watching movies one cup at a time

I have to admit, I have been going back and forth with this one. When I first saw it in the theater, I was not thrilled. It’s grim and very bloody. Just heavy dark, nonstop. But I found myself going back to the music again and again. I wound up downloading the soundtrack and I can’t stop listening to it. That is mostly to the credit of Stephen Sondheim for writing the songs. But I do like the versions from the film a lot better than the original Broadway recordings. Tim Burton gives it a lush feel to match the depths of the city around the characters. And Johnny and Helena do a great job with the music.

Johnny Depp is of course amazing again. The range he is capable of is quite impressive. This character was like a cross between Edward Scissorhands, Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka all combined and much more sinister. It was a delight to watch him fill the room every time he was in the scene. Helena Bonham Carter was very good as Mrs. Lovett and managed to evoke tenderness convincingly alongside cold-blooded murder. After seeing the movie it’s hard to see anyone else in that role. And of course Alan Rickman was his usual perfect self. Timothy Spall did his fabulous nasty toady role that he has perfected in many films over the years, always creepy. Read the rest of this entry »

This movie was part of Disney’s last golden age of animation that was kicked off by The Little Mermaid. And I feel this movie is actually the best one of that bunch. The songs are very catchy and the action is moved along at a brisk pace. Robin Williams does his usual manic comedy as the genie and it was funny the first time, not so much the 100th time but still good.

Here’s a question tho. Why do so many Disney movies have stories where the mom is dead or dying or just non-existent? There are a lot of Disney flicks where the mom is MIA; Cinderella, Snow White, Bambi, Beauty & The Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, etc. It’s weird. Some might say “Well it’s a fairy tale, they are just sticking to the story” but if they can make up a frickin’ talking crab in Little Mermaid, they could come up with a mom character. Even if she is barely there like in Sleeping Beauty and The Lion King.

Aladdin is a fun movie tho and definitely worth seeing. As the age of hand-drawn animation is coming to a silent close, I definitely remember that this was very innovative at the time. And the story still holds up.

Robert Wise directed this between West Side Story and The Sound Of Music. And though it isn’t as grandiose as either of those, it is still an exceptional movie executed by a very talented director. It’s essentially a ghost story, and what I like about it is that it simply relies on sounds, shadows, and camera work to convey the terror. Shot in gorgeous black and white, it leaves more to the imagination than anything else, and that is always more effective at scaring the audience.

The Haunting is a horror story based in a Shirley Jackson novel. It centers around a house that is supposedly cursed and filled with a powerful negative energy. 4 people come to the house to investigate the paranormal activity. One of the characters, Nell, gets carried away by the house and is driven a bit crazy. There is a lot of inner dialogue going on with her as she becomes more and more enveloped in the house.

The house is pretty grand. It’s huge and you could easily get lost in it. And of course every shadow seems menacing. Loud noises plague the halls, unexplained coldness and footsteps. It’s very simple yet very well done. Even for an old black and white movie, it’s quite a scare.

There was a remake in 1999 which was less than appealing. Let’s look at that one.

This movie is basically an updated, teen version of Hitchcock’s classic “Rear Window.” A person confined to their home spies on the neighbors and suspects one of them is a killer. Disturbia is not a classic but it is an entertaining film that is well done. Kind of like “Rear Window” mixed with Tom Hank’s “The ‘burbs” and “Fright Night.”

One of the ways it ups the thrill level from “Rear Window” is by making the suspected neighbor much more of a Hannibal Lecter type serial killer. This guy has gone to great lengths to do his dirty work and to make sure it’s covered up. David Morse is sufficiently creepy to play the killer, and he’s played villians many times before, but he is not really a terrifying presence by himself.

Shia LaBeouf plays the main character, Kale, and he does a great job. However, I don’t think Shia is a great actor. He falls into the category of a John Cusack or Julia Roberts where he is good at playing characters like himself, but that’s about it. He’s great at what he does, but it’s the same guy in each movie – Transformers, Disturbia, Indiana Jones, etc. Fortunately that guy is entertaining and very natural. I enjoy him in this movie and that’s good enough.

Bottom Line: The movie is rather light entertainment, but it is entertaining and fairly clever. Definitely give it a shot if you’re looking for a light thriller.

This is generally considered to be the best Alien film in the four part series. And I must agree it is the most fun to watch. Each film is very different in tone and style. The first Alien movie was much more of a classic haunted house story where this movie clearly borrows from the action movie genre. This is really James Cameron’s vision as he came up with the story idea, wrote the screenplay and directed the film. There is a lot of connection to similar war movies with soldiers under siege. And following this movie, there were many more sci-fi stories involving soldiers in space, both in film and on television.

The story follows Ripley after her escape from the Nostromo. She’s been in space for 57 years and returns to an unfamiliar Earth and a shell of her former life. Colonists has populated the planet from the first film and discovered the alien creatures. Ripley and a team of marines go to investigate the colony’s communication breakdown under the direction of the Weyland-Yutani corporation (“the Company”). Of course all hell breaks loose and it becomes clear that the Company wants the alien for it’s bio-weapons division. Ripley barely escapes alive along with colony child-survivor Newt, the last marine Hicks, and the android Bishop. The colony explodes in a nuclear meltdown and presumably it takes all the aliens with it. The movie ends on a happy note as a mother-daughter bonded Ripley and Newt go to peaceful cryo-sleep on their way back to Earth. Read the rest of this entry »

One 50 thousand dollar chinchilla fur coat is all it took to take down the Harlem heroin kingpin. American Gangster is based on the true story of Frank Lucas, the Harlem gangster who cut deals directly with heroin makers in Southeast Asia to make loads of money in the U.S. while maintaining a low profile. What I found most interesting about the character of Frank Lucas is that he was not a flashy “Superfly” bufoonish kind of African-American gangster that you see all too often in movies. He was calm, cool, behind-the-scenes, and respectable. Yet he was a cold-blooded killer, a smart businessman, and a fierce leader. A man to be taken seriously.

Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas magnificently well in another stunning performance from one of the best actors working today. Denzel does not often play bad guys in his movies. It’s rare. And this is a very different character from the loud and shady street hustler Denzel won the Oscar for playing in Training Day. Yet Frank Lucas is far more sinister and capable of much more destruction. This is a character who is ice cold, can shoot a person as easily as we would light a match, can strike a deal with the Italian Mafia as smoothly as we would be ordering a sandwich. And Denzel is so cool, so calm, so serious, he exudes intimidation at the same time as respect. What he says without saying anything carries just as much weight. Read the rest of this entry »

An Oscar-contender and Golden Globe winner, this film stars Keira Knightley and James MacAvoy as doomed lovers caught up in tragic circumstances. I’m usually not too into dramas, especially heavy dramas. But I found this film to be very well told and interesting.

The scenes of France were visually fantastic. I especially enjoyed the long single camera shot on the beach where the soldiers are waiting to evacuate. It evoked the chaos of the situation but injected a serene beauty and sorrow as well. The English countryside never looked better as well. It’s not the cliche rainy, muddy fields I’m used to seeing in these movies.

The ending was very unexpected and very satisfying. It has a twist that really put the whole movie into a much more interesting light. Though of course it’s very sad, how the story is presented is very compelling. The characters are multi-dimensional and capable of evolving, which is refreshing. Saoirse Ronan plays the young Briony and she does a fantastic job for such a young but pivotal character. Her facial expressions were perfect and not overdone but communicating a lot.

Bottom Line: Definitely see Atonement but be-warned it’s a weepy-drama. It is not a Hollywood happy ending, which is a good thing in this case.

Fun family movie with excellent acting. Jodie Foster doesn’t disappoint as agoraphobic writer Alex Rover. And Abigail Breslin wins us over to her island girl, Nim. There’s not much to this one, it’s pretty simple. Girl lives on an island with her dad, loves Alex Rover adventure books, Dad gets lost at sea, Alex Rover makes contact with Nim looking for research on volcanoes, winds up befriending her and when Nim begs for help, Alex Ross goes against her fear of everything and makes it to the very remote island. Dad returns, all is well.

The only thing I didn’t like was I felt the ending was too rushed. Alex Ross spends a big chunk of the movie trying to get to this island, and when she finally does, the movie is basically over. We get to see her on the island for maybe 10 minutes. And Nim has already driven out the tourists herself and her dad finds his way back soon after she arrives. So she really didn’t serve any purpose out there, but next thing we know, right away we flash-forward and her and the dad are in a relationship and a new family unit is created. Just too much too fast. There just wasn’t time in this movie to go deeper into the relationship between Alex Rover and Nim and her dad and how it grew. The movie could have been twice as long to tell the complete story. But we’ll just have to fill in the rest ourselves.

Still, that wasn’t a deal breaker. It was still an enjoyable experience for a family movie and it’s nice to see Jodie Foster doing something lighthearted.

This movie was very under the radar. It’s a small independent film released toward the end of the year and it just came out on DVD. I didn’t have high expectations but was pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out to be. I really liked this movie a lot and recommend you give it a chance next time you’re at the video store.

The film stars Ryan Reynolds as the central character. And the story is broken up into 3 distinct sections, with the same actors playing a different role in each story. The 3 stories are connected in a very original and interesting way. It’s not some virtual reality mumbo-jumbo or anything computer related like I thought it might be. Instead it’s a very personal and moving story that poses some big ideas about God and the universe. This story is as high-concept as Southland Tales (probably moreso) but it doesn’t get so self-absorbed in esoteric weirdness like Southland Tales did. The Nines keeps things down-to-earth while at the same time illuminating ideas as big as existence itself.

Ryan Reynolds does a great job in this. I often overlook him because of complete garbage like Van Wilder and Blade 3. But I gotta hand it to him, he nailed it in this one. If an actor can get an intelligent script, they can really shine and show the world they can do more than flex their ab muscles and make boob-jokes. As I have said before, I judge an actor by the quality of their range. This film gave the actors the great opportunity to stretch out into 3 completely different characters. And Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, and Hope Davis all do a phenomenal job of transforming themselves within each section.

I won’t spoil the ending on this one because I really think you should rent it. The writer and director John August pulled off a great film definitely worth checking out.

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.