watching movies one cup at a time

To call this movie ridiculous is pretty much stating the obvious. So let’s just get the fact that it’s a ridiculous over-the-top two-dimensional movie out of the way. Now, as far as ridiculous movies go, it’s not that bad. It reminds me of the early ’80s/late ’70s Roger Moore James Bond movies like Moonraker where there were crazy, evil baddies with outrageously elaborate lairs, like what Austin Powers would parody. We get the crazed villain, the massively tricked-out headquarters, and crazy gadgets galore. It actually remains true to the original toys in that sense with each weapon is created to outdo the next.

The acting here is a very mixed bag. Christopher Eccleston and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are both brilliant actors who are basically given free reign to cook up the cartoonish villians required by the flm. But Channing Tatum is an absolutely horrible actor who shouldn’t ever be allowed anywhere near a movie that requires even the slightest amount of acting. Even for G.I. Joe he is just plain terrible. I guess in real life he is best friends Joseph Gordon-Levitt and that may be why they are in this movie together. But Joseph Gordon-Levitt has more talent in his eyebrow than Channing Tatum could ever dream to have. Marlon Wayans is of course just playing Marlon Wayans and makes all the required jokes I’m sure he was hired for. I don’t once believe him to be a highly-trained soldier though and his so-called comic relief is pretty cliche and slapstick. Dennis Quaid and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje are just kind of in the background, under-utilized and mostly forgotten. Sienna Miller is passable but I didn’t like the back-and-forth of her loyalties. Baroness is evil, keep it that way.

This movie is a bit of fun, I will admit. And it’s still way better than that god awful Transformers sequel. But it’s pure fluff through and through. And I was a bit surprised by the amount of foul language in the movie. It’s PG-13 but I still would have expected it to be cleaner for a film that is based on a children’s toy and cartoon. Still, not a bad toy movie.

I never read the original comic book this movie is based on. And I never knew anybody who read it either. But of course since Spiderman and X-men made a freighter-load of money, the non-stop barrage of comic book movies is not going to stop any time soon. As comic book characters go, Ghost Rider is more supernatural than superhero. There is a lot of heavy God/Devil/Evil stuff throughout the movie and the main enemy is essentially the anti-christ. But it never gets deep. This is an inch-deep action movie and it knows it. If your looking for some cheap thrills, this will do.

Nicolas Cage kind of sleepwalks through most of this doing his standard Elvis impression he’s used in countless other movies. Every once-in-a-blue moon Cage will take on an interesting role. But more often he’s just going through the paces in a new forgettable thriller or light action flick. And he does so many that I get the impression he doesn’t turn anything down. Everyone does a decent job with their cartoonish characters. But no one is really given much to work with. Wes Bentley goes nuts with his Blackheart/anti-christ character, playing up evil like he’s at a Marilyn Manson concert, all glaring eyes and sarcasm under pale blue skin. But it’s a pretty standard “evil dude”.

Like I said, good for cheap thrills, not much else.

I rented this one thinking it might be a light, fun romantic comedy. I should have known better. I’m not a Dane Cook fan and this just cements my opinion that he is just not funny. Not only is this movie not funny, it’s often just plain gross. I suspect Dane Cook agreed to do this movie because he got to be in about 50 sex scenes with naked women. Just scene after scene, like an endless wave of naked Dane Cook coming to ruin your day. No thanks. And I’m really not a fan of Jessica Alba either. Just not that interesting at all.

It was directed by Mark Helfrich who has had a long career as a film editor and this is his first time directing. Unfortunately I found the whole movie’s style rather generic and uninspired. It could have been directed by anybody. Might want to go back to editing, Mark.

So basically this movie had nothing going for it. It was not funny, way too much Dane Cook nakedness, and the “plot” was pretty weak and pointless. This falls into the category of “how do movies like this get made?” Avoid it as much as possible.

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of stories about neighborhoods that go bad, gangs harassing local kids, people fighting back, etc. It goes back to Boyz In The Hood which kind of kicked off a lot of “in the hood” type movies. Gran Torino is different with it’s focus on the Hmong people and the conflict of old and new in Detroit. But at it’s heart there are connections of the “in the hood” genre of movies. So there is just a little thread of cliche running through the story. However, Clint Eastwood is a good storyteller and this movie keeps things interesting without sinking too much into one-dimensional characters. And the ending goes in a different route than what one might expect, with very satisfying results. It’s a good movie with good characters you can get behind. And props to Eastwood for directing another interesting film. Definitely worth checking out.

I don’t care what anyone says, I liked this movie. I heard a lot of smack being talked about it around the time of it’s release. Everyone was making a big deal about it’s $180 million dollar budget and how it was going to bomb and ruin the filmmakers. There was a lot of talk as well about some supposed controversy surrounding the original novels that the story is based on and how that was going to sink the movie. Well I say nonsense. The movie was good and in my opinion it was a helluva lot better than Narnia, which everyone seems to get all crazy about.

The Golden Compass is based on a trilogy of books by Phillip Pullman. I haven’t read the books but from what I have been hearing in the discussions of this film is that a central themes to the books is an anti-organized religion stance as characters stand up to an oppressive governing religious institution. Of course dogmatically religious people can’t stand to have anyone tell stories that may criticize them so of course these books are condemned by zealots and thus an attack was made on the movie as well. The movie studio has even gone as far as to make it clear to everyone that they “toned down” the religious aspects of the story. More like “watered down.” But on the other side, ardent fans of the books are crying foul, saying that the movie is ruining the power of the story by blunting it’s edge. Consequently you have two sides to an argument and neither wants to see the movie. Not a good sign for a movie that has $180 million invested in it. Read the rest of this entry »