to have some adventure as a doctor in a third world country, he spins the globe and lands in Uganda. While out in the middle of no where Uganda a revolution goes on around them. Idi Amin, portrayed by Forest Whitaker, overthrows the government in a coup and the magnetic leader travels the countryside so his people can know him. During his travels he meets Garrigan, finds out that he’s Scottish, and asks him to be his personal physician. Garrigan agrees, starts his life of luxury and is thrown into a tyrannical world of systematic violence and paranoia. Eventually Garrigan becomes one of Amin’s closest advisers.

Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin is frightening. When you first meet Amin he is fun, approachable and it was easy to find inspiration in his words and personality. Throughout the movie his personality changes from inspiring to paranoid and terrifying. Whitaker’s performance flows naturally in and out of these two men trapped in one body. He never misplaces his anger in a sweet scene; his glints of admiration never seep out during a frenzied rant. Whitaker avoids all hints of schizophrenia and ignores all opportunities to dive into multiple personality disorder.

Garrigan is unaware of what’s happening in Uganda at first, but even after he realizes what Amin is doing, he does nothing to stop him. Only when it seems the crazed paranoia and mass murders might affect him and weigh on his conscience does Garrigan say something. James McAvoy’s emotional transition from innocent privileged young man to a morally ambiguous government official is stirring. During the movie, I had to restrain myself from yelling at Garrigan to stop what he’s doing, to leave right away or to just do what had to be done. McAvoy’s seamlessly grows his character from an acorn to a diseased oak.

The supporting cast isn’t outshined by the main characters. Kerry Washington plays Kay Amin, Idi Amin’s third wife. Her performance is tender, perplexing and sexy. Gillian Anderson plays Sarah Merrit, Garrigan’s first love interest in the story. Her sage words and cool demeanor will be left ringing in your ears by the end of the movie. Simon McBurney, Nigel Stone’s character, is monstrous in the covert, James Bond sort of way. His maniacal character is not over acted, absolutely to the credit to Stone.

Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan use an historic figure to tell a cautionary tale about what happens when you let fear decide who runs your country and what happens when your blind ambition overrules your moral center. Their characters are complete and lacking no texture. The temptation to make characters who are strictly monsters or heroes is avoided. Each character, even Amin, is not strictly good, nor bad, but products of their circumstances. I found the recipe for creating a monster far too realistic to be comfortable and for that I thank the writers for giving me the opportunity to feel that level of discomfort. Even the hero of this movie is only slightly heroic; leaving the melodramatic phony heroics for a superhero movie. Garrigan’s transformation left me wondering if I could be any stronger than he is, given the situation he got himself into.

I was impressed that the cinematographers and directors made a point of changing the camera style, lighting and framing to fit the mood of the movie. There are scenes where the sweat on someone’s face seems radiant in the dark. There is an impressive use of light to set mood that doesn’t fall into the cliché parenthesis.

This shattered my personal peace. It has left me to question my own behavior. Have I paid enough attention to my own life? Have I let raw, unadulterated ambition kill parts of my humanity? What would I do in that situation? At what point would I run screaming from Uganda? Can we afford to be afraid and let that fear color our decisions when it comes to our government? How can I tell if someone is a monster when they are so charismatic? Has my ambition hurt other people?

“The Last King of Scotland” is a heart pounding drama that left me uneasy, utterly disappointed with the quality of the characters’ behavior and inspired by the quality of the film making. Missing this movie would be bad for your cinematic knowledge and for your personal growth.

IMDB Link
<a href=" http://www.foxsearchlight.com/lastkingofscotland/” >Official Site</a> LaRae Meadows www.justpressplay.net laraemeadows@gmail.com http://laraemeadows.livejournal.com http://www.myspace.com/laraemeadows http://blog.myspace.com/laraemeadows

V For Vendetta

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:25:04 GMT

Director: James McTeigue
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving
My rating: 5/5

Remember, remember the 17th of May. And now that the obligatory bad pun has been made, I shall move on to the reviewing.

Ok, I guess I wasn't quite done with the puns. Let me just start by saying that this movie is very awesome indeed. First, for I am a hot-blooded woman, there is Hugo Weaving, whose voice transcends Venetian masks and girly wigs with promises of byronic lust. Numerous things have already been said on the subject of V = Phantom, I will not repeat them except to say that both I and my V-watching-companions got that impression without any reviews pointing us that way beforehand. But V is the kind of Phantom where Christine goes, "Fuck you, french opera," and drops the chandelier herself.

On the subject of Natalie Portman: I wouldn't have cared one way or another if another actress was in her place, but she did not detract from the movie in any way for me.

I also have to give kudos to Stephen Rea, who took me pleasantly back to my British cop drama hobby.

As for the bad guys, well, they could have been stock footage from Equilibrium, really, but I liked Equilibrium, so I'm not complaining.

The highlight of the movie? The clown music during the Saturday Night Live/The Daily Show Vendetta style segment.

That and the hot kiss between Natalie Portman and a Venetian Mask.

Underworld: Evolution

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:27:53 GMT

Director: Len Wiseman
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman
Rating: 18+
My rating: 3/5

So... Yeah. Remember how it felt when The Matrix: Reloaded came out? That's how I feel about U:E. All the flashiness of the original with none of the cult classic quirkiness. But, you know, Kate in a black cat suit and constantly topless Scott Speedman, what else were we expecting? The plot of the movie is rather simple: Celene and Michael do the sex, then go into Super Sayian Mode, then face off against Marcus the Batty and William the Psycho. And then they live happily ever after and have more sex, I guess.

It's not that I feel like it was wasted time or anything, it was shorter than two hours, after all. Which is very surprising, it felt a lot longer. Not in a bad way, no, I wasn't bored, I just felt that everything that was crammed into it should have taken longer than 2 hours and I'm glad it didn't.

Like all bad sequels, this one pretty much invalidates the original. All that hunting Lucian did for the human descendent of Alexander Corvinus? Apparently not needed, as souped up vampires pop up left and right. And honestly, the last fifteen minutes of the movie you feel you're watching Van Helsing, only without Hugh Jackman to justify it.

Oh and of course, since it's Hollywood, the relationship between Celene and Michael is turned into softcore porn. Kate's and Scott's body doubles are pretty and everything, but like, I have internet at home, Hollywood, I can get porn without paying ten bucks for it.

And don't even try to figure out the geography of this place. Did it seem like kind-of America in the first movie? In this one, the authorities speak some eastern european language, so at first I assumed it's Romania. Then Kate spoke some Russian, and I was like, huh? Then they drove to a seashore and spoke some french and at that point I gave up trying to figure out their location.

On the surface, the movie's timeline is two days and it begins right where the first movie left off. However, I have noticed that after some unsuccessful attempts by Michael to digest potatoes, the movie gives up on the concept that organic and inorganic matter needs fuel to function. All Michael needs is three gulps of blood and some sex and he's good to go like an Energizer Bunny. Celene doesn't even need that, she's just good to go period. I think maybe the vampire mythology underestimates of the potency of human liquids other than bloo... and I just completely grossed myself out. Sorry.

Ok, so why did I give this movie 3 stars? Umm. Kate's pretty.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of RAWK

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 17:25:40 GMT

I feel compelled to re-post this (from my journal) because I know ~~some~~ many of y'all are waiting anxiously for Nov. 18. No real spoilers; there's plot stuff, but I promise not to ruin anything. Although if you really don't want to know anymore, DO NOT CLICK THE CUT.

As has become routine with the HP movies, everything looks exactly as you think it should look. The way you imagine it in your head, or at least the way I imagine it, is almost always the way it looks on the screen. Cases in point:

—The dragon, he is the scaliest, gnarliest, pointiest ENORMOUS EFFING DRAGON you could ever imagine. And when there's *DRAGON SMASH*, it is so. effing. scary.
—Brendan Gleeson is magnificently grotesque as Mad-Eye Moody. He looks like he smells a little. And he's kind of loopy, which is just fun.
—Cedric Diggory is just brilliantly tall and handsome and gallant. With fantastic cheekbones. *Swoon*
—Ralphdemort. No, I won't tell you anything about Ralphdemort, but suffice to say: AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

And they nail things that are so unique and freaky about being fourteen, like the Ball, how it is simultaneously the single most mortifying and impossibly glamourous experience of your life; and how when boys say things to girls, they say them reallyreallyfastsoyoucan'tunderstand; and how sometimes the mer-people try to stab you . . . wait, that totally didn't happen to me when I was fourteen.

As always, there is never enough Alan Rickman. There cannot be enough Alan Rickman in the world to suit me. He's just flawless. There's much more McGonagall in this movie, and Maggie Smith is, say it with me, perfect. AND, happily, there is all the Weasley twins one could ask for. None more Weasley twins possible. They're awesome. Mike Newell just hits the inherent Englishness of it out of the park in a way that Columbus and Cuaron couldn't conceive, and he's cast the champions and Cho perfectly (again, Cedric, cheekbones). There is little Draco, thankfully, but Ferret!Draco is fantastic. There's also a moment that will send the Harry-Hermione shippers into spasms of ecstasy, if they're paying attention, and did I mention Harry in the bath with Moaning Myrtle? So. Effing. Funny. (Until you remember that Shirley Henderson is 39 and Dan Radcliffe is 16 . . . still, it's really funny.) Wee Dan has been working out, methinks.

At the end, I cried. [My viewing companions] laughed at me a little. But that scene in the graveyard really is that horrifying (not to mention the scene at the Quidditch World Cup when the Death Eaters maraud—it was very unsettling, like panic-in-the-streets-somebody-just-blew-something-up unsettling).These are damn good reasons this movie is PG-13.

In conclusion: GAAAH SO AMAZING. I suppose it goes without saying that I highly recommend.

Elizabethtown

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 22:50:41 GMT

Elizabethtown

Written and directed by Cameron Crowe

Starring: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Saranden, Judy Greer and Alec Baldwin

Rating: PG13

My rating: 3 out of 4 stars

This movie seems to be getting a mixed bag of reviews from all the pros, but for this ordinary person watching a movie about success and failure, life and death, despair and love, it was a very real mix of elements that are so hard to define and categorize and yet is so very recognizably human. Life is, after all, messy and hard to contain in one little neat description.

I'm a little curious if the very opening scene and accompanying voiceover is what lost some people right at the beginning of the movie, perhaps making it difficult for them to watch the rest of the movie without some irritation at the opening impression. My personal wank of that issue is this: It was merely playing a part in the whole hyperexaggeration of the magnitude of Drew's fiasco of a failure. Along with the hyperexaggerated quality of the opening voiceover (which drove me a little crazy - I was so glad when they finally let Drew start talking "normally".) The failure that cost a company a billion dollars. The failure that he was supposedly responsible for. There was a nod to the fact that he wasn't alone in causing this disaster - Alec Baldwin's character spent his whole time with Drew laying on the guilt trip, manipulating him into publicly accepting sole responsibility in that interview with the journalist (Baldwin was awesome) - but the fact that he was manipulated into that tells us that he wasn't, in fact, the only person responsible for the fiasco. He was just the scapegoat.

The pacing of the movie felt more documentary style - there was no rush to get to some "big moments". Instead, we were treated to many, many small moments that are so recognizable and real. I've been there, I've done that. I KNEW some of these people. I've met them. I'm related to some of them. And - I *liked* it.

Orlando Bloom plays the main character, Drew Baylor, and he did a great job - and the fact that he was also managing with a (to him) foreign accent and maintained it was impressive. He has such an expressive face, and there are some really enjoyable moments when he's interacting with the Kentucky branch of his family that he transmits Drew's thoughts and feelings without uttering a word. A look, a quirk of his eyebrow, and flicker of reaction across his face tells the story.

Kirsten Dunst's character Claire is a little uneven. Her accent, for starters, was far more inconsistent than Bloom's. But she pulls off that quirky, initially annoying borderline stalker personna and successfully morphs into a person with secrets and issues of her own, and you can understand why Drew eventually is so attracted to her.

The ending of the movie felt too rushed. That moment when Drew finally lets go of his emotions and grieves for his father - that should have been the climax, a huge point of carthesis for Drew. The payoff of his character's journey. By letting himself feel and care, he was making himself a part of life, not cutting himself off from everything/staying suicidal. And instead of that being a huge moment, it was rushed through in a blink and you'll miss it montage. Getting the girl should have been the icing on the cake, not the payoff. IMHO, lol. Instead, it was played that getting the girl was the payoff. It just felt rushed and cut short.

Which leads me to give a final score to the movie as thus: a good movie with the potential to be great, but some flawed structural issues takes it down a notch.

I do recommend this movie, despite my criticisms, and I think I'm criticising it in such a nitpicky fashion because it is, in fact, really good and I just wanted it to climb that notch into greatness. But here I am, two days later, and I still find myself thinking about Elizabethtown, reflecting on life and family relationships, and wanting more of this movie, and really - any movie that leaves you wanting more certainly did something very right.

The Brothers Grimm, ****

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:54:02 GMT

Director: Terry Gilliam

Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Lena Headey, Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Stormare

Rated: PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences and brief suggestive material.

Get ready for a twist on your classic fairy tale. Coming forth are the brothers Grimm, Ghost Busters of the olden-golden days, to slay all of your pesky ghosts, witches, trolls, and etc. From my perspective, Damon and Ledger did one wonderful job performing it.

The movie does commence at a slow pace at first. In all honesty, I believe more could have been done with the entrances. The story unfolds of two brothers who practice the art of vanquishing evil from all parts of the countryside... for a small fee, of course. One soon realizes that they are frauds - actors who set up the whole situation to just make a pretty penny. But when they are forced to deal with the situation of missing girls lost in a forest much more than ordinary, the movie has you enrapt entirely.

As the story continues, the story of a queen who was in love with her reflection unfolds. She died in a plague that ruined her people, but her tall tower still remained. And this is perhaps the most interesting and quality aspect of the movie. This "Mirror Queen" combines the stories of Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, even Poe's Red Death, in such a creative and entralling way. On the side you have a stirred in sense of the tales of Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, and werewolves. However, the mix of the stories does become flaud when the writer tried, very badly to put in the story of the Gingerbread man. It seemed very sloppy and obvious, leaving the audience in a state of complete confusion.

In conclusion, I highly recommend The Brothers Grimm for your next movie-going experience. It is rich in fairy tales and perfectly done to thrill any child at heart.

Land of the Dead, ****

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 06:26:03 GMT

Dir: George A. Romero

Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, and an awful lot of dead people.

Rated: R for pervasive strong violence and gore, language, brief sexuality and some drug use.
In Australia, it's MA (suitable for those aged 15+)

Tagline: The Legendary Filmmaker Brings You His Ultimate Zombie Masterpiece

Night of the Living Dead showed us that the recently deceased just didn't have the good sense to stay down, the stakes were upped in the next two installments of Romero's Dead saga, and now forty years after Night was released, the fourth is now here. The dead have taken over the world at large, while the remnants of humanity survive in heavily barricaded cities. The wealthy live in a well-protected skyscraper, while the poor are left to fend for themselves on the streets, though a good living can be made raiding the countryside for supplies so the rich can remain in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. The problem is that is that the country is infested with zombies.

After the spate of zombie movies that have hit the screens in the last few years, I had to wonder what kind of zombies we were in for. We've been introduced to the "fast zombies" that actively hunt humans (as in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, and the remake of Dawn of the Dead), and the Resident Evil zombies that are created via a biowarfare virus - really, what's left to cover?

Answer: intelligent zombies.

The whole premise of Land of the Dead is that the zombies were learning how to be people again, albeit dead people, but if you sit and really think about it, it's scary as hell. Zombies are the dominant species on the planet, and when the living come through and kill the zombies...well, the zombies get pissed off and decide to fight back. Lead by a former gas station attendant, the livng dead shamble toward the fortified city to wreak havoc and take back what was once theirs too.

Stuck in the middle of this is our cast; Riley (Simon Baker) is an engineer who helped design the fortifications on the city and the vehicles the raiders use when looking for supplies and just wants to go north where there aren't any people, Cholo (John Leguizamo) one of the poor that was looking to earn his way into the ranks of the rich, Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) is the wealthiest of them all, funds and runs the entire operation, Slack (Asia Argento) a former soldier turned prostitue just looking for a way to survive and Charlie (Robert Joy), a badly scarred and slightly brain damaged man loyal to Riley and has his back. Status and personality conflict help drive the human dilemmas, which still happen despite the end of the world type scenario going on all around.

Given that this is a zombie movie, violence and gore are up - fingernails are ripped off, entrails are pulled out, limbs are torn and there's an awful lot of wet munching. It's not all gratuitous, and mercifully it's not at the expense of plot.

Another nice surprise is the sense of humour - one liners and other cheap gags are kept to a minimum so that the tension isn't completely broken. If you have a sick sense of humour like mine, you'll find things like the zombie big band and zombie!angst (when the lead zombie throws his hands in the air and roars, it just screams for a "KHAAAN!") absolutely hilarious.

The makeup effects on the undead are lovely, the baseball girl's exposed jaw got plenty of "Eeeurgh!" from the audience. I was a fan of the opening credit sequence because it traced the mythology of the saga to date, plus montaged the creation of a zombie. I'm amused that even though people have realised a shot to the head will kill a zombie, ammo is wated on torso hits - which is something to remember, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation, never, ever do what anyone in any zombie movie does. It will get you killed, or worse.

Romero completely blows the Dawn remake out of the water, showing us just how a zombie movie should be made. He should know, he's the guy that created the genre.

I am one very happy zombie fan.

>:)=

Stealth

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 01:13:15 GMT

Stealth ***1/2 out of ****

Starring: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx
Directed by: Rob Cohen
Rating: PG-13

You know what I learned by watching Stealth? I learned that Thailand is the pretty and I want to go there! Also, Josh Lucas has gorgeous blue eyes, Jessica Biel needs to learn to close her mouth fully, and Jamie Foxx's Oscar...

...will not guarantee him survival past the movie's half mark. It does however guarantee that at the end of the movie his face will be prominently displayed on the screen, ten times bigger than anyone else in the scene and people will cry.

My husband is an avionics technician in the Navy so when I watch movies that have anything to do with the U.S. Navy I have the advantage of an expert opinion. And the expert speaks: this was a damn good movie! On my part, it was pretty cool to see jets landing and taking off and finally have a mental image to go with the explanations I received on the subject. But my favourite part of the movie has to be the fact that a good half of the plot was not revealed in the previews. Imagine that! About halfway through the movie I realized that the trailer plotlines have already completed and there was still a while to go, it was a good feeling.

Another thing I liked was the cinematography. There were really nicely done seamless scene transitions: rippled water surface becomes a concrete floor, maps smoothly transition into bird's eye views.

On top of it all there was no sex and practically no kissing! Oh the romance was there, how can you have action without romance, but it didn't take up much screen time. As my husband put it: "there were no useless scenes."

Stealth in some ways explores the controversy of artificial intelligence, but it decided not to dig in too deep. I liked it: it gave us just enough to discuss and argue should we want to or to simply put it out of our minds and enjoy the action should we prefer that instead.

And now to quote the real star of the movie - EDI the amazing manless aircraft - "There is nothing more to be said."

The Island, ***

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 06:22:02 GMT

Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johannson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clarke Duncan, Ethan Phillips, Brian Stepanek, Noa Tishby
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexuality and language.

I must begin by saying that when I first heard of this movie, the very thought of two Ewan McGregors walking around made me squee like a fat kid with candy. However, when I actually went to see the movie, what I found was much more than just sexy.

It had a plot very likened to its director, Michael Bay. (If you’ve seen Armageddon or Bad Boys, you have a pretty general idea what The Island is about – that’s right, blowing things up.) And some of the camera shots just… like, whoa… With so much eye candy flying around the screen, most summer movies have difficulty coming up with some meaning in their plots. That is where I found this particular movie highly underrated. Approaching hard-to-answer questions, mostly dealing with the rights and wrongs of cloning, The Island brings a deeper meaning to itself.

Both Ewan McGregor (as Lincoln Six-Echo) and Scarlett Johannson (as Jordan Two-Delta) deliver performances that are sweetly and intoxicatingly innocent to the point where the audience is nearly dying for some smut. Sean Bean (Dr. John Merrick) plays his role well, taking on the form of the antagonist who acts as God. The only place I found this movie truly lacking was that it was very much a summer movie, made to mesmerize the audience for a few hours with lots of explosions, pretty people, and some cheesy music blasting away in the background at the end. It could have done without the cheese.

I recommend this movie as one of the top choices this summer. It takes you in, serves you dinner, completely ravishes you, and sends you on your way. Wonderful.

Spiderman 2, *** 1/2

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 02:57:14 GMT

Spiderman 2 (2004)

Starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina, James Franco, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Donna Murphy, Daniel Gillies

PG-13, for ~~stylish~~ stylized action violence

In short: The rare sequel that actually improves on the original (from 2002).

For you spoiler worrywarts out there, this first paragraph took only the first fifteen minutes of the movie:

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) just can't keep up with his double life - nerdy, stressed Peter Parker by day, web-slinger-in-colored-undies by night. His grades are falling, he can barely keep his two jobs, one as a pizza delivery boy and one as a newspaper's photographer (paper run by J. Jonah Jameson, a hilarious J.K. Simmons), he's nearly broke and his obnoxious landlord (is that redundant?) keeps demanding rent, *gasp for breath* his best friend Harry (James Franco) is going alcoholic and is bent on killing Spiderman, and did I mention the love of his life Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is sorely disappointed in him?

But no, along comes Dr. Otto Octavius (a wonderful Alfred Molina). Doc Ock is a brilliant scientist with a dream of creating a fusion reaction that would release enough energy to power ~~my computer for one night~~ the whole world. But wouldn't you know, the experiment has gone awry and he's the new terror of New York, complete with four mechanical arms fused onto his spinal chord.

Gee, I never would have seen that one coming.

Spidey swings around fighting Doc Ock and theives and terrorists and whatever, all while musing over a huge internal identity crisis. Needless to say, there aren't many flat moments in this movie. There's even some good costume gags. (one word: laundromat) (one more word: elevator)

Tobey Maguire, in my opinion, is an incredibly good-looking but only so-so actor. His acting style, "the deadpan" (Omigosh, he actually moved his eyebrow! Wow!), really fits Peter, but if he were playing a different kind of role he'd be dead. (It's a joke! Dead! Deadpan! Get it?...) Everyone else in the cast is excellent, good solid acting all around. Especially J.K. Simmons - he is SAVORING every second of that part.

I thought the action scenes were clever and well done - they actually tied into the plot. *gasp* Yah, the CG looks kinda comic-book-y, but it's a comic-book movie, so who's counting?

Only two flaws:
1. Soundtrack - I dare you to hum the theme from Spiderman. Yes, you, right now. Not the theme song that has words, you cheater, the theme from the background music. I betcha wouldn't know it if it came up behind you and gave you a genuine superhero-costume wedgie. The music is fine as an emotional backdrop and action-sequence-wallpaper, but it's not memorable. The only reason I even knew there was a theme is I was shopping for ringtones on the Internet and I came across a "Theme from Spiderman" ringtone. Alack the day.
2. Waaaaaay too much of the plot went into the trailer, so there aren't too many surprises if you saw the trailer first. *sob*

Overall, solid entertaining (droolworthy in the cases of Tobey Maguire and James Franco)(*swoon*) pretty darn good flick, especially for an action-packed summer movie.

And the ninth highest-grossing movie of all time.
I breathe a contented sigh for humanity:
the masses don't just go for the garbage.

They like the good stuff too.

Sky High

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:39:30 GMT

Sky High

Rated PG for action violence and some mild language
Directed by Mike Mitchell
Starring Michael Angarano, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Danielle Panabaker.

My rating: 3 out of 4

The first thing I did upon coming out of the movie theatre was get into a disagreement with my husband over the merit of this movie. He was not all that amused, while I got exactly what I wanted.

I anticipate the primary question is: was it cheesy?

The answer: Why yes, yes it was! Delightfully so! If this movie is made into a sitcom, I will be quite happy to add to its rating; provided Steven Strait resumes his role as Warren Peace to add a spicy hotness to the cheese. (And those who have already seen this movie will know that I made a pun!)

Despite my expectations, the movie did not start out with Will Stronghold suffering the disappointment of his parents due to lack of superpowers. It starts out with Will clumsily hiding said lack from his father. Clumsily but successfully, because to Steven Stronghold aka The Commander aka The Greatest! Superhero! Ever! ignorance is bliss. Enter Layla, the green-wearing, red-haired, hippy childhood best friend with a secret crush on Will. Layla can make withered potted plants grow again. Layla is kind. Layla is a vegetarian. Layla is liked by Will's parents. Will! Will, why can't you see how perfect Layla is?!

The set-up is not terribly original, but the movie doesn't try to be. It's a little bit of the Incredibles, it's a little bit of Project A-ko. It has Wonder Woman playing the principal of Sky High. It even slips in a reference to Last Action Hero! This movie is a callback to all its superheroic predecessors, all in good fun, and without taking itself too seriously.

Besides Will and Layla, we have two character providing the sexy edge fanfic writers need to up their rating to R (or K? Whatever it is Fanfiction.net uses nowadays) - Gwen, head of student body, and Warren Peace, the half-superhero, half-supervillain longer. (War and Peace? Get it? Get it?) Gwen's a technocrat and Warren throws fireballs. Gwen takes a liking to Will, and Layla pretends to take a liking to Warren in order for Will to take a liking to her.

Ok, so it sounds like a teen drama, and it really sort of is, but who cares? Warren and Will destroy half the school fighting! It has action! It has drama!

It even has acting. To be honest, I thought Kurt Russell was having a lot of fun with his role. He was choosing the most cartoonish facial expressions, and I laughed along with him. Kelly Preston, on the other hand, she did the cartoonish facial expressions and poses... but it seemed to me she was actually taking them seriously at times, so I didn't enjoy her performance as much. The younger generation was enjoyable and just obviously having fun with their roles.

My best advice to those who want to see it: don't take this movie seriously and it won't disappoint you. Laugh with it as it laughs at itself.

Kingdom of Heaven

Tue, 10 May 2005 19:19:41 GMT

Review for Kingdom of Heaven

Directed by Ridley Scott

Rated R for strong violence and warfare

Starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Eva Green, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Ghassan Massoud

My rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars

At what price comes peace? At what price comes war? What is Jerusalem, this Kingdom of Heaven, worth?

Nothing. Everything.

Director Ridley Scott tackles a controversial subject and presents a perspective of the Crusades that is not going to sit well with everyone. Because there is not a “good” or “bad” side – only good or bad people. The choices they make determine what side of the line they fall on. And under the cloak of religious beliefs the reality of politics and ambition are at the heart of the matter. There are fanatics from all denominations, and there are good men who would live in peace with their fellow man. Men of honor and conscience, the disillusioned who once believed in something and now live with the reality of a flawed system, and men corrupt and power hungry.

Enter our hero, Balian, a man who starts the movie as a humble blacksmith, bastard son to Godfrey, Baron of Ibilen. His wife and child have recently died and he is a man who is lost and searching for some answers, some purpose and peace of mind. His father offers him an opportunity to join him in Jerusalem in service of the King, and to aid in the King’s efforts to preserve the fragile peace between Christians and Muslims inhabiting that land. The idealized description Godfrey provides gives Balian a hope that perhaps there he can find some of the answers and forgiveness he is now searching for.

“There you are not what you were born but what you have it in you to become.... A kingdom of conscience, a kingdom of heaven.”

Following his father’s death after an ambush on the way to Jerusalem, young Balian takes to his new life with the devoted zeal of a man who has nothing else to live for and therefore is determined to make the best of what he now has left. His progression from simple blacksmith to talented knight and master of his new lands might seem a bit farfetched, but keeping in mind the idea put forth by the script that who Balian is in this new world is a man living up to his potential, what he has is in him to become, and it becomes fairly easy to forgive the speed of progression and how quickly the simple blacksmith persona is discarded.

While striving to be a “perfect knight” he makes friends with the King of Jerusalem, a man dying of leprosy, catches the eye of his married sister, Princess Sibylla, gains a reputation among the Muslims, and also makes a few enemies along the way, chiefly Sibylla’s husband, a corrupt and power hungry man with ambitions to succeed the throne once the king has died.

Ridley Scott handles the subject material very well, and the cinematography is absolutely breathtaking. The battle scenes are a visceral, bloody nightmare putting the audience right in the middle of the action so that we feel caught in the midst of the carnage. The performances by the actors are decent, with a few standing out memorably, chiefly the actor playing Saladin, King of the Muslims (Ghassan Massoud), and Edward Norton portraying King Baldwin, the dying and yet noble leper king of Jerusalem. Orlando Bloom, in the starring role of Balian, does a credible job of portraying a young man who is simply looking for answers and something to believe in, a man who does not want, in fact, to be a leader, per se, and yet who, in the end, holds true to his code of honor and steps up as the occasion demands and becomes a leader in battle for the sake of protecting helpless innocents. The character is wisely played not with a blustering machismo but rather with a quietly determined and fearless strength that is appealing for his honor and integrity.

I definitely recommend this as an excellent movie that stands out as a “war movie” whose message is very much antiwar.

Be Cool (2005)

Sun, 27 Mar 2005 22:53:37 GMT

Be Cool

Directed By: F. Gary Gray (Director of The Italian Job)

Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Danny DeVito, Vince Vaughn, Robert Pastorelli... and more people than I have room to mention

Rating: **** 1/2* out of 5

This movie just made playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon a lot less of a challenge...

Wow, where to start? This was possibly the funniest thing I've seen since Blue Colar Comedy Tour and Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again, and one of the most intelligent stupid movies ever. Sequel to Get Shorty, this movie probably has hidden jokes that would make sense had I seen the first one, but stands on its own rather well. The first line? "I hate sequels." I generally don't try to think of these movies in terms of just how good they are, they're not meant to be films or cinema, but this one truly deserved the four and a half out of five stars I've given it. THe plot can get a little convoluted, hard to coherently explain that is, but the acting was absolutely amazing.

John Travolta reprises his role as Chili Palmer, an ex-gangster turned movie producer, on the streets of California looking for his "next big hit", but in the music business instead of movies. He's sick of the movies-- "You know that in order to keep a PG-13 rating, you can only use the word 'fuck' once?" and is looking to get out and in to movies. His friend Tommy Athens (briefly and wonderfully portrayed by James Woods) asks him for coffee and to produce a movie about his (Tommy's) life. In the midst of a discussion about the pointlessness of such a task, Chili gets up to go to the men's, leaving Tommy to death by Russian mafia.

Christina Milian (singer of "Dip It Low") makes a stunning screen appearance (granted I haven't seen Man Of The House, but just about her debut to me) as Linda Moon, a struggling singer with soul and jazz roots discovered by Tommy and rescued by Chili from a skeezy club where her manager Raji (Vince Vaughn) and his bodyguard Eliot (The Rock) watch to make sure she doesn't get stolen away.

Starting with The Rock, we have a gay bodyguard who wants to be an actor-- his trademark? Being able to raise one eyebrow. Take that at face value, it took me a while to make the connection of The Rock and the eyebrow move... when I made it, I started laughing my ass off. Raji (Vaughn) makes his first appearance pimped out and with Linda Moon rolling her eyes at him, "He thinks he's black," she explains to a questioning Chili. In order to get the fabulous Ms. Moon as his first and only find, Chili has to first get her contract from Carosel Records, represented by Raji and Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel).

An ex-shylock, Chili talks his way out of the club and finds himself in business with Tommy's widow, Edie (Uma Thurman), who is in charge of the joint venture NWT, an indie record company whose main claim to fame is the DubMDs, a thuggish rap group produced by Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer) and led by his wife's bumbling cousin, Dabu (Andre Benjamin, AKA Andre 3000 of Outkast). Their entrance is one of the best scenes in the movies as Sin leaves his uniform clad daughter eating pancakes in his Hills mansion to walk out as three Hummers rolling on spinners pull up blasting rap laden with more offensive words than you could shake a .45 at. His admonition? "This is the SUBURBS, man!"

Cameo appearances by The Black Eyed Peas and Aerosmith (says Steven Tyler, "Now, Chili, I'm not the kind of singer who makes appearances in movies") add a nice spice to the movie and allow for some throwbacks to the greatest movies ever, including a Pulp Fictionesque dance scene between Thurman and Travolta.

Now, the main premise of the movie is that everyone's in line to take Chili out. The Russians because he's an eye witness to Tommy's shooting, the DubMDs because he's promised them the three grand Tommy owed them, Raji and Nick (Vaughn and Keitel) because he's stealing Linda's lucrative contract, and most likely a few others as well. Robert Pastorelli, a childhood favorite of mine (he played Eldin on Murphy Brown, comes in as Joe Loop, an eccentric hitman who hangs out at a swing club downtown. His encounter with Raji after a failed hit in which he takes out the Russian hired to ice Chili provides one of many chances for an almost f-bomb.

Have I mentioned that this movie does everything it possibly can to be R without having to move up to an R rating? Well, it does.

As you can probably tell, Chili doesn't get hit by the end of the movie, though a few N-word swinging Russians do get iced, and he ends up... well, let's not get in to messy details.

Granted that's not my most coherent movie review ever, but I'll leave it that I'm still just laughing so hard I can't even begin to explain what made this so funny. The only problem with the movie was that the end wrapped up a little too quickly to be as neat as it was. 118 minutes left it just short of two hours, so I appreciate that they wrapped it up, but it was a little too easy. It keeps the extra half star, though, because it wasn't sloppy and they threw in a few more awesome cameos.

Good times and great laughs, a fabulous Saturday night movie that kept me laughing so hard I almost peed a little.

Alexander (**)

Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:30:52 GMT

Alexander
Directed by Oliver Stone
Starring Colin Farrell, Rosario Dawson, Johnathan Rhys-Davies, Jared Leto, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, and Anthony Hopkins
My Rating: Two Stars (**), one for the lions

Alexander, the greatly awaited epic written, directed, and produced by Oliver Stone (writer, director, producer: Any Given Sunday) fell flatter than a flan on the floor. An A-list cast and big name producer promises much more than the film delivers, showing us only that these actors can do great things with horrible scripts...

Colin Farrell (Phonebooth, Intermission) plays the world's greatest general, Alexander the Great, in a film supposedly portraying his conquests and victories as the most well known Macedonian in history. Anthony Hopkins (Legends of the Fall, The Silence of the Lambs) narrates the story as an elderly Ptolemy- Pharoh of Egypt. The trailers lead us to believe that the film is going to be an epic showing of Alexander's exploits, however Ptolemy's narration takes the place of this. One of the reasons (as has been pointed out to me) could be that Stone wished to portray it through a certain point of view to avoid criticism of his writing, however the fault of the narration shows through in a few spots. First of all, the historical facts surrounding Alexander are generally solid, the parts that are disputed lean towards the disputed points in this movie (ex: Alexander being 21 at the time he conquers most of the known world versus being 18), showing, to some of the audience, that Stone wasn't particularly concerned about that. The second, and largest being that, since Ptolemy was one of Alexander's closest friends and generals, his point of view shows more of Alexander's personal life than of the battles and conquests. Were Alexander as strong a person as he was a leader, this would not have been a problem, however he is shown to be a simpering fool who spends half his time pining for Hephaistion (Jared Leto, Panic Room, My So Called Life), another general, or for the sexually ambiguous Erol Sander (playing a Persian Prince in his first American movie) who makes Alexander's bath and warms his bed... in more way than one.

Bed warming brings me to my next issue with the movie-- SEX. We all have it (or dream about having it), we've all learned about it in school, and we've all seen naked people and made gay jokes about Greeks, but Oliver Stone is apparently trying to follow in Roman Polanski's footsteps in some strange fashion. There is enough sexual tension between Alexander, his generals, and the numerous pages, courtesans, and other male soldiers and generals to cut with two large machettes and still have some left for dinner. Not to mention the horrible emphasis placed on the Oedipal complex, played upon all too well by Angelina Jolie (Olympias, Hackers, Gia) and perpetuated by a well-disguised Val Kilmer (The Saint, Real Genius) who plays the great Philip of Macedonia. The only justifiable sex scene was with his tribal wife, Roxane (Rosario Dawson, 25th Hour, He Got Game), after a sticky scene with Hephaistion where he claims Alexander to be his "sun" in the wedding chamber... generally not the best idea.

We, of course, compared it to Troy as far as watchability since the writing, unanimously agreed, admitted Stone to the "school of dialogue studies" (as my friend Alana so put it) and banning him from typewriter or other such writing console until he has completed his masters. The cinematography was generally better in Troy, Alexander did have some very intriguing, very beautiful scenes. Sets were articulately designed, costumes were beautiful, showing striking colors and cloths of all sorts, and even though Alexander's breath didn't frost up in the Hindu Kush mountains, the ungodly amount of money that Stone spent on this movie showed through in the on site filming done on a sound stage... perhaps that's why the accents were off!

Accent rundown:
-Greek soldiers fighting "barbarians": Scottish (yeah, if you don't see the irony, then look a little deeper in to Greek and Roman history)
-Greek generals: generally (no pun intended) British, though Alexander (being more of a soldier, of course) has a touch of the Irish in him
-Angelina Jolie: well, she's supposedly a sorceress, though nobody's quite sure where the crap Alexander's MILF came from, she's apparently Russianly Egyptian. Yeah, I didn't get it either. She also had this unhealthy obsession with snakes-- any good Freudian would have known that it wasn't open jealousy that made Philip hate for Olympias to keep an eye on Alexander, he knew something else was coming

Oddly enough, none of the Greeks sounded like the one sitting next to me... funny how that happens.

So to make a short review even shorter:
Acting-- up to par, in some cases a little more than I expected
Directing-- up to par insofar as he really didn't have a lot to do with what he'd written
Writing-- *makes buzzer noise* I'm sorry, folks, I can't even comment on the crap that came out of it
Casting-- supoibe. Mark Bennett, Billy Hopkins, and Lucinda Syson get two thumbs up from me. Even on Angelina Jolie.
Irony level-- high enough for a few good laughs.

Final Verdict:
If you like your irony and you like your fake dusty battles, then this is the movie for you. As for me, once was enough. I considered digging through my purse for a clock more than three times and that's way too many. (To give you a clock reference, I looked during the 3rd LOTR when Frodo and Sam started floating down the lava river) No matter how funny the Scottish actor talking about the barbarians as a Greek is, no matter how much the sexually ambiguous Persian freaked us out, and no matter how much wine was imbibed or young men's asses pinched... I wouldn't pay more than $5 to see this movie the first time around and I did. I think I may have to shoot myself now. *tick* Oh, and look, I have a facial tick now!

(btw, sorry if the format's not correct, haven't posted in a while, so I'm kinda playing by ear!)

The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 02:55:12 GMT

**/*****

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, Chris Pine, John Rhys Davies

Six years have passed since The Princess Diaries introduced us to the reluctant, unlikely princess, Mia Thermopoulis(Anne Hathaway.) Mia is all grown up now and has gone from a reluctant princess, to a princess determined to keep her throne at all costs. If you're expecting another sweet tale about how every girl has a princess in her, this isn't your movie. Princess Mia has grown up selfish and shallow and she has a movie to match. Even Anne Hathaway's considerable charm can't save this stinker.

As our story opens, Mia is graduating from college with a degree in government. In voice over, she happily informs us that there aren't any courses in ruling a country which is kind of funny because I thought that running countries was the whole point of government. I'm really barking up the wrong tree here, because in Disney's Epcot back-lot version of Europe, government is merely a matter of waving graciously and looking pretty while riding a horse. Mia's Genovia is a land of mismatched accents, illiterate peasants in colorful dress, no visible source of national income (other than pears) and scheming nobility who have apparently missed out on the last 200 or so of Western History. If Disney redesigned Ethiopia, it would look exactly like Genovia.

According to Disney, the next hour and a half concerns Mia's personal growth as she grapples with the problems of becoming a queen, dealing with an arranged marriage and whoopsie, falling in love with, Nicholas (Chris Pine) her rival for the throne. If you believe Disney, well, I've got this bank account in Nigeria and I need your help. In reality, the movie is an hour long commercial for products. Like Mia's furniture? Her bedroom set is lovingly captured on film and available for purchase. Oh look, there's Raven from the Disney Channel and she's here to sing a song from the Soundtrack for no apparent reason! Hey, it's time for the annual Genovian awards and afternoon tea, featuring two more artists on the same label as the soundtrack. Didn't catch the artist's names? Well, we'll repeat them until you do. You almost want to cringe for Julie Andrews as she attempts to sing with her destroyed voice, and is reduced to letting Raven bounce around her like squirrel on crack.

Who knew that "plot" was invented so that the leading lady can change her outfit 30 times? Oooh look, her riding habit is a LaCroix!

Outside of product placement, the film has no direction. Is it about Mia learning that governing a country is more than jewels and palaces and learning archery? Nope. In Disney's Genovia, that's exactly what government is all about. Is it about Mia making a hard choice between duty and following her heart. Hell no. Mia isn't choosing. She's determined to have it all, regardless of the consequences for the people around her. The film even half-heartedly attempts to take a feminist stance that Mia doesn't need a man to help her govern, but it would have come across far better if she had made her moving speeches in Parliament, rather than at her wedding. Given that even Queen Clarisse has little more to contribute in a meeting of Parliament then "Shut up!" it's not too hard to understand why there might be some reluctance to accepting Clarisse's granddaughter and protegee as the next absolute monarch.

The movie ends exactly how you would have expected it to end. There are more tiaras. There are more pretty dresses. We learn that true love is all about finding someone you hardly know, who happens to have a cute butt. Cue another hit song from The Princess Diaries 2: The Soundtrack Album and the credits roll.

The moral of the story is that you should shut up and buy the soundtrack ... and Mia's furniture ... and don't miss Raven on the Disney Channel .

Garden State

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:10:04 GMT

***.5/*****

Starring: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman & Peter Sarsgaard

Rated R for language, drug use and a scene of sexuality

A guy comes home and finds that it is not really home. That sounds quite a bit like my state of mind coming into this flick. After nine months of independence at Gustavus, I came home in May and found that I really don't fit here, a postulate that rings even more true now on the edge of going back to my "real home" on campus. But enough about my life--that's what my journal is about. Let's talk about Garden State.

Having been away from home for ten years, Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff, who also wrote and directed this) is living a bleak existence drugged up on every depression cure imaginable. One morning he receives a call that his mother (a paraplegic) has drowned in the bathtub, which brings Large (as his friends call him) back home where he starts running into old friends basically right from the burial at which he sees an old buddy-turned-stoner-gravedigger, Mark (Peter Sarsgaard). And yes, I realize that was a horrible horrible run-on. Deal with it.

Coming back to the plot, Large ends up meeting up with all sorts of old friends and acquaintances at a massively drugged-out party, but the only one who makes multiple appearances is Jesse (Armando Riesco), the millionaire from his invention of silent velcro (don't ask). But the movie really doesn't get moving until Large meets Sam (Natalie Portman), an epileptic compulsive lair whose free spirit begins to transform him from his sad-sack existence to someone who will head out into the world and face it.

I would like to start off with the stuff I don't really like about Garden State, which really are minor things, but they affected the way I saw the film so very much. For one thing, in the first half of the movie, I really wasn't liking director Braff's shot selection. I don't mind the use of trick shots and innovative camera angles, but I think that Braff fell too much in love with his own cleverness, which cheapened the shots he used (which is a shame because he sets up his scenes so well). Once the slickness wears off and Braff settles down, the movie becomes MUCH more watchable. My other major beef comes with the musical selection. I'll admit that I'm a minimalist, but they added too much extraneous music to the film to underscore certain moments. I'd prefer regular noise, but that's just me.

Other than that, I liked this movie quite a bit. Braff plays the straight man to his costars so very well. Braff does give himself some very good lines, but he blends into the background more often than not. Nay, the true star here is Natalie Portman. She comes across as quirky but in the fashion of a girl-next-door. I could believe that yes, I might someday meet a girl like this while walking around, which as I said in yesterday's Open Water review, is the big test of an actor.

I was also a fan of the script with its focus on the main characters (Large, Sam and to an extent, Mark) because it took time out to introduce so many minor supporting characters who only appear for a scene or two and then disappear. It's those bit characters who add much of the humor of the movie and help to give it the feel of life. Because honestly, in your life you have a few people who show up constantly but many who appear sporadically.

Overall, I liked this film a good bit. Though it took a while to get warmed up (not helped at all by Braff's enjoyment of camera tricks), once we get settled in, what we get is a very nice exploration of life and the idea of "Home" that I found myself unconsciously agreeing with quite a few times in the process of the movie. I'll give it 3.5/5.

Open Water (4.5/5)

Mon, 23 Aug 2004 00:26:20 GMT

Written & Directed by Chris Kentis
Starring Blanchard Ryan & Daniel Travis

Rated R for language and some nudity.

Let me preface this by admitting that Jaws is one of my Top Ten movies. Ever. Regardless of genre. Part of what made Jaws work so well was the constant hidden menace of the shark which lurked basically unseen off of the screen, leaving it to our imaginations to conjure up a ferocious killing machine. When the Spielberg finally lets us see the shark, it's nothing but a disappointment to see this mechanical prop, which is the one place where Jaws fails. But I am getting away from my topic, which is Open Water and is another shark movie.

We basically have two characters in this movie, Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis), two yuppy-esque people who like to work hard and play hard heading down to some tropic locale (I would guess that these are the Bahamas) for a vacation. What I really like about them is that writer/director Chris Kentis chooses to make them a real couple. They obviously have a deep attraction for each other, but Kentis sets an underlying ripple in their relationship and interactions while on the land that suggests that they aren't completely happy with each other. But then again, what couple (outside of the realm of cinema) is completely happy?

The action begins moving when the couple boards a dive boat and once they reach their destination, they head off together to get away from the group. As you could suspect, the boat ends up leaving them because of a botched head count that would take more time to explain than it's worth, so I'll just say that the boat crew made an avoidable mistake. When the couple surfaces right at the outer limit of their allotted time, they find that the boat has left because of the botched head-count which denoted that they had everybody on board.

Daniel and Susan are left drifting. They make errors in judgment from the get-go, especially by choosing to remain floating where they were supposed to meet up with their group instead of swimming to one of two boats that are in sight but not exactly close by. The couple begins to drift and we see Daniel being the more assertive and dominant of the two. What develops between the two is a very realistic look at a relationship, down to the inevitable argument over who's at fault for the disaster. And then the sharks begin circling. We see fins and when the camera dips below the water, we see the sharks looming, very realistic and not at all like the mechanical beast of Jaws (NOTE: Real sharks were used in the filming of this movie). The action comes to a boiling head at night in a lightning storm, where all we see is the blackness of the sea devoid of light, save for intermittent flashings of lightning. The terror of the two is communicated and amplified by a couple of quick underwater shots of briefly illuminated sharks so very close to their bodies.

The feel to this movie is excellent. Shot on digital hand-held cameras, director Kentis brings us as close as he can to the couple without getting our shoes wet. It's a lot like the effect that The Blair Witch Project has on people--the story if told in the crisp lines of conventional film becomes much weaker because of the professional-quality that we see. Honestly, the movie didn't so much terrify me as hold me nervously to the edge of my seat, anticipating the next nibble and still feeling my heart give that little flutter when it happens. That is quality film-making.

And I need to give credit to Daniel Travis and Blanchard Ryan, because they pull off a hell of a job. Either because of their anonymity on the screen or because they do an excellent everyman job (I'd call it a combination of the two) these are two people whom I would not be surprised to meet at the supermarket. They come across as normal folk thrust into a terrible situation by a combination of their errors and the unkind hand of fate.

How does Open Water stack up against Jaws? I don't know how comparable these two movies are. Jaws was set up as a big-budget picture and that's what it was--a good big-budget movie, but still it cannot escape the excesses that it could have. Open Water has a much more minimalist feel to it. This is a simple story that is not complicated by numerous subplots and special effects. Open Water does owe a bit of a debt to its predecessor and there are several shots and sequences that are homages to Spielberg's work. In short, I liked this movie. 4.5 out of 5.

GARDEN STATE

Sun, 08 Aug 2004 15:58:24 GMT

GARDEN STATE (2004)
* * * * out of * * * *

Written, Directed by and Starring Zach Braff

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Zach Braff's GARDEN STATE is a marvel of fresh filmmaking and, if there's any justice, deserves to be a major player in this year's Oscar race.

Braff plays Andrew Largeman, a 26-year-old who hasn't been home in a good decade since being sent to boarding school by his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). Large (as he likes to be called), when he was 9, pushed his mother and, in a freak accident, caused her to be paralyzed from the waist down when she tripped on a bad dishwasher door and snapped her body across a kitchen counter. For years, his father has tried to deal with his son after the accident. His solution became to medicate Large with oodles of anti-depressants, medicine Large takes to this day. But the medicine has turned Large into a zombie, incapable of feeling anything more than nothing. But now his mother has died (drowned in a bathtub) and Large needs to go home for the funeral. He leaves LA, where he has worked as a struggling actor and a waiter in a Vietnamese restaurant, without his medication, and by being free of those medicinal restrictions for the first time, he begins to actually live again.

Braff's performance is a marvel, as is Natalie Portman's wonderful work as Sam, the girl Large meets in a doctor's office and, in the span of just a few days, changes his life. His work on Scrubs showcased a great broadly-comedic talent, but GARDEN STATE highlights his impressive dramatic capabilities as well. Large is not an easy character to tackle, given the transformation from nothing to everything that needs to take place during the course of the film, and Braff executes it amazingly. Portman is equally impressive as Sam, who is a pathological liar suffering from epilepsy. She's a quirky, unusual, attractive girl who is free of SOOOOOO many trappings most romantic leads are filled with. These characters are new and original... we have never seen anything like them before. And their interactions are a complete breath of fresh air.

As a writer, Braff is astounding. Openly throwing away the concept of act structuring, he instead tells his story with complete freedom from convention. His characters simply exist, and through their actions, the story unfolds. These are not puppets to a plot... they drive the film every step of the way. His dialogue is witty and introspective, but rarely feels forced, and the detail he puts into his characters shows tremendous care for the work.

And as a director, Braff... well... he just rules. I don't quite know how to say it in another way. Zach Braff, with this movie, proves that he has a true gift for filmmaking (and technical know-how... which he should have, since he graduated from college with a degree in film) that I can only hope develops even more with future films.

GARDEN STATE is not for everyone. Its bizarre and unusual characters and story will not appeal to some. It's just not made for them. But for those who do "get" it, it is a beauty to behold, a delicious look into what kind of glory a filmmaker can create with a few great actors, interesting characters and some passion.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...
Best Picture
Best Director, Zach Braff
Best Original Screenplay, Zach Braff
Best Actor, Zach Braff
Best Supporting Actress, Natalie Portman
Best Cinematography, Lawrence Sher
Best Film Editing, Myron Kerstein

Down with Love ** (DVD)

Wed, 04 Aug 2004 14:57:31 GMT

Starring Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce, Sarah Paulson, Tony Randall

Rated PG-13 for sexual humour and dialogue.

I've seen many fluffy 60s films from Doris Day romances to, well, other Doris Day romances. This attempt at re-capturing the lively and sparkling relationship that those films showed so well gets the style and look right, but fails to spot even a hint of substance on the horizon.

The plot should be familiar to anyone who has seen any film ever. Girl moves to New York and through a series of kooky mishaps, falls into a relationship with man's man, ladies man, man about town Catcher Block. There are sidekicks, great costumes, beautiful sets and some great actors. It's a film that looks fantastic. So why doesn't it work?

It tries too hard to be clever. The constant old film references, overly bad special effects and attempted tongue in cheek mugging by the leads was too much even for someone like me who has a chocolate ice-creamed, hopeless romantic soul knowledge of such films. I like my references subtly fed to me on a honey covered spoon, not rammed down my throat with the force of a jet engine.

It could have been lifted by great chemistry between the two leads, Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. I thought McGregor could make a blind broom-stick fall into a puddle at his feet - he managed it with Yoda. But Zellweger's twitchy, pouty, mannered performance proves too much even for him and even after the “big” twist” 2 thirds of the way through, designed to make her look like a spunky woman with a mind of her own, I was hoping he would end up with David Hyde Pierce, who he had much more fun with.

Zellweger doesn't even manage to make the fantastic costumes look good. They are gorgeous - throw Jackie Kennedy and Versace into a blender and rejoice – but they wear her, rather than the other way round. She disappears into a cloud of pink marshmallows and can't fight her way through to a character.

Neither actor is well served by the script. The double entendres are painful. That kind of humour doesn't fit well into what's supposed to be a light romantic comedy and everyone looks highly uncomfortable with it. The “repartee” between the leads boils down to insults and blinking. The best lines are given to the two sidekicks, but there's nothing to stick in the mind.

I really wanted to enjoy this film. Unfortunately, it tried so hard to prove to me how clever it was, that I could only pat it patronisingly on the head and walk away sadly.

The Village... unfortunately

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 05:10:40 GMT

M. Night Shyamalan's The Village

Starring Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator), Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson, Troy), Grandma Buggy Abbott (Cherry Jones, The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood), Mrs. Krensler (Celia Weston, The Incredible Hulk), Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody, The Pianist), and several other people who are normally quite good but can't act their way out of a paper bag in this movie.

Rated PG-13 for suspense and dead animals, I suppose

Two stars for effort and for putting Joaquin Phoenix and Adrian Brody in a movie together.

You know, I was rather excited about seeing this movie. It seemed like another great M. Night Shyamalan movie; even if the preview didn't make it seem particularly exciting, the previews for "Unbreakable" and "Signs" didn't look particularly engaging, but the movies were decent enough. Apparently seven is NOT Shyamalan's lucky number (that, by the way, is the number of movies he's written)-- the movie had great potential but just never panned out...

Opening sequence was fairly on par with what we'd expected, but after that I was so much in pain from the horrid acting (which could possibly have been caused by the even worse writing), that most of the movie is a blur of questions including:

1) Why the hell is there a retarded guy in a horror movie? I mean, Adrien Brody was great, who doesn't love some Adrien Brody? Honestly? But he was obviously a tool for the script, and not a well used tool, either.

2) What's up with the blind girl looking at people like she can see them? And why doesn't she run in to stuff in the woods but continuously bumps in to things in her own bloody house? I mean, for a girl with family like she has (Ron Howard's daughter, Henry Winkler's goddaughter... [IMDB]) she was pretty impressive-- usually family actors aren't as good as she was. And it is hard playing a blind person (trust me, I know), but come on Shyamalan! Check for the random shit in the movie that people will pay attention to if you give them BAD DIALOGUE!

3) Why do you lock up the two actors the movie has going for it? Which leads us to...

So. Phoenix and Brody end up leaving the cast, basically-- after a short stint as a small talker, Phoenix is in a coma for the rest of the movie. The supporting cast (noted by other character names in the intro) is an amazing supporting cast! Why the hell can't they do anything? I mean, come on...

The numerous plot twists all lead to some very great ideas with fabulous potential, and the final plot twist isn't necessarily something I would have seen coming, but the first major twist is so... obvious to me that it seems like, well, Shyamalan wrote it! You remember the red in "The Sixth Sense"? And how, when you watch the movie again, you realize that only the kid acknowledges Bruce Willis? Or maybe you're one of those people who noticed it the first time around-- I was. I also noticed that out of the large group of town elders, they were the ones who knew everything-- kind of odd, really. Yet, they seemed really perturbed when the little animals started showing up skinned, which led me to believe that one of them had manufactured it or that someone was on to them and was trying to get under their skin. I'd never thought that it would be something so blatantly STUPID as the parents of the retard hiding a costume under some floorboards and locking him in the room after he's tried to kill the only other actor carrying the movie! *waits for facial tick to go away*

So. We're left with the final twist. This really is a spoiler so this is

your

last

warning

I

mean

it...

They're all from the modern world. They've moved outside of society because it sucks. It really sucks. It does, however, get hinted at throughout the movie with the little black boxes and the haunting story of Mrs. Clack's sister, and the *facepalm* der moment for me came when Mr. Walker continuously asked Texas Jack (Frank Collison, Hidalgo) if there wasn't anything they could do for poor, dying, infected by a dirty shiv knife Lucius... GO TO SOCIETY DUMBASS! Let's all promise that we won't kill my blind daughter while she runs through the woods unescorted because the boys of the town are too pussy to help her on the off chance that they won't arrest her because she's DRESSED LIKE IT'S 1897!

In conclusion, my first reaction was, "Not only should Shyamalan be taken out back and beaten with a hose, but the casting director ought to be shot." Then I realized that the casting director (Douglas Aibel) ought to be paid more money-- he did his damndest to find a cast that could pull off a sad sorry script. The only person at fault here is Shyamalan who, in an attempt to prove that he's not just some mundane, redundant script writer (save for Stuart Little, folks, which wasn't his to begin with!), has proven himself to be exactly that. The first scene with "Those We Do Not Speak Of" (which, by the way, should be "Those Of Which We Do Not Speak") reminded me of a scene from "Signs"; I started wondering where Joaquin's little brother was, and how many times the blind girl was going to not get hurt (even if there wasn't a train wreck around her)...

Finally I leave to you the question I posed earlier: If Ivy (blind girl) saw dead people, would Shyamalan then be required to write a movie entitled, "The Seventh Sense" in order to be politically correct?