watching movies one cup at a time

This is another remake that never needed to happen. The original Clash of the Titans came out in 1981 and is fondly remembered for being a compelling movie for it’s time. Sure the effects look dated by today’s standards, but it was effective in 1981 and captured the imagination of many kids looking for a fun adventure movie with (at the time) great movie monsters. This remake is not fun or interesting or inspires any of the imagination the first one did. It’s a CG explosion that treats the plot like an afterthought and couldn’t care less about anything even resembling actual Greek mythology. And in a sea of CG-heavy, plot-deficient movies that flood the theaters, this movie will easily be forgotten.

First off, why does Sam Worthington keep getting lead roles in these movies? He’s terrible! He was the worst thing about Terminator: Salvation and he’s the worst thing here. With his shaved head and British accent, he looks like a soccer hooligan, not a Greek “demi-God” as they keep calling him over and over in this movie, in case we forgot it for 5 minutes. The entire movie he’s running around like he just time-traveled from a Guy Ritchie movie, never convincing anyone he fits in to this already paper-thin world. Any of the actors who were in 300 or Troy would have blown Worthington out of the water. Also, Worthington’s crew of so-called warriors don’t add much to the story and wind up all getting killed off pretty easily in just one scene, making you wonder why they were introduced at all.

The actual Greek Gods in this movie barely make a cameo and their role is never clearly established. They’re really just kind of tacked on and have a small percentage of the role they played in the original. Liam Neeson looks bored and is clearly phoning it in with his shiny armor that looks like it should be in a King Arthur movie, not anything about Greek Gods. Raiph Fiennes gets the most screen time of all the Gods playing Hades, who wasn’t even in the original at all. Fiennes is great as always but it feels like he’s just channeling Voldemort Lite. Not a stretch I’m sure. The whole storyline with him and Zeus and the Krakken is muddled and not very thought-out. I’m sure we’re supposed to just marvel at the crazy monsters and not worry about what the hell is actually going on.

Speaking of the Krakken, this monster is actually pretty effective. It does have a very ominous presence and looks fierce. However, we only ever see it in close-up so we never get much sense of what it really is. And it’s pretty much defeated in about 5 minutes, so yea… not such a big deal after all. Also, in the paper-thin plot, the humans were supposed to sacrifice the princess to the Krakken in order to save the city of Argos, but the Krakken does a good job of beating the hell out of Argos anyway before he even sees the princess. Just another pointless scene that serves no real purpose in a pointless movie that serves no real purpose.

Bottom Line: Waste of time. Catch it on cable but don’t go out of your way.

This is the third film in the so-called “Twilight Saga” and the ads for this movie promised a lot more action than the previous two. Ultimately though it’s just the continuation of the same melodrama and weak story from the other Twilight movies. We do get more scenes of vampires and werewolves kickin’ some ass, but it’s far too short and the “big battle” towards the end is not that big or much of a battle either. It’s pretty much over in about 5 minutes with no real threat displayed and no real consequences, other than pretty easily killing off the villains who seem to be obsessed with killing Bela for no real established reason. Seriously, why are they so desperate to kill her? It’s really never made clear in any satisfying way. It just feels like a puffed-up excuse to have Edward and Jacob both say a million times “I did it to protect you” and “I would rather die than let anything ever happen to you.” But why does this motivate the entire Cullen clan AND now the werewolf pack to put their lives on the line to defend her? And defending her is apparently really easy because, like I said, the “big battle” is over pretty quick despite the main villain, Victoria, taking a whole year to build up this apparently impotent vampire army.

What I did like about this movie was how they went more in to the backstory of some of the vampire characters. I find that part is always interesting, especially in other vampire stories like the vastly superior True Blood. I liked the new villain, Riley, and the scenes of him causing havoc in Seattle. I currently live in Seattle and wouldn’t mind seeing some hipsters get chomped on. But his scenes were far too short and left me wanting more.

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Boring. Lifeless. Uninspired. This is a live-action film of a very popular animated series, and the film fails in every way. What is going on in this movie and why should I care? M. Night never delivers a satisfying answer and ultimately wastes our time.

The characters are drab and the acting is terrible. And why aren’t the main actors Asian? The entire animated series is Asian! This really pissed off the massive fanbase for this movie, NEVER a good idea. And since none of the non-asian actors add ANYTHING to the movie, what was the point? Just racist pandering to white audiences? Either these actors really suck or M. Night just sucks as a director. And since he wrote the REALLY BAD dialogue for this movie, my guess is that the blame falls on M. Night.

The effects in this movie are so lifeless that it’s clear this movie should have stayed in animation and not live-action. The whole concept of the characters “bending” the elements just never connects. The fire doesn’t burn anything, the water never gets anyone wet, the dirt is hardly intimidating, and god-forbid you get hit by THE WIND! Didn’t M. Night learn anything from that failed “Happening” movie? Wind isn’t scary or tough. This movie could have been made 10x better as an animated film. And the 3D is completely pointless. It’s never used to any dramatic effect and feels very tacked on purely for profit.

The fight scenes are just stupid. No one looks like they are actually fighting. It more closely resembles a bad dance routine. With so many fantastic martial arts movies being made all the time, there is no excuse to have such lame action sequences in a contemporary film. Hire a director JUST for those scenes if you can’t do it yourself, M. Night. None of his previous movies ever had any kind of fighting in them so why he felt he could jump in with both fists and get away with it seems ridiculous. When Quentin Tarantino directed Kill Bill, he not only had studied martial arts films for years, he also brought in the best to help with the fights. And it worked! The fights in this movie are about as fierce as the worst episode of “So You Think You Can Dance” and are just as boring and lifeless as the rest of the movie.

Bottom Line: Boring and pointless, don’t bother.

Get Him To The Greek is not a very challenging idea. There is a fallen-from-the-top rockstar in need of a comeback, a record label scrub looking to make a name for himself and impress his boss, and a big show in Los Angeles that they need to get to in order to achieve both those goals. So of course the whole movie is about how they keep getting sidetracked by the rockstar’s schizophrenic up and downs. Wackiness ensues and we’re meant to say “Wow, that rockstar is SO wacky!”

Pretty much as expected this movie never really lifts out of two-dimensional flatness. The characters are not very compelling or even that interesting, and the contrived “get to the concert” storyline never really has much weight to it. It’s a mildly enjoyable little film but is really not enough to get past mediocre. In the movie’s second half Russel Brand’s character attempts to “get deep” as he starts facing some of his inner-demons in a very cliche and predictable way. And in a real by-the-numbers manner, the two main characters become best friends just in time for the expected happy ending.

Though not great, Russel Brand does a good job of playing the rockstar that I’m sure he would really love to be anyway. And he does a very good job singing the songs that were used in the movie. He probably could have a singing career if he wanted to go that route instead of comedy. So by the time they actually get to the concert, his performance is actually pretty decent on it’s own. Overall though this was a safe movie for him to do and didn’t really push any boundaries, and the movie just never really gets interesting or firing on all cylinders.

Bottom-line: Pretty tame and mediocre overall, never delivers the big laughs, but not bad. Wait for cable or DVD.

Richard Kelly continues in his filmmaking attempt to be the next David Lynch of weird narrative movies, though this one is a lot less crazy than his last movie, Southland Tales. But while I found the movie to be interesting and done well, ultimately the story seemed a little light and grasping.

The premise of the story is that at a time of financial crisis for a married couple in the ’70s, a strange and disfigured man appears with a promise that if they push a button on a particular box, they will get one million dollars in cash. However, the catch is that someone they do not know will die if they push the button. This causes a lot of moral back-and-forth with the couple but ultimately they push the button. What happens next is kind of an odd mish-mash of government conspiracy mixed with aliens mixed with spiritual allegories.

Ultimately though the “great conspiracy” part of the movie was slow to develop and never really paid off in the end. While the rather simplistic and cliche’d message of “nothing comes for free” and “man’s greed will be his downfall” just seemed like an obvious and easy way out. By the end of the movie I didn’t really feel satisfied that this story really pushed any boundaries or tried hard enough to be clever in it’s agenda. It tries to build up the hype that there is a larger puzzle to be solved, but ultimately it just feels like lazy storytelling with a rather mundane set of circumstances.

Bottom line: Not bad but not as good as it could have been.

This is a vampire movie. But what separates this film from the flood of recent vampire flicks is that first of all, it’s set in Sweden and second, it’s actually a very touching story about a lonely boy, Oskar, who finds a friend in the sympathetic but nightmarish vampire named Eli, forever locked into the body of a 12 year old. I’ve never been to Sweden but the picture they paint here is a very cold and stark place where the bleakness of the snow and ice helps perpetuate a separateness between the isolated worlds of it’s citizens. This is a place where a secretive figure like a vampire and a friendless child can easily move around without being noticed, without anyone really paying attention or caring. It’s a empty world, devoid of life, which allows Eli to easily slip in and fill the void that Oskar so desperately needs. In Eli, Oskar finds an ally, champion, protector, and potential lover as the adolescent boy begins his awkward first steps in to puberty. In Oskar, Eli finds a companion, a warm bed in a cold night, someone to take care of, and a connection. Their shared loneliness is enough to overcome any fear Oskar has and any defense-mechanism of Eli’s.

Not a whole lot happens in this movie, it is really more of a moody and slow view of the escalation of their relationship. The events that happen in the film involving other characters almost feel like background noise to help illustrate the alienation and isolation Oskar so profoundly feels, and why having Eli come along and embrace him in to another world feels so right. It’s an enjoyable movie and worth seeing.

There is an American version being made already and hopefully it won’t “Americanize” the story too much. As with most European, subtitled movies, this movie wouldn’t appeal to a mass American audience used to seeing vampires fighting and kissing angsty teenage girls. This is far from Twilight and True Blood. It feels a lot more real and I hope that connects in the remake. UPDATE – Saw the first American version trailer and it looks very good.

Bottom line: At times both horrifying and sweet, a worthwhile film to see.

American version trailer after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

I think we’ve finally reached the tipping point where Tim Burton is sliding into self-parody. This movie feels very phoned in, like someone opened the book of “Tim Burton-isms” and piled them all into this rather lifeless mush.

Check out this video called Tim Burton’s Secret Formula. They pretty much nailed it on the head.

The crazy make-up and scenery caught our interest in the build-up to the release, but once again a good story is sacrificed to just having a bunch of crazy-sh*t exploding everywhere. And the original story was hard enough to take seriously to begin with considering it’s mostly surreal nonsense on purpose. But here Burton attempts to take that literary nonsense and fashion a story “with heart” and “real characters”, giving the Mad Hatter a little back story and a little sanity believe it or not. However this makes the character completely impotent and lacking much of a personality at all. Instead we get a sad clown that wants Alice to “do the right thing.” Huh? Sure, Johnny Depp can be fun to watch when he plays these cartoon-like characters, but at this point it’s all been done so many times that the novelty has worn off. It’s become tired and cliche.

The rest of the cast pretty much phones it in as well and is very forgettable. Mia Wasikowska as Alice seems completely bored the entire time and doesn’t care what’s happening because she’s convinced it’s all a dream. This translates into a lifeless performance that never convinces US to care what’s happening either. Helena Bonham Carter is good but is not given much to work with. Anne Hathaway is truly bizarre as the White Queen who for some reason never lowers her arms the entire movie. She is constantly fluttering around with her arms up like she’s dancing ballet or something. It’s distracting and quite silly, in a bad way. Everyone else was forgettable and ultimately pointless.

In general I just never cared about any of the characters or the so-called problems they were facing. The movie was not faithful to the original books and feels like they were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, covering over their inadequacies with a mountain of CGI rainbow goth vomit. Ultimately this film was pointless and empty. Plus the 3-D that is now so trendy was very lackluster and never wowed us. After Avatar, it’s going to take a lot to make the 3-D really stand out. Otherwise it feels like just another gimmick.

Bottom Line: Lots of pointless noise. Skip it.

The commercials for this movie really hyped up the twist ending. Unfortunately when I went to see the movie I figured out the twist within the first 20 minutes and was hoping I was wrong the whole rest of the movie. But I wasn’t. It’s not that it’s that predictable, they just didn’t do a great job of hiding it. If you watch movies and know the cues and hints, it’s not hard at all. So the ending wound up being a let down when it became clear they weren’t going to flip it on me like I was hoping they would. I love seeing movies where I think I got it figured out but I was completely wrong. This is not one of them.

Having said that, this is a quality movie. Martin Scorsese doesn’t make bad movies. But this one falls in to the category of him doing something more for fun than pushing any boundaries, much like when he did Cape Fear with his other favorite actor, Robert DeNiro. It’s a classic Hitchcock homage, full of shadowy institutions and gritty, decayed scenery on a cold and miserable island. Toward the end it moves in to traumatic and heartbreaking territory as Leonardo Dicaprio’s character unravels and comes to grips with the horrors he’s experienced in his life. The flashbacks to when he was in WWII and was part of liberating Dachau are particularly gruesome and haunting. But overall it’s just a noir genre picture that happens to be done by one of the best directors out there. A pleasure to watch but ultimately not entirely satisfying.

Bottom Line: Good movie but not as clever as it could have been.

I like George Clooney. I think he does a great job. However I don’t think this was much of a stretch for him. This role just feels like he’s out there doing his “George Clooney-thing.” And not much else. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I don’t think it deserves an Oscar nomination. He could do this part in his sleep. Good thing for us though the part is very compelling and enjoyable. His character, a hired-gun sent to fire large groups of staff from corporations, is never 2-dimensional or flat. In fact I think most people would welcome the chance to get fired by him. And his whole pseudo-zen philosophy of not holding on to attachments is interesting not only because it clearly gives him the emotional distance he needs to survive, but also because it comes crashing down so easily and quickly when his genuine loneliness is let out of it’s cage. And of course he suffers the consequences of letting his guard down but at the same time allows connections he didn’t realize he desperately needed.

The other thread through this movie is the economic downturn and the very real unemployment situation that exists in this country. I’m sure few of us know anyone who has not been affected in some way by layoffs and downsizing. The director used real people who had been laid-off for some of the exit interview footage and it really helped bring home what’s going on in people’s lives.

Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick are great as well in this movie. Vera’s character is interesting and ultimately heartbreaking as a person trying to live both sides of George Clooney’s no-attachment philosophy. And I enjoyed Anna Kendrick as the big-idea go-getter who finds out the world is more complex than numbers and scripts. He inner tension is never cliche or exaggerated to extremes.

Bottom Line: Great movie, go see it.

This is another one of those “virus-turns-people-psycho” movies kind of like 28 Days Later or I Am Legend mixed with Outbreak. But what sets this one apart is the actions of the government/military in dealing with the situation. Instead of the drama of “We have to find a cure and save these people!” the faceless and almost anonymous government immediately jumps to extermination. This greatly heightens the tension adds to the terror the townspeople face as even the ones who are so-called uninfected are brutally killed in an unsympathetic and chilling way. You only once see any of the government officials beyond facemasks and haz-mat suits, and only once is a soldier shown with his mask off. It makes the military/government scarier than the infected townspeople, right up to the end when they launch what should be a last resort but one gets the feeling they were going to do it all along anyway.

Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell are great in this too. Timothy Olyphant is one of my favorite actors out there today and he can play a brilliant good guy, brilliant bad guy, and everything in between. He is the calm center in the swirl of chaos.

The movie is not without it’s faults and in general is just another genre film. But there are some good scrares and heavy tension. It’s worth seeing.