watching movies one cup at a time

This is Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond and some had questioned the whole notion of a “blond Bond.” But Craig lives up the character and in fact kicks some major ass. In a sense this is a prequel. It depicts Bond’s first mission after becoming a 00. But in another sense I think this film is more how I envision the entire James Bond canon. I believe that “James Bond” is actually a title and not a real person in these stories. A man becomes “James Bond” after the previous one retires or is killed. Anyone with the 007 status adopts the identity. So Daniel Craig is not the original James Bond but he is the current one. And I’m talking about IN the movie, not the actor. That way James Bond is timeless and the several actors that have played him can be explained easily enough.

Having said that, Daniel Craig does a phenomenal job. He is a perfect cool, calm, and ruthless agent that is completely capable of all that’s required of the character. The film takes more inspiration from the recent Bourne movies than it does the campy, doomsday schemes of the 80s and 90s. This Bond will do a 15 minute fight sequence smashing through windows and jumping off of roofs before anything with lasers comes out. And all with the same cool and effortless expression on his face. Hardcore.

Great action, great characters, a great Bond film for a new generation.

I really enjoyed this movie. I had low expectations because I’m not a huge romantic-comedy fan (though I seem to have seen thousands somehow) but I was pleasantly surprised by an interesting story, real characters, and some great acting.

Jennifer Garner is lead here as a young woman about to be married only to have her fiance die in an accident right before the wedding. She deals with it with the help of her friends and a buddy of the fiance’s who is in town, played by Timothy Olyphant. Things get complicated when Juliette Lewis comes to town with a young child that she says was the fiance’s son whom Jennifer Garner never heard of before. But the pacing is kept light and airy, not too forced or hectic. All the characters deal with their friends death in different ways and it feels genuine and not some sappy made-for-TV movie cliche.

Jennifer Garner is great in this movie. She is perfect as the newly single character, Gray. Not extreme, not overthinking it, very natural. And her stunning beauty works well with the character.

Timothy Olyphant is also really, really good in this movie. Often he gets roles as the bad guy. And he can do bad guys exceptionally well. But he has been consistently great in everything I’ve seen him in. And in this film he does a great job of being at first the sort of rogue drifter but then really fleshing out the character as a good guy and a good person for Gray to start a romance with.

Kudos to Kevin Smith too. He rarely does movies that aren’t his own productions but this time he did a really good job in a purely supporting acting role. And his scene in the hospital was quite good. I know the character in the movie was pretty much just Kevin Smith by a different name, but he pulled it off and it flowed very naturally with the movie. I have seen far worse acting from people who don’t also have Director and Writer as their day job.

Bottom Line: If you’re looking for a good romantic-comedy-drama that isn’t wacky, gross, or over-the-top, give this a try.

This is an interesting little movie that kind of flew under the radar this year. It’s set in an underground city at some time in the future when the surface of the planet has presumably been made uninhabitable. The underground city has aged well past it’s expected use and is falling into disrepair. The ones who built the city have long passed away and so the current residents simply exist in a perpetual state of being fixed up with whatever temporary solutions are at hand. It’s a crumbling structure that is getting harder and harder to maintain. The leaders of the city are content with just keeping things as they are so they can horde the city’s limited resources for themselves. While a couple of kids figure out that there was a plan of action lost a long time ago that was intended to lead them out of the city and back to the surface.

The sets in this film are quite well done with a very rich level of detail. It reminds me very much of Terry Gilliam’s fantasy movies like Time Bandits and Baron Munchausen or Jeunet’s City of Lost Children. They do a great job of conveying the layers of layers of crumbling and quick fixes that have covered the city. Nothing is ever replaced with something new, it’s simply patched or tied together.

Overall the story was good but I felt it could have used a little more punch to it. It could have been a little more exciting and given a stronger edge of urgency. But it’s not bad and it’s a shame more people didn’t see it. Bill Murray as the corrupt and lazy mayor does an excellent job as do the two child leads, including Saoirse Ronan who was so brilliant in last year’s Atonement.

First I have to say I really liked the movie a lot. However that shaky camera thing really made me feel nauseous! WTF!? I definitely did not feel good by about halfway through the flick. That’s not something you want from a movie these days – call me crazy. And it appears I’m not alone. I read reports that some theaters posted signs saying the movie may cause motion sickness. Nice job, JJ Abrams!

Nevertheless, the film scores big for originality. The concept of seeing essentially a Godzilla movie in a reality show/documentary style really succeeded in connecting the terror of the moment to the audience. It was very effective and believable. We are so used to seeing reality show footage these days and this just blends right in. I got sucked into the realistically bewildering crisis. Read the rest of this entry »

This movie really desperately wants to be Superbad but it is a much weaker and lamer version without any of the cleverness or heart. Superbad had a lot of crude humor but at least it felt genuine. This film just feels like one cliche after another strung together with beer and topless women. It’s pointless, not funny, and not worth it.

This is a “prequel” of sorts to the original Cube movie and Hypercube, it’s sequel. You don’t have to have seen the other 2 movies, but it helps. This one looks like it has a bigger budget with a slightly better production value. The first Cube movie definitely had a low-budget sci-fi vibe.

The basic idea is that there is an enormous Cube structure that contains many cubed chambers within it. Each chamber potentially has a deadly trap that will kill a person almost immediately. People get put in the cube without any warning or instruction and must figure their own way out. Tho pretty much no one does since there are so many traps.

This Cube movie actually spends the majority of it’s time outside the Cube, sort of behind the scenes. The thing I liked about the first Cube movie was the mystery of who was behind it all. You never found out who or why these things were happening. That left it up to the imagination, and that makes a big difference. The following 2 movies have tried to give insight into the organization behind the Cube. But either tell us all of it or not at all. Just teasing little pieces out only demystifies the whole thing. At least if we heard the whole story it would give it some closure.

The acting and directing were just allright in this movie. By far the best character was Mr. Jax with his messed-up eye. He was great fun.

Yawn. Boring. Honestly the best thing about the first Narnia movie was Tilda Swinton as the Witch. She has a cameo in this movie but it’s all too brief. The 4 british kids are lackluster, Prince Caspian is rather cliche, and the whole Narnia battle feels a bit warmed over from The Lord Of The Rings. And none of it is very compelling. Then throw on top of that the whole “Aslan saves the day” at the last minute and it just feels really hacked together and just too easy. It isn’t clear WHY Aslan has been gone for so long or why he all-of-a-sudden comes back to fix everything. Maybe it’s more clear in the book, but the movie sacrifices details for action sequences. And not very exciting ones either.

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.