watching movies one cup at a time

This is a movie based on a video game and it is pretty ridiculous. The movie trailers made it out to be sort of a supernatural thriller but it’s actually not supernatural at all. In fact the subject matter is quite mundane. Mark Wahlberg doesn’t have to really act in this movie, he just has to have a mad look on his face and hurt people. So if that’s what you’re into, this is your movie. But if you want logic, a real story, or believable characters, well you probably guessed this isn’t the one. But just for a silly movie to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon, it fits the bill.

This is supposed to be a comedy? The trailers made this film out to be a very funny, kind of slapstick comedy. But this film was not funny and was often quite dark. All the characters are pretty loathsome and while Brad Pitt acting goofy is entertaining for about a minute, it’s not enough to qualify this as a comedy. After an hour and a half I just didn’t get why we should care about any of these people or anything that was going on. It just felt like a waste of time.

Boring. looks nice and all, but just plain boring. Not a whole hell of a lot happens and who really cares what does happen. The characters are flat, the acting is weak, and the direction is just lethargic. This is comic book legend Frank Miller’s first film directed solely by him (he got a co-directing credit for Sin City) and one gets the sense that after Sin City he said to himslef “Hey, I could do this directing thing no problem.” Well there is a problem. What works in comic books is very hard to translate into movies. Very well experienced directors rarely pull it off, and Frank is not an experienced director by any stretch. It just all feels so bland and pointless, more impressive as still camera shots than moving action. Yawn.

Eva Mendes is one of the lead actresses in this film and she is a TERRIBLE actress. She really sucks the life out of every scene she’s in. Scarlett Johanassen is a real dead fish on screen as well. Samuel L. Jackson is a larger-than-life cartoony villain and he does that well. And Gabriel Macht as the Spirit does a good job as well. But too much bad acting and a very weak story leaves this shiny piece of jewelry not shiny enough to make it worth the trip.

I like vampire movies. I like them a lot. I am not so fond of teen romance dramas. Not so fond at all. Going in to Twilight I knew I was going to get some weird mish-mash of vampire movie and teen romance drama, but what I didn’t know was that I was going to being getting a movie that was ENTIRELY teen romance drama with just a little sprinkling of vampire underlying 2 hours of a guy with too much make-up on staring at Kristen Stewart. Clearly this movie (and the books it’s based on) is for lovesick teen girls who want to “fall in love forever!” with some hot, loner dude who only has eyes for them. And that is really NOT what I am interested in from a vamp flick.

It’s just non-stop fantasy that feels like it was written by some girl who didn’t get asked to the prom so they stayed home whining about it and pouring their angst into a drippy, melodramatic story. And then they threw vampires in to the mix just to make it “edgy”, but in a very non-edgy way. Seriously, there could not be any wussier vampires on the planet. They go out in the sunlight, they only eat animals in the forest, and they go to high school. What!? Do you think the vamps in The Lost Boys worried about f*cking high school? Hell no!

And the so-called “evil vampires” just really feels tacked on and uninteresting. All-of-a-sudden they show up and everyone freaks out and for some unclear reason they want to kill the human chick, Bella. Just cuz I guess. They fly across the country (!) and beat each other up in some silly wrestling match that looks like it was choreographed by Cirque Du Soleil. Then pretty much without a whole lotta effort, they kill the “bad guy” and light his ass on fire. There, problem solved in about 15 whole minutes. Hardly seems worth the effort at all really.

If you’re a lonely teenage girl, hey, more power to ya. I’m sure you’ll love this as you cry about how you’ll never find “my Edward”. But it’s not for me and it’s not for anyone who is in to vampire movies… like, at ALL.

This film was directed by Danny Boyle who has had an already excellent run of films including Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Shallow Grave. Slumdog Millionaire is a bit of a departure for Boyle in that it is entirely based in India with an all Indian cast, while his other films have largely been centered around the UK. It is an interesting change of pace that does in fact pay off brilliantly. This is a cleverly done film with a solid story and believable characters.

The story is centered around an Indian man named Jamal who is accused of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, since he is a poor “slumdog” who should never have known so many of the correct answers given his class. Through the course of his interrogation, his history unfolds to reveal the hard road he’s had to get to this point, along with his conflicted older brother and Lathika, the girl from his childhood he feels eternally connected to. It is revealed how every step has left an unforgettable memory that fate has somehow chosen to use in the show to get him closer toward his ultimate goal of being reunited with Lathika.

Dev Patel as the lead character of Jamal delivers a perfect performance as the both sympathetic underdog and confident hero. And the structured storytelling that reveals just the right flashbacks at just the right time weaves a captivating story that never feels over-complicated or forced. Though there are scenes of extreme poverty and cruelty, the film never loses it’s heart or it’s hope. It’s uplifting even in the face of utter hopelessness. And the end left me very satisfied with a perfect coda.

One of the best films of 2008, definitely see this one.

Transitioning stage musicals to movies can be tricky. However I get the impression that this one did not pose much of a challenge. It all seems rather mainstream and run-of-the-mill, much like the audience I suspect has kept this stage musical going for years. It’s gimmick is that the characters break out into ABBA songs a fairly regular basis and very loosely connected to a story about a girl getting married and not knowing who her real dad is. The songs are loosely connected meaning not very connected at all. They are just kind of there like a karaoke soundtrack shoved in by a crazy, obsessed ABBA fan. And considering how closely associated ABBA is these days with drag/gay culture, it’s no surprise that the movie feels a little bit like a gay pride parade wrapped around a bad soap opera.

One thing I also dislike about Hollywood versions of stage musicals is that they tend to hire actors based on their names and not their singing/dancing ability. This has gone on for ages, like the time Audrey Hepburn got the movie role in My Fair Lady that a lesser-known Julie Andrews had already performed brilliantly on stage. Meryl Streep is of course a great actress but she is not known for her singing ability or has ever performed in a musical as far as I know. Add to that Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and the rest and you’ve got some decent actors but not necessarily good musical performers. This adds to the “forced” nature of the musical acts and the rather flat feeling the movie has all around.

However, after having said all that, if you just want some light fun and who cares about the details or sophistication, you won’t go wrong with Mamma Mia! It has fun moments and is certainly good to pass the time.

This is a rather enjoyable and well done holiday movie, ranking up there with Elf as one of the better contemporary holiday comedy flicks. Vince Vaughn of course just basically plays himself but it works fine for this role as the deadbeat, black sheep brother of Santa Claus. And Paul Giamatti is right-on-the-mark in his portrayal of Santa as an overstressed guy who just wants everyone to be happy and get along.

The movie tries to humanize Santa by giving him a “normal” family that everyone can relate too as well as the everyday problems people face. But instead of falling completely into cliche and mediocre jokes like Tim Allen’s “The Santa Clause” movies, “Fred Claus” keeps it fresh due to the quick wit of Vaughn and Giamatti. Vince Vaughn is the black sheep but he’s never one-dimensional to the point where you can no longer root for him to win. And Giamatti never reduces Santa to a one-note “Ho Ho Ho” moron.

Add to that a message about how there aren’t really naughty kids in the world, just misunderstood & misguided children, and you’ve got a nice, funny holiday movie.

I felt like my life stood still while watching this movie. As far as disaster movies go, this one just dragged on with very little momentum or excitement. All the cool visuals were mostly already out there in the trailers leaving us with just a very emotionless Keanu Reeves, witless Jennifer Connelly, and an annoying kid played by Jaden Smith (Will and Jada’s kid) already showing signs of monster ego.

Keanu Reeves has made a career out of emotionless, dispassionate characters. You could totally see his character in this film turn around and say “We have to go. Morpheus is waiting.” He has the charisma of a can of paint. And Jennifer Connelly is a competent enough actress, but why she is there, why she believes this alien, and pretty much why she does anything are all a mystery to the audience. Who knows why anyone is doing anything.

The plot is basically humans are jacking up the planet and the aliens want to stop them from doing that by getting rid of the humans. Supposedly they have good reasons to believe that humans are hopeless and doomed. Yet the alien somehow has his mind changed in less than a day. Huh!? And honestly, humans ARE jacking up the planet so even I don’t believe Jennifer Connelly’s heartfelt pleading that “we can change!”. I don’t believe her and I don’t get why Keanu would either. Let the big bad alien wipe them out, humans probably deserve it.

And speaking of the big bad alien, the “enforcer” alien – GORT – was pretty bad ass. I really wanted to him just start going nuts on those soldiers. To be fair, GORT was only playing defense. They screwed with him first every tiime.

Overall this movie was a big snoozefest that did not deliver on the hype. Rent it on DVD, you are not missing anything in the theaters.

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.

Nicolas Cage makes about 3 or 4 mediocre movies a year. I guess it pays the bills. Every once in a while he does an exceptional performance that justifies why he got an Oscar all those years ago. However, this film is not one of those exceptions. Now having said that, it’s really not that bad. I kind of enjoyed this movie.

Cage plays an assassin-for-hire named Joe. He is on one last job in Bangkok and things don’t go as planned. But Cage’s role doesn’t slip into a two-dimensional one-note character. It could very easily but he gives it some edge, some depth. Not a lot, but just enough to make you pay attention. This isn’t Shakespeare and most likely this movie will be forgotten, but for what it is, it’s pretty decent.