watching movies one cup at a time

It’s a very cliche story: Lone wolf outsider comes into town, thinking he can change things. Big bad evil rich dude “owns the town and everyone in it” and tries to kill/shut down the lone wolf. Explosions, fist fights, smashed glass. Good guy wins, bad rich dude dies. There are whole tv series based on that simple plot line. Road House fits that model perfectly and features Swayze kickin’ some ass. Lotsa violence in this one. Including one badass scene where he literally rips out a dude’s throat. Who does that? Seriously. Ultimate fighting fans should dig this, the rest of us can probably do without the whole ripped-out throat thing.

• The Dark Knight
• Aliens

The 3 previous Indiana Jones movies were big hits in the

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Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is the sequel to 2004’s Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, the stoner comedy that became a hit on DVD generating a well-deserved large group of fans. This sequel picks up immediately after the end of the first story as roommates Harold and Kumar set off on a trip to Amsterdam to get the girl Harold is in love with and of course do all the things stoner’s would do in Amsterdam. Things go terribly wrong however when they get mistaken for terrorists on the plane and wind up getting sent to Guantanamo. Wackiness ensues.

I really enjoyed the first film. I thought it was clever and well done with just the right balance of low-brow humor and good natured fun. But for the second movie it feels like the filmmakers took all the things I liked about the first one and tossed them completely out the window. Any cleverness, any subtlety, and any logical sense has pretty much left the building. Instead we get 100 minutes of wince-inducing gross-out humor strung together with a series of nonsensical skits that are neither funny or fun. While the first film was one adventurous night in Jersey, this film is all over the place for no apparent reason and with no apparent direction. Read the rest of this entry »

• When Harry Met Sally
• West Side Story

This movie is based on a video game and oh boy is that obvious. There really isn’t much of a plot. Just a series of “spooky” images tied together with some vague story about a burnt down town and missing kids. Radha Mitchell just kind of sleep walks through this. She never, ever seems phased at all by whatever demons are headed her way. Sure, she screams and all the things you’re supposed to do. But it doesn’t feel genuine. It feels bored and rote. It really does feel like watching someone play a video game. Boring when it should be scary, silly when it’s supposed to be deep. Paper thin and ultimately pointless. You’ll have a better time probably just playing the dumb video game.

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In theaters now, Iron Man is the long-awaited film based on the Marvel comic book superhero. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a rich, boyish genius whose company builds sophisticated weapons for the military. But after he’s kidnapped by terrorists using his own company’s weapons, he decides he can no longer be a part of building tools of destruction. While held captive he builds his first version of the Iron Man suit which he uses to escape. Once home he declares that his company will no longer be making weapons, which doesn’t sit well with his partner Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). Tony starts to perfect his Iron Man suit in order to go out and stop the terrorists who have been using his company’s weapons. And of course eventually he and Stane have to come to a final showdown. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Dark Knight
• The Brave One

Besides vampires, Zombies are the most overdone horror movie subject. There have been so many zombie flicks in the past 30-40 years, it’s ridiculous. And we pretty much have George Romero to thank for all that. His groundbreaking film Night Of The Living Dead launched the whole modern concept of a zombie in horror films. They existed before his movie, but really only as either victims of voodoo or poisoning in cheap black and white third-rate horror movies. But it was Romero’s film that set in motion the zombie mythology we know all too well today.

Diary Of The Dead is George Romero’s fifth zombie flick. This time it is told from the perspective of a handheld video camera that students in Pittsburgh are using to document the zombie takeover starting from the time of the initial break out. Some are calling it a cross between The Blair Witch and Dawn Of The Dead. Or Cloverfield with Zombies. It is a kind of original idea and tries to incorporate the notion that bloggers are the future of information distribution. But ultimately the film comes off as a copy of a copy. Kind of like when a one-hit wonder band releases a new CD with a re-recording of their one hit in an effort to cash in again. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Mist
• I Am Legend

This movie got kind of a bad rap when it came out recently. It seemed like it was blown off as just another video game movie. Well, it is just another video game movie, but what makes it actually pretty decent is the incredible performance by Timothy Olyphant. When I heard he was doing this movie, I didn’t really get it because he just didn’t seem the type that fit the character. But I shouldn’t have underestimated him because he pulled it off perfectly. He plays the character as a cold, merciless killer but does it intelligently enough to make him likable and have you rooting for him. And he is just super-smooth and cool the entire time. He makes Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible look like a clumsy 14 year old. Read the rest of this entry »

• Catch and Release
• What Makes A Great Actor?

88 Minutes stars Al Pacino as Dr. Jack Gramm, a college professor and a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI. A series of murders are being committed that match the work of a serial killer on death row whom Gramm help send to prison. When Gramm receives a death threat claiming he has only 88 minutes to live, he uses his skills and training to try and narrow down the possible suspects and the connection to the murders before his time runs out. Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and Neal McDonough also star.

To say this movie is getting ripped to shreds by the critics would be an understatement. Metacritic.com, which compiles reviews from movie critics around the world, has ranked the film at #3 on their All-Time lowest review scores. Having seen the film, I must say that while it is far from being a good movie, I don

• The Brave One
• The Dark Knight

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. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Dark Knight
• The Happening

As thrillers go, this was really good. It never got boring and the structure of the film was fast-paced and effective. In the film, an assassination attempt is made on the President of the U.S. while he’s in Spain for a summit meeting. The assassination attempt is followed by a bombing in the plaza where everything is happening. What makes this film interesting though is we get to see the incident from the perspective of 5 different people who were a part of it, and then one big climatic view that ties everything and everyone together. As each person’s view is told, we find out more and more about what happened and who’s responsible. It was very impressive how they kept the different views fresh and only revealed things little by little. And the action level was kept on high throughout the whole movie, kind of like a Bourne flick. Lots of car chases, guns, bombs, what’s not to like?

• When Harry Met Sally
• What Makes A Great Actor?