Catfish (2010)
VERDICT:
8/10 Virtual Insanities
Makes a swell case for the good old days of meeting people in bars.
Catfish is a documentary about a twenty-something photographer who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an 8-year-old girl after she stumbles upon one of his pictures online, paints a replica of it for him, becomes his friend on Facebook, introduces him to her whole family and hooks him up with her twenty-something sister. All the while, the guy’s brother and friend are there to capture the whole thing as the correspondence continues, emotions heat up and that’s about all I’m gonna tell ya’.
Alright, this may very well be my shortest review yet, but being out of the loop is so much of the draw here. After all, when the only thing the cryptic poster tells you about a movie is “DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT IT IS,” you’d have be a dickhead to start giving stuff away.
In short, it’s a total fluke of a movie, it’s a documentarian’s wet dream, and it’s really well-made considering the limited resources and constant uncertainty surrounding every aspect of what this trio expects to find at the beginning, let alone end, of the rainbow. It plays out like Google Earth: The Movie and it grabs you right away because there shouldn’t be a person in the theater who doesn’t think that some shit is up. Then again, our photogenic protagonist, Nev (pronounced “Kneeve”), doesn’t seem like an idiot in the least, he’s just entirely genuine in every way and whenever he thinks, says or does something in response to the circumstances he’s caught up in, you can’t help but wonder if you wouldn’t act differently in his shoes.
Geez, I know this review couldn’t be any more vague, but Catfish is one hell of sleeper that more than lives up to the word of mouth surrounding it. Like everyone else out there, I had an idea of how this was going to play out before I went in, and while in some aspects I felt like I called it, this movie sure stands a wonderfully refreshing reminder of how life can be so damn unpredictable and flat-out strange. Hopefully that just got the wheels turning for ya’ and hopefully that’ll make you want to see it that much more, ’cause so much of what makes this worth seeing is simply discovering it for yourself and talking about it like crazy after. It’s entirely fascinating on so many levels, far more poignant and raw than I ever expected it to be and it’s incredibly pertinent for a society where you can find anything, do anything and meet anyone you want as long as you’ve got a username and password to work with. Wish I could talk about it more, but I’ll leave that for the Comments section.
Man, 2010 is really shaping up to be a solid year for documentaries.
UPDATE: And thanks a bagillion to the crew at WordPress for posting this to the front page! What a kickass way to start off the weekend. You guys are a-okay in my book.
Get Low (2010)
VERDICT:
7/10 After Parties
An awesome cast with a decent script.
Get Low is about about a backwoods Tennessee hermit in the 1930s who, after holing himself off from civilization for four decades and thus developing a reputation somewhere along the lines of a bridge troll who eats children, up and decides during the few remaining days he’s got left that he wants to throw a funeral extravaganza for himself while he’s still alive. So he teams up with the owner of a failing funeral parlor and invites the whole damn state along for the big bash while struggling to come to terms with his own checkered past.
And is it just me or does this movie’s title make it seem like Lil’ John should have something to do with all this?
Anyway, it’s the debut effort by director Aaron Schneider, and while I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to see what he’s gonna come up with next, he does a good job setting the mood. It ain’t flashy, it ain’t loud and while I can understand folks pegging this baby as “slow”, it’s more a movie that takes it time than anything else. And that’s nice, it goes well with the simplicity of the setting and the mild-mannered characters involved. Altogether, pretty good job, but not a whole lot to write home about either.
But then there’s the script which, on the one hand, does a good job of creating an interesting story out of a good premise that’s apparently based on actual events, but on the other hand, doesn’t manage to do a whole lot with dialogue. And I guess the reasons behind that gripe tie into the cast, because if Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek can’t manage to turn their lines into the coolest damn thing since the Model T, it’s probably the writer’s fault. Yeah, it’s a dramedy, but it was just one of those situations where I ended up being the youngest one in the theater by a couple decades and everyone seemed to be laughing but me. Not saying it’s a generational thing necessarily, but I don’t know, it felt pretty weak in this regard. But when it’s serious, it works and it does well to give all the characters a chance to bare everything they’ve got.
But like I said, the cast is why I saw this in the first place and they’re what bring it up from a 6. Bill Murray plays the town undertaker who seems an awful lot like the dignified version of his ambulance-chasing lawyer in Wild Things (which is a good thing), and he continues to be the man, but you probably already knew that. Sissy Spacek also rocks as the woodsman’s former fling, she’s only getting better with age, she continues to prove that she’s one of the all-time legends, but you probably already knew that, too.
And Robert Duvall is great as the most curmudgeonly bastard you’ll see all year, Felix Bush. He overdoes it a bit during his big sendoff at the end, but other than that, he just plays his cool-ass self like he always has and it works like gangbusters. Man, Duvall is such a perfect example of that old school, naturally gruff, yet wise attitude that not a whole lot of actors possess any more. Bush is a solid and relatively fascinating protagonist to begin with, but Rob really brings him to another level.
Lot of old school street cred going around here, actually. Nothin’ wrong with that.
So judging by the unreal trio of lead actors here and the most awesome idea of throwing a pre-death rave party in the woods to work off of, I guess I expected more from Get Low and wish it hadn’t leaned so close to being forgettable. It’s still good stuff and I can’t knock it for not turning into an excuse for Robert Duvall to grow a Grizzly Adams beard, drink Crunk Juice out of a goblet and start yelling “SKEET, SKEET, SKEET, SKEET, SKEET!” before they throw his ass in a coffin, but the script definitely could have been sharper. Still, hard not to recommend anything with Murray in it these days.
Nice to see a good ol’ simple movie every once in a while, too. Man, what the hell did they do to pass the time back then?
Buried (2010)
VERDICT:
4/10 Capsule Hotels
Would have been so much better if he just one-inch-punched his way out.
Buried is about an American truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up to find himself buried alive after his convoy is attacked by terrorist insurgents. With his trusty Zippo lighter, mechanical pencil and cell phone on hand, he starts making calls like gangbusters to try and get the hell out of there while negotiating with the jerks who put him six feet under before he runs out of oxygen or runs out of battery power and makes this cozy little studio his permanent home.
In theory, this is a pretty boss idea. I, for one, am not down with claustrophobia whatsoever. That scene in Shawshank where Andy Dufresne is crawling through the prison sewage pipes? That freaks me the hell out like you wouldn’t believe. But then you take that and combine it with that scene in Blood Simple where Dan Hedaya meets an unfortunately terrible end while being witness to it to the whole damn time and you’ve got yourself something that’s gonna mess with a whole bunch of people. Really, what a terrible way to go.
But the big problem with all of this is what the hell you do for the remaining hour-and-a-half to turn this into a boss idea in practice. As you can probably imagine, a lot of it just boils down to him freaking out, trying budge the coffin and racking up more minutes on his Blackberry than a 16-year-old girl who just started going steady with the school quarterback, and that’s fine, that’s expected, but it doesn’t really work when your script kinda blows.
Granted, it’s a tall order to take this one-man-show-in-a-box and turn it into a compelling full-length nail-biter, but every last one of the phone conversations this guy has with the above-ground world drove me up the effing wall. I mean, yeah, he’s probably gonna have a hard-ass time getting someone to find him even with a GPS signal going, but it’s astounding how incredibly unhelpful these people are. If someone called me and told me they were buried alive in Iraq and needed to get the fuck out ASAP, I don’t care if it’s a stranger or Jesus Himself who’s blowing up my phone, I am all ears and I am gonna help. What is this shit with all the arbitrary questions about how he got in there and suspect accusations about whether he’s in on the whole thing? Who does that?
Wild goose chase or not, you stop what you’re doing, get off your ass and quit asking stupid questions. Absolutely infuriating behavior on everyone’s behalf and it killed this movie for me. The terrorist’s voice over the phone also sounded really freakin’ dumb.
And while director Rodrigo Cortes does a pretty impressive job behind the camera considering his wildly limited resources, this is Ryan Reynolds’ show and he’s actually just fine as truck driver-turned-living mummy, Paul Conroy. I like Ryan Reynolds, I think he’s gonna be a badass Deadpool (not so much Green Lantern) and he seems like a pretty cool and funny guy, but it seemed like he was forcing it here. I mean, I didn’t really know what to expect being that I have no idea how I’d react if I were in his shoes, but he doesn’t bring a whole lot of subtlety to the table, his character’s actually kind of a hotheaded dick on the phone and he keeps grumbling like Batman whenever he’s really trying to get someone to listen. Weird. But like I said, it’s a hard role to judge and he didn’t really have much to work with either.
Throughout the whole movie there was a woman a couple rows behind me talking her mouth off like you wouldn’t believe so that she could make sure everyone in the audience knew that she considered this “THE WORST MOVIE EVER CREATED” as she continually threatened to her husband that she was going to walk out and go home. And while it’s not that bad in the least, Buried just ended up feeling like a good idea on paper and that’s about it. It is pretty suspenseful at times, you really don’t know how it’s all going to play out and it’s awfully inspired for what it is, but the weak script and painfully frustrating dialogue really brought this down. Maybe I just saw this with the wrong crowd, I don’t know, but if you really want to see a movie that’s gonna give you a healthy fear of closed-in spaces, stretch out your arms and check out The Descent instead. Andy Dufresne would thank his lucky stars he wasn’t cave diving with those chicks.
But wait just one minute, I ain’t finished with my story yet. This is the good part.
So after the credits rolled and I stopped laughing out loud at the ridiculous ending that decided to take notes right out of Saw for some reason, I headed towards the exit while glaring at that insufferable woman with the loud mouth out of the corner of my eye, just trying to muster up the balls to say something along the lines of, “Thanks for commentary, lady!” or a good old “HEY! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” at the top of my lungs, to which the entire audience would naturally give me a standing ovation and carry me out on their shoulders. But alas, I bit my tongue and let the moment pass. Then, moments later, I find myself holding the theater door for the said lady and she asks me clear out of the blue, “God, did you even like that movie?” And then, dear readers, your humble narrator stopped in his tracks and looked her right in the eyes as his balls magically grew to the size of watermelons and said, “I would have liked it a whole lot more if weren’t talking the whole time.”
Mark that one off the bucket list, folks.
I felt a little bad about the complete look of silent mortification that showed up on her face immediately thereafter, but who the hell am I kidding, I should have given myself a standing ovation right there and then for finally pulling a George Costanza on the bane of every theater-goer’s existence. Easily the highlight of the day for me, even if I was looking over my shoulder all the way to the train station to make sure her husband wasn’t chasing after me with clenched fists and flames in his eyes.
Lady, if for some reason you’re reading this, consider yourself served. Booyah.
Never Let Me Go (2010)
VERDICT:
8/10 Test-Tube Tweens
The most visually stunning Debbie Downer you’ll see this year.
Never Let Me Go is about three friends growing up together in a “special” British boarding school during an alternate history where science is lightyears ahead of us and has pervaded even the most innate aspects of life that once seemed impossible. As our trio grows up, they start to learn the ugly truths about how they fit into the grand scheme of things and what it is that makes them “special”, so they do their best to take advantage of the fate that’s befallen them while struggling to change their future.
It’s pretty hard to break down a synopsis for this movie without giving anything away or ruining the wonderfully cryptic ad campaign that went along with it, but the best I can give ya’ is that it’s like the grown-up, thoughtful, Michael Bay-less version of The Island. Then again, that’s a pretty unfortunate way to compare anything to anything even if there are some similiarities, so do what you will with that one, just know that it’s better than The Island.
So after seeing that this was based off “THE BEST NOVEL OF THE DECADE” according to some hotshot book critic up there on the poster, I did something I rarely do and actually read Kazuo Ishiguro’s source material beforehand. Crazy, I know. And while the novel was good, this is one of those rare situations where I actually wish I hadn’t read the book at all. It’s not a matter of the book being better than the movie or any of that noise since they end up mirroring each other quite religiously when it’s all said and done, it’s more about how the story is told. It all goes back to the idea that throughout the characters’ lives, they are continually “told and not told” about who they are, what they will become and why they exist. What you can guess about the plot already probably isn’t too far off from the reality of the situation, but it’s not so much about figuring it all out or seeing how many curveballs the script can throw at us, it’s instead very grounded in how it all affects the characters and how we as passive observers are just along for the ride.
Reading that last statement over, I probably couldn’t sound any more generic, but it really is an altogether different approach that works wonders for what it’s trying to achieve. The problem with reading the book was that I was already clued into what they would have to expect and how they would react in turn, so ended up feeling that much more distanced from them as a result. Granted, they’re experiences aren’t exactly the kind of thing anyone can relate to on a literal level either, but I’ll get back to that in a second.
But the most noteworthy thing about this movie’s existence aside from the cast, aside from the story and aside from the moral ambiguities that go along with it all is that it marks the return of director Mark Romanek who’s been on an eight-year long Hollywood hiatus since his sophomore effort, One Hour Photo, and, my lord, is it good to have the guy back. Without him on board, this thing would have been a 7, no doubt about it. It’s a compelling enough movie without a kickass director on board to capture it all, but Romanek is one of the few guys out there who can make the everyday look like The Ninth Wonder of the World. It was one shot in particular of a beached tugboat lying on its side in front of a purple and orange sunset that flat-out floored me, bumped this baby up to an 8 and created this sense of awe in me that I rarely get…well, ever.
So much of it probably goes back to the way everything is so naturally lit from beginning to end regardless of where the scene is taking place, but there are so many instances like this where Romanek takes something we’d walk by in passing without thinking twice and turns it into a god damn painting. I realize that just writing out the scene like this isn’t gonna make much of an impression, but seeing what this guy has to show us is honestly worth the price of admission alone. Also love the terrible familiarity of this dystopian England he’s created by having the characters live in a world that’s practically identical to the one that exists in our reality and just letting the backstory take care of the bigger details. Kinda makes the visuals stand out that much more as well.
But it’s not just eye candy here because the cast ain’t too shabby either. Keira Knightley’s good as the manipulative bitch of the group, Ruth, newcomer Andrew Garfield’s awfully damn good as the object of everyone’s affection, Tommy, but the real emotional weight comes courtesy of Carey Mulligan as our protagonist and narrator, Kathy H. Man, that girl has some presence going for her and she really knows a thing or two about the strength of subtlety. She was the best part of An Education and she’s clearly commands this movie, too. Girl’s going places.
Also has some great child actors as well. Always good to see great child actors.
Unfortunately, their characters are also somewhat difficult to empathize with since their circumstances are almost impossible to picture yourself in and their cold dynamic doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for emotions outside the range of “mope” and “cry”. On the other hand, it’s hard to miss the tragedy when you have to watch them swim upstream their whole lives just in the hope that somewhere down the line the tide will finally change in their favor. As uncommon as this story is, there’s still so much raw humanity to be found in all of it, and that kind of universality seems to be harder and harder to come across these days.
Never Let Me Go is a quiet tearjerker that might not be everyone’s thing since not a whole lot actually happens outside of all the talking heads, but there’s something very appealing about how quiet this is and what it has to say about what it means to be human. Stellar direction, solid acting and a good script all come together to keep this from becoming a black hole of sci-fi boredom that might not get its due anytime soon but hopefully will somewhere down the line. If you can go in blind, keep it that way, but for the rest of us Ishiguro fans in the room, there’s still a lot here to appreciate.
The Town (2010)
VERDICT:
8/10 Toonies
Man, that Ben Affleck’s sure come a long way since the days of Gigli, Daredevil and Jersey Girl. Way to go, dude. Keep it up.
The Town is about a group of seasoned bank robbers doing what they do best in Charlestown, Mass. – the bank-robbing capital of the USA and the place where they all grew up. So they take down a bank, then the leader of the gang ends up falling for the assistant manager that they take hostage, this complicates things, but since you apparently can’t help who you fall in love with, they keep on raising the stakes with the Feds hot on their asses.
So for all intents and purposes, this is Affleck’s show from top to bottom, and it’s about damn time he gave his career this much-needed boost in street cred because he wasn’t doing himself any favors there for a while. He wrote it, he directed it, he stars in it, and he probably made the posters, too. So let’s just break it down and see how he fared in each category and see where it takes us (I’d give the poster a B-).
Co-written by Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard, the script ain’t bad, but it’s also pretty familiar. The dialogue’s pretty solid throughout, there are some pretty cool lines to be said and the plot takes some pleasantly surprising turns towards the final Act. Then again, there’s a nagging feeling that I’ve seen this all before. The whole reverse-Stockholm syndrome thing where the robber falls for the hostage and he doesn’t care to break it off even though the relationship may very well compromise everything he’s been working towards, that’s nothing new. And that vibe kinda runs throughout where you can pretty much guess everyone’s fate as soon as you get an idea of their character and it shouldn’t be too hard to predict how the heists are gonna turn out as long as you’ve seen Heat (and you should totally see Heat). But that doesn’t mean it’s bad, because it’s not a carbon copy with Boston accents by any means, it’s just not exactly breaking any new ground either.
Although I felt like there was more potential to be tapped into with the whole “WELCOME TO THE BANK ROBBERY CAPITAL OF AMERICA” tag line that immediately makes this more interesting on a factual standpoint than other heist movies. It grazes the surface, but it should have gotten into a more cross-generational/family business type thing.
But as a director, Ben is very much on point. This thing has one majorly kickass opening heist scene that should immediately alleviate any fears of your wasting 12 bucks. It was a stroke of genius on his part to go back and forth between the live action video and the security footage while it was all going down, I don’t know why nobody’s thought of that before, but all the action scenes are totally effing wild and really do make the whole thing worthwhile. For a sophomore effort, I can imagine that helming an action movie based around bank robberies must be a high order, but he does a damn good job and moves the pacing right along. So a check-plus for you on that one, Benji.
And then there’s the acting, and you know what, he’s actually pretty good, I might even go so far as to call him cool. He’s got a pretty badass castof new school and old school hard knocks backing him up, but all the same, it’s nice to see Ben just kinda being himself and not overdoing it as Doug MacRay – the point man of the operation. And while Jeremy Renner is awfully solid as Doug’s trigger-happy right-hand man, James, and the same goes for Jon Hamm as the FBI agent tasked with bringing ’em down, this is also a sweet, sweet reminder of how freakin’ awesome Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite still are and always have been. They only get about five minutes of screen time each, but they deliver some hardcore speeches in those short spans of time that soundly trump anything that anyone else has to say in the whole damn movie.
Also was pretty impressed with Blake Lively and Rebecca Hall. Wasn’t expecting a whole lot from Lively in her role as the town skank, but she gets it done and does a good job doing it. Shame on me for never watching Gossip Girl, I suppose. And Rebecca Hall’s made a step up from Vicky Cristina Barcelona as Claire – the poor girl who winds up head-over-heels for the dude who could have put a bullet in her brain. Still don’t quite get that whole thing, but whatever, if there are women out there who actually send love letters to murderers on death row, I can let this one slide.
But for all its shortcomings, The Town is just a fun trip. Glad to see Ben at the top of his game because he’s apparently no joke when he puts his mind to it, and even though some of it might feel a little on the deja vu side, it’s a winning formula to work off of and there are enough moments that had me catching my breath to help me forget about the small stuff. Wish the tone had been a little bit more on the serious side and didn’t make everyone in the theater laugh so much or try to make us interested in a love story that we could probably have done without from the get-go, and I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending, but that’s it, no more small complaints.
Good fake Boston accents, too. But that’s coming from a New Yorker, so I’ll leave the final verdict up to you Red Sox fans on that one.
Wall Street (1987)
VERDICT:
7/10 Inside Men
It’s the ’80s in a nutshell and hardly anything’s changed. Except for synthesizers, no one likes synthesizers any more.
Wall Street is about a rookie stockbroker from a blue-collar family who spends his days cold-calling clients from a cubicle and his nights in a roach motel when he should be making the big bucks and livin’ in a deluxe apartment in the sky. Then one day he meets his idol – a cutthroat trader with money and morals to burn – he manages to make a damn fine first impression, gets taken under the guy’s wing and quickly finds himself neck-deep in the world of insider trading where the living is large and the risks could cost him everything.
So with the sequel coming out today and with our economy being so royally fucked the way it is, figured I’d give this one another visit and reflect on a period piece that could very well have been made today if it weren’t for all the weird shit that everyone thought was so damn cool over two decades ago.
It was written and directed by Oliver Stone at a time when I’m pretty sure he had the words “Head Pimp” under his name when he handed out business cards. Dude was winning Oscars left and right for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, it’s no wonder he got so many Hollywood hotshots to sign on for this either. As a director, he does a good job, nothin’ fancy in terms of visuals and whatnot, just a lot of camera movement to make it seem like everyone on Wall Street is really busy all the time, which they are. But as a writer, he can do better.
You know how the story’s gonna end as soon as it starts and a lot of the same stuff keeps happening for a while without a whole lot of plot development to be had, but then again, I’m not sure if I should blame Stone or the decade for some of the problems with this script, because as much as the dialogue seems like it should be quotable, it more often than not had me thinking, “I can’t believe people used to say this crap.” The highlight of it all is the “Greed is good” speech because it’s pretty much what the whole movie is about and serves as an unsettling reminder of how easy it is to swindle folks into daming themselves when you’ve got a silver tongue to work with, but as much as I probably should have gushed over the “You want a friend? Get a dog,” line, it just doesn’t feel authentic. Should have felt more like Boiler Room than anything.
And Charlie Sheen ain’t bad as our innocent broker with money on his mind, Bud Fox (is it a rule on Wall Street to have ridiculous names like these?). He plays up the yuppie shtick pretty well, but he looks kinda ridiculous when he starts getting angry and it gets hard to take him seriously. Martin Sheen‘s also good as Bud’s dad, but he’s got the same problem. Daryl Hannah‘s there as Bud’s main squeeze/the worst interior designer of all-time (seriously, if I came home to find that my fiancee took the liberty of turning my place into a witch doctor’s S&M lair, we’d have a problem); the great Terence Stamp is there in a role far too minor for his badassness; James Spader is there as a smarmy lawyer (naturally); John C. McGinley is there and is annoying; Hal Holbrook is there as the stereoptypical wise old broker in Bud’s firm; and Sean Young is there too because she was in every single movie from 1980-1990.
But who am I kidding, this movie is all about Gordon Gekko and Michael Douglas totally runs away with it. From the slick hair to the suspenders to the big-ass cell phone to the blue button-down with mandatory white collar, it doesn’t take much to realize that this guy is most definitely scum on the first impression, but, damn, does he make scum look good. He’s Black Monday, Enron, Madoff and AIG all rolled into one, and as much as your conscience’ll tell ya’ that he’s bad news, this guy could serve you shit on a silver platter, tell you it’s filet, and you’d ask for seconds. It’s funny, he’s the personification of everything that’s always been wrong with this economy and how the richest 1% of the country gets away with owning half of its wealth, yet there’s something about him you can’t resist, and that’s goes back of Douglas. He oozes confidence, he knows he’s the man, and Douglas makes it look like he’s had ice running through those veins since his first day on the job. Man, what a bastard that Gekko is, but Douglas sure can play a good bastard.
If the trailers weren’t make the sequel look like it’s the exact same movie as this one (only with Shia LeBouf, because everybody just loooves Shia-effing-LeBouf), I think Stone might have something, but whether it works or not, Wall Street is, unfortunately, turning out to be an timeless movie. It’s almost frightening how pertinent this thing is 23 years after the fact, and even though I’m glad I now live in a world where women don’t stuff shoulder pads into their suits, it’s beyond fucked up that corporate greed is more rampant now than ever. Such is the power of unquenchable greed and the way those responsible are allowed to get away with it, I suppose. At least some of ’em are doing time.
Freakin’ yuppies…
Robin Hood (2010)
VERDICT:
3/10 Long-Ass Flights
It’s the Nerf version of Braveheart.
Robin Hood is about a 13th Century English archer who has the balls to stand up to his king over taking part in an unjust war, as a result he finds himself locked up in shackles, but then the king gets waxed on the battlefield by a stray arrow (lame) and so our noble Brit peaces outta there along with his band of merry men. So they head on back to London and find out that the monarchy is a total mess because the new King is a total prick who doesn’t know jack shit about anything so he just taxes everyone up the ying-yang. Anyway, at the dying request of a British soldier, the archer impersonates the guy and goes to his hometown to ease his aging father’s mind, and then he ends up single-handedly uniting a country against the evil French while slapping some sense into his new king.
Geez, long synopsis for something that probably should have been more along the lines of “He steals from the rich and gives to the poor, only this time there’s no Bryan Adams.” So let’s just start there: why the hell isn’t that the synopsis? Now, I could be mistaken, but the whole vigilante philanthropy aspect of Robin Hood has always kinda been the appeal to the guy for me. It’s a sweet message, it’s a cool thing to stand for, and that’s why we still make movies about him in the first place. But with the exception of one brief scene where Robin and his buds hijack a tax collector caravan and bring the goods back to Nottingham, all the good stuff has been tossed to the wind and replaced with a story that’s getting old fast.
Folks, I can’t be the only one who’s dead tired of these war epics that do a damn poor job of trying to convince us that they aren’t Gladiator: Part VI – Now With More Arrows. I never saw Kingdom of Heaven because I heard it sucked, same thing goes for Alexander and Troy, but you’d think by now that film makers would either stop riding Maximus’ coattails and realize that movie’s success was more a fluke than anything else or at least try to make something new instead of feeding us the same fucking story every time and hope we’re not bored of the taste. Ugh, just aggravating to sit through all 140 minutes of this when I knew exactly what I was getting myself into by minute five.
Because the story here really does blow. Robin’s no longer Robin, he’s William Wallace without the kilt, the face paint and the mooning on the battlefield, and, really, what’s the point of that? I’m all for reboots when they’re actually needed, but who on Earth was actually clamoring for someone to finally give this tale another go?
But it doesn’t even end with Robin, because apparently Maid Marion never got her fair shake either, so now she’s the Olde English version of Sarah Connor. Again: why? It’s easy enough to ignore for a while, but then she shows up in the final showdown decked out in full armor on horseback, tries to act like a total badass, but it’s such an effing joke. The only time this ever worked was when Eowyn decapitated a dragon and face-stabbed a Nazgul in Return of the King, and while I think Cate Blanchett is usually awesome, she can’t pull it off with the whole Elizabeth shtick this time around.
Nor can Russel Crowe as Robin since there’s only so much you can do when you star in a knock-off of a movie you already starred in. Then again, the script also sucks on every front and the writers really owe newcomer Oscar Isaac an apology for making him play such an infuriatingly idiotic villain like Prince John. And it’s too bad because from William Hurt to Danny Huston to Max von Sydow to Kevin Durand to Mark Strong (who is doing a great job of typecasting himself as the most evil-but-not-evil-enough-for-me-to-remember-his-name bad guy in Hollywood), there’s a lot of talent here, but they were screwed from the second they signed on.
When I first saw the trailers, I actually thought this looked pretty good, but the whole time I was watching this on the plane ride home from England, I couldn’t believe how much I wanted to just turn it off and tune into the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that my good buddy Fred was watching beside me. The action is fine, it’s not unwatchable and I didn’t hate it enough to give it a 2, but Robin Hood sure came close and I’m having a damn hard time remembering why I settled on this score to begin with.
Point is, stick with L.D. on this one.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
VERDICT:
8/10 Idiots Defined
It’s a mess of everything and it all freakin’ rocks.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is about a small-time crook who accidentally lands an acting gig while running from the cops, gets sent out to a swank party in L.A. where all the girls named Jill spell it “Jylle”, and starts shadowing a movie producer/private eye in preparation for his role while trying to get in the pants of “the one that got away”. So one thing leads to another, they wind up witnessing a girl’s murder, the High School sweetheart’s sister ends up being involved, and our trio of wannabe gumshoes have to get to the bottom of it all before they find themselves six feet under in the City of Angels.
The first time I saw this way back when, I was a dumbass. One of those days where I thought I could effectively multitask surfing the web while giving my full, undivided attention to the movie playing in the background. Maybe you can relate and I don’t know why I kept thinking time and time again that this would actually work, but since I couldn’t remember a damn thing by the time it was over, I finally revisited it five years later, stayed the hell away from my MacBook and totally redeemed myself as a human being.
So it’s film noir, it’s a dark comedy, it’s an action movie, it’s a love story, and as far as storytelling is concerned, it’s pretty damn original. It’s awfully refreshing to find a script where you can tell the writers are having as much fun as the cast and from the moment Robert Downey Jr. starts narrating the story to us knowing full well that we’re watching the movie he’s in by stopping scenes mid-frame to make sure we didn’t miss something obvious/give himself shit for being a bad narrator, it’s hard not to smile. At the same time, it can almost be a bit much when he keeps on rambling and backtracking the way Downey just loves to do, but as soon as something starts to border on being annoying, it stops and introduces something else that’s totally fresh and totally welcome. Nice to see a movie that knows when to say “when” and save the best stuff for later. Can’t be an easy thing to do as a writer.
But aside from being a breath of fresh air and more or less succeeding in all the areas that turned Lucky Number Slevin into the cinematic equivalent of listening to a five-year-old argue with an English professor for two hours, it’s flat-out fucking hilarious. It’s the best thing to happen to gay jokes since The 40-Year-Old Virgin (and I hate gay jokes), there’s more brilliant one-liners in here than you’ll know what to do with in just one sitting, and you couldn’t ask for two better leads to bring it all this mean-spirited greatness to life. Seriously, there’s a kind of brilliance to how self-aware it is and all the middle fingers it throws up to almighty L.A. where every part goes to Colin Farrell, where everyone under the sun goes to “make it big” and where everyone at every bar looks like a celebrity impersonator. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s so unabashedly tongue-in-cheek that it gets harder and harder to notice the flaws.
And Downey’s a rip as our unlikely hero, Harry Lockhart. Harry’s interesting enough, but the reason he stands out is because it’s just Downey playing Downey and there’s really no one else out there who has that same kind of charisma. Again, there are times towards the start where he could probably afford to tone it down a bit, but that borderline nuts/mile-a-minute persona of his sure is some kind of entertaining.
But the strangest thing of all is that Downey somehow ends up playing second fiddle to Val Kilmer of all people. I don’t really know what people think of Val outside of his cool name, the heist scene in Heat and how tempting it would be to yell “Iceman!” and reach for a reverse high-five if you saw him in person, but I’m actually not the guy’s biggest fan since it seems like he burns most of his potential on crap movies that I sure as hell don’t want to burn two hours on. But here he is as Harry’s mentor, Gay Perry (yes, he’s gay, and that’s what he goes by), and I’m starting to think that I have no idea what I’m talking about. He’s perfect, he delivers all his brutally sarcastic asshole comments like he really means them and every time he turns back up in Harry’s life, the whole product just gets better. Gay Perry not only has one of the best names of any character from the past decade, but he might be the best thing this movie has going for it aside from the script and it’s easily the best thing I’ve seen Kilmer do in a long time. Dude needs to do more comedies because this definitely makes up for The Saint.
Michelle Monaghan ain’t bad either as the object of Harry’s affection, Harmony, but she’s got some tough company to keep up with.
So the final showdown is a little ridiculous, the plot’s harder to follow than it probably should be and there are some lulls inbetween that noticeably break up the good stuff, but, man, this is right up there with Lethal Weapon as the best thing writer/director Shane Black’s ever done. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is just a really fun and surprisingly new movie with a razor sharp script that goes by in a flash and had me scaring my cat from laughing so hard. Can’t remember the last time I nearly busted a gut watching a guy lose a game of Russian roulette, but there ya’ go, that kinda sums it all up in a nutshell.
A Prophet (2009)
VERDICT:
9/10 Fresh Fish
Remind me again how The Secret in Their Eyes won Best Foreign Film last year?
A Prophet is the story of an Arab teen with no family or friends who finds himself shacking up in a French prison with only the clothes on his back after beating up a cop for no real reason at all. Turns out, French prisons aren’t anywhere near as fun as the commercials make them out to be and before long the kid is given a friendly proposition by the local mafia ring: murder an inmate before he can testify at a trial or we kill you.
Good times.
So I’ve never seen anything by the guy and apparently this is the spiritual successor to his last movie, The Beat My Heart Skipped, but it looks like I should start getting familiar with director Jacques Audiard because he’s put together one mean bastard here.
Man, let’s just start with the first half-hour because the first half-hour is absolutely insane and effing amazing. The thing Audiard does best from the get-go is that he puts us on the same level as our underage inmate of the hour, Malik El Djebena. The kid’s a nobody who seems to know as much about himself as we do, so by the time his whole life comes to a skidding halt roughly five minutes after establishing himself as newest shank-worthy loner on the prison yard, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. And I like that, because Audiard could have given him a backstory, could have at least given him some unique qualities outside of the blood welts on his face, but the fact that he’s about as ordinary, weak and unprepared for the life he’s been thrust into as the rest of us not only helps to put us on his level and in turn makes him stand out that much more from all the other cold-blooded mofos around him. He’s not a gangster, he’s not a killer, he’s a blank slate who’s doing his best not to shit his knickers, and this right here, this is his backstory and we’re along to see all the highs and lows of his coming-of-age behind bars.
So there’s that aspect which is established right off the bat, but the big reason I’m still ranting about this first half-hour is there’s really not a minute throughout the whole damn thing where your heart isn’t lodged in your throat. It didn’t surprise me in the least when one of my friends told me that she turned this off almost as soon as it started, because this is gritty like you wouldn’t believe and couldn’t be more intense if it were set on a bus going 50. Just watching El Djebena trying time and time again to weasel his way out of this epically unfortunate catch-22 he’s caught in the middle of, only to find himself trying to breathe his way out of a plastic bag that the mafia’s holding over his face as a friendly reminder of who he’s trying to fuck over.
Folks, the first Act here is nuts, it’s brutal to the point of frightening, but it is a thing of beauty. If only for the first Act, this movie gets an easy 9, and even though the remaining two-thirds don’t quite keep up the same tempo, watching El Djebena make a name for himself like the Arabic version of Henry Hill is more than enough to keep you absorbed over the next five years of his sentence.
And the acting is no joke, too. Newcomer Tahar Rahim is spot-on as El Djebena and it’s something else watching him go from innocent shell of an inmate to right-hand fingerman. He doesn’t have to do a whole lot to pull it off, but he does bring a good deal of personality to the role and does well to keep reminding us that this is essentially a kid doing the work of a cold-blooded killer. But the scene-stealer of the show is Niels Arestrup as prison mafia kingpin, Cesar Luciani. The thing about Arestrup is that he looks like the homeless version of my grandpa, nor is he the guy you’d think would be running shit in the big house, but when this guy speaks, he makes Don Corleone look like Smeagol. Forget about how physically unintimidating he is, when this guy reminds you that he can have you killed six ways from Sunday by putting you in a headlock and digging your eye out with the edge of spoon, you listen to what he has to say and you gladly serve as his bitch. The dude is a maniac, he can put the fear of God into people like no other, and he is just wild to watch.
Like a natural mix between Goodfellas and Midnight Express, A Prophet might not be the most relaxing way to spend two hours, but it is awesome and it is far and away one of the more memorable gangster movies to come out in recent years that Scorsese hasn’t been responsible for. The whole thing from the visuals to the characters to the dialogue to the plot stand as a stark reminder that no one wants to end up in prison, that it’s not a place to make friends over the notion of hope, but rather a hell you survive that follows you after you leave. Like I said, good times.
Date Night (2010)
VERDICT:
6/10 TV Dinners
Has its moments.
Date Night is about your average middle-aged couple with a happy marriage and mandatory spawn who, between non-stop work and parenting, find themselves squeezing in one-on-one time on the same night each week or so and more often than not end up doing the exact same thing they did last time. Then one night the husband decides he wants to be a badass, so he steals someone else’s reservation at a swanky Manhattan restaurant, they think they’re the coolest, but then the night gets ruined when they get mistaken for the people who had the reservation and find themselves running for their lives/uncovering political conspiracies/hanging out with a shirtless Marky Mark.
Simple enough, another one of those mistaken identity things, but it gets the job done.
So it’s directed by Shawn Levy whose other works include the Pink Panther remake, the Cheaper by the Dozen remake, the Night at the Museum movies and his next project is a live-action version of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. And it’s written by one Josh Klausner whose only other contributions to society include Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After. Yeah, this is a step up for both individuals, but I think I’ll just leave it at that and move on to the cast all the same.
While it’s nice to see Steve Carell not doing the whole Michael Scott shtick for the first time in ages and he’s fine as Phil Foster, I think the problem goes back to the fact that Steve Carell is effing everywhere these days. Whether it’s TV, movies, cereal boxes, my dreams or how he insists on waking up bright and early each morning to make me coffee before I go to work, if something exists right now, chances are Steve Carell is involved in some way, shape or form. And it’s not like I can blame the guy because he’s one of the rare big time celebrities these days who’s actually managed to earn their fame by having talent, and it’s not like he isn’t funny here either, it’s just that I think I’m overdosing on Steve. I’m thankful for a break from the uber-awkwardness that he’s become synonymous with over the past six years or however long The Office has been on, but I miss the days of Little Miss Sunshine and The 40-Year-Old Virgin where his skills really shined.
And while Tina Fey’s good as Claire Foster, she’s unfortunately got the same complaint going for her. She’s probably the funniest woman on the planet right now, she’s also inescapable, and I think I need a break.
On the one hand, it’s nice to see them playing themselves for a change instead of the characters they keep winning Emmys for. On the other, it’s just too much of a good thing with these two, and while they’re a good pair and there’s definite comedic chemistry which I’m sure they’ve worked on at all those wacky NBC holiday parties, I could use some time away to fully appreciate how good they are.
The script’s nothing special and it doesn’t really come up with anything all that new, but Carell and Fey do make it better than it should be, so for that they get props.
But despite their efforts, if it weren’t for an hilarious cameo by James Franco and an entertaining – if not totally random – strip tease scene featuring Carell and Fey, there actually wouldn’t be a whole lot to write home about with this one. Date Night had me laughing here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty forgettable to the point where it took me a good three weeks of daydreaming to remember that I’d even seen it. Lots of cameos, lots of hijinks and shit, but one viewing’s enough.
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