Green Street Hooligans
June 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Matt Buckner (Wood) is a wrongfully expelled journalism student from Harvard that gets framed by his extremely pompous roommate, for selling drugs. This roomie is the son of a powerful politician and he offers Matt 10 G’s as well as the promise of future employment if he will keep his mouth shut and take the wrap. At first Matt throws the money at the dude and says he doesn’t want his money but ultimately he decides to take it and disappear for a while. Matt tries to contact his father but in a very ‘my daddy doesn’t love me moment’ he gets just his voicemail telling him he will be out of the country… Dad is a big time investigative journalist and is always on the job, so he’s never been much of a dad. Anywhoo, feeling dejected and alone he decides to take this time to see his sister Shannon (Forlani) and baby nephew in jolly ol’ England, where she is married to a successful British business type.
Matt arrives in the land of fish and chips, goes to his sister’s place where he runs into his brother-in-law’s brother, Pete (Hunnam). Pete is tricked into taking Matt with him to the Futball (Soccer for us… stupid game) match and a rousing time at the pub. Matt is told very clearly that the only things Brits hate more than rival futball firms (Hooligans) is a Yank and a Journo (journalist). This of course does not bode well as Matt is both, so he makes up a quick fib about being a history major instead. You know this will come back to haunt him later but that’s why we watch.
Matt hits it off with all of Pete’s mates except for one, Bovver; of course he is the toughest of the group and Pete’s right hand so he is leery of Matt’s presence from the start. The gang get hammered for a while at the pub and when the time comes they head out into the street’s like a gang of maniacs, ready for their Futball. Pete’s crew are known as the Green Street Elite and they represent the west Ham United team. It would seem each team in the league has such a group and their ‘job’ is to go from place to place kicking the other fans arses and building a rep. And, I thought Eagles and Browns fans were insane… we got nuthin’ on these guys.
Long story short Matt joins the firm and builds a significant rep as the only Yank to be on a firm, and makes the best friend he has ever had in Pete, and a family from the Green Street Elite. The movie is great and had Forlani shown me as much as a butt crack it would get 5 stars no questions asked. I hate soccer so when I was given this one I revolted a little but I am glad I watched it. Lexi Alexander opened my eyes to a culture I never knew existed much like SE Hinton did over 20 years ago with the classic novel and film the Outsiders. The gang mentality as a whole is not something I understand but this movie puts a face of loyalty and respect on it that goes beyond the Futball teams these guys represent which is the biggest reason this movie works.
The acting was really good (even Wood didn’t piss me off), and the fight scenes although shot mostly in slow motion are very well choreographed. I mean that because they aren’t Hollywood at all, if you get punched in your face you go down, sometimes you get up, sometimes you don’t, just like real life and that was a huge part of the films appeal. Whether you are a fan of soccer or not give this movie a chance, I’m glad I did and I think you will be too.
Superman Returns
June 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Superman Returns is faithful to the spirit of the original movie and stretches the story out enough that we can be sure to see many new Superman titles in the coming years. My only complaint about it being so respectful to its’ material is that it made the film a bit longer than it needed to be. Trim 20 minutes out of this and I’d be screaming for a sixth star.
Sometime after the first movie, astronomers discovered remnants of Supermans home planet. Clark felt he needed to go check for himself to make sure there weren’t any survivors or other traces that he could use to find where some might be. Turns out it was nothing but a graveyard so he returns to earth after his 5-year trip (let’s just ignore the whole time-space thing here.) During his absence things have pretty much gotten back to normal.. crime is there, but not outrageous, and the world has moved on. So has Lois.. she has a boyfriend and a son, and is planning to get married “soon”.
Lex Luthor has been paroled and conned a rich widow into leaving all her money to him, so he’s well funded and has hatched a new scheme. This time he’s being quite ambitious and plans to grow himself some land using the crystal technology Superman used to build his Fortress of Solitude. There are consequences in doing this, but he doesn’t care.. he’s the bad guy after all!
Things really get started when Clark returns to the Daily Planet after “travelling” for 5-years and learns about Lois and her new family. She’s not in the office though, she’s on a plane that’s about to launch the new space shuttle design. Of course, things go wrong and thus the world learns that Superman has returned in a most spectacular rescue. This is one of the best action sequences I’ve seen, truly superb film making.
From this point on the movie revolves around the feelings between Lois and Superman, how he deals with a world that’s moved on without him, and him confronting Lex of course. Yes, that’s a lot of relationship stuff and that makes this an extremely date friendly movie, but you aren’t going to be disappointed in any way (and those aspects might just work in your favor post-movie…) The action sequences are excellent, the special effects are top notch and the acting is superb. I have a few minor quibbles with the story that I’ll leave be, and one big rant about a change in dialogue that makes the movie a little too PC for my taste, but nothing that takes away it’s full 5 star rating.
Simply put, Superman rocks and needs to be seen on the big screen. Period.
16 Blocks
June 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
16 Blocks isn’t all that bad as far as formula movies go, but it’s not all that good either. For one thing it’s never a good sign when I check my watch twice in the first 15 minutes.
Bruce Willis stretches his acting skills by taking on the role of Jack, a New York City cop who’s not all that happy with his job and who drinks to help ease the pain. He’s been working another night shift and is on his way to sign out for the day when his boss stops him with a last minute assignment. Jack’s job is to pick up a witness from holding and escort him to the grand jury so he can give testimony. Yeah yeah.
Enter the real star of this movie, Mos Def as Eddie. Eddie has a certain linguistic style that might take you a few minutes to get used to, but once that happens you’re gonna love every second he’s on the screen. You’ll have to get used to it quickly too as Eddie likes to hear himself talk.
Jack has 2 hours to get Eddie to the jury so he figures he’s got enough time to stop off at the liquor store for a “pick-me-up”. Meanwhile, back at the ranch… some thugs (just had to work that word in here somewhere) have been watching Eddie and when they see he’s been left alone they move in to eliminate the witness.
About this time Jack regains his senses long enough to figure out that Eddie saw something important and that maybe, just maybe he should pay attention to his job for the next hour or so. Can’t really say much else about the plot, but expect lots of clichés about dirty cops and witnesses, internal leaks, etc. etc.
Other than the excellent performance by Mos Def everyone here looks like they just did this one for the paycheck. It’s just so by-the-numbers that you never need to engage your brain to figure out what the next plot point will be. This is a 2 star movie that’s brought up to 3 by Mos Def, you’ll want to wait on DVD for this one unless you’re really bored. And this movie won’t really solve that problem anyway.
The Boondock Saints
June 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Two Irish brothers from south Boston, Connor (Flannery) and Murphy (Reedus) MacManus accidentally get caught up in the middle of a turf war with the Russian mob, when they come to the rescue of a local pub owner that the Russkies are attempting to extort protection money from. The MacManus brothers beat the holy hell out of these guys and even set one of there asses on fire (that hadda hurt), so of course the Russians come looking for payback. The mobsters track the boys to their rundown apartment, handcuff Connor to the toilet and drag Murphy down into the alley where they plan to execute him… This does not go the way the Russians plan it and through a very bizarre course of events the brothers escape and the would-be hitmen wind up being the ones stinking up the alley instead. I won’t explain how because that would spoil the fun.
The movie has a very interesting way of telling the story whenever violence occurs; the scene starts but just before the bullets start to fly it cuts to the aftermath. This is the point when we meet Special Agent Paul Smecker (Dafoe), the FBI agent in charge of organized crime assigned to the dead mobsters’ case. There are many theories on what actually happened in that alley, including one about a big fat guy that crushes people, but Smecker sees things differently. During a briefing with the local police precinct on the case, the 2 brothers stumble in beaten and battered to turn themselves in, and since the evil doers were killed in self defense the brothers are set free.
The city makes them heroes and this is when the real movie begins. The brothers decide to deal out their own brand of justice to anyone that does harm to others; Pimps, perverts, murderers, mobsters, etc, etc, and even though they have never done anything like this before, they are really good at it and manage to ring up quite a body count all over the city. There a few mishaps along the way but overall the job always gets done. With the help of their friend a low level mob errand boy named Rocco (Rocco), they get all the info they need to punish the wicked. Agent Smecker is assigned to all of their cases, which makes sense because they only kill mobsters and lowlifes, and that falls in his ballpark. Smecker has a pretty good idea who is doing it (SYMBOLISM folks… it’ll get ya caught everytime) but he understands more than anyone how these types manage to escape ‘legal’ justice, and this may be exactly what they deserve, so he has an attack of conscience and can’t decide if he wants to catch them or if he wants to help them. Anywhoo, after losing man after man to the new brothers grimm, the mob brings in the best hitman alive, Il Duce (Connolly) to stop them. Bullets and bodies everywhere, a really cool twist and an awesome ending.
Boondock Saints is one of those movies that most people have never seen or heard of because it made almst nothing when it was released in theatres but it has found a home on DVD. When it comes to revenge movies this is one of the best ones out there and if you have even a fraction of Irish blood you have to see it. The prayer they ‘all’ say before passing sentence alone is worth the price of this excellent film. Buy it, because if this is your flavor, watching this one once just won’t do.
Firewall
June 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The big problem with movies of this type is trying to keep the audience interested since they have seen it dozens of times before and most really don’t care to see it again. I feel the same way but this one had something the others didn’t, Harrison Ford! The man is known for playing 3 of the greatest action stars of all time so I thought why not; I’ll bite and see what happens.
The beginning is very much what I expected; Husband and Father Jack Stanfield (Ford) is getting ready for work and is chatting it up with the fam (just like all Ryan films). Typical sit-com/ made for TV crap; Wife Beth (Madsen), Daughter Sarah and son Andrew are bickering, Dad tries to fix everything, kisses their little heads, they ignore him… blah. blah, same old same old. I already told you it was predictable so don’t give me that look. Keep reading, it gets better.
Jack heads into work where we get to meet the rest of the clichéd characters in his world. The clueless boss played By Alan Arkin, Robert Patrick as the intimidating douche bag sent there to make the merger transition a seamless one and last but not least the mouthy secretary. Skip ahead to the end of Jack’s work day where he is accosted by a large man demanding he pay his online gambling debts. Jack is an upstanding guy and claims he not only doesn’t owe the money, he has never gambled in his life. The big guy threatens to sue him and he will see him in court. Of course everyone in ear shot hears this and it draws the attention of above mentioned douche bag, thus planting the needed motive to rob a bank later on in the story.
Jack turns to old friend and ‘cleaner’ Harry (Forster) to clear up his little misunderstanding about debts owed and packs up to go home for the night. Tonight is Pizza Night and he has to get home to the family.
Harry catches him just as he is leaving and asks him to join him for a drink so they can meet a potential financial backer and go into business for themselves once the merger is complete. They head to a bar where they meet Bill Cox (Bettany) and discuss this and that. Meanwhile, back at the ranch the family’s dinner arrives in the form of yummy pizza, but instead of Johnny the local pizza boy, this pizza is delivered by 4 heavily armed men intent on wrong doing. The bad guys tie up mom and kids and take pictures of them on their cell phones. But where will these pictures be sent you ask?
The meeting concludes and the 3 split to go their seperate ways. Jack to go home, Harry to catch a plane and just as the cab carrying Harry gets out of sight the back door of Jack’s car opens and Bill gets in. Jack asks what he wants and without saying anything pulls out a gun points it at him and shows him the picture of his family. Of course the bad guy responsible for Jack’s bad day is in his backseat and the movie kicks in from here. It would seem the baddies want Jack to help them rob the bank from the inside using wire transfers and if he does not cooperate they will kill his family.
That’s the plot and the story although very, VERY predictable is pretty well written. Firewall has some decent acting in it… from the main characters anyway. The technology scenes are not as ridiculously idiotic as the ones you have seen in other High-Tech thrillers like The Net and Swordfish; So, at the very least they treat the geeky audience members with some respect - Don’t get me wrong here, you will have to suspend disbelief a lot, you just won’t shake your head like you did with the others… you know who you are by the way. Last and most importantly of all, Harrison Ford gets to kick a little ass and smack fools which gives me hope for Indy 4. Harrison does look old as hell from time to time in this one, and you might half expect him to get sleepy and take a nap between scenes, but fear not my internet friends.
Ford is still Jack Ryan, Indiana Jones and Han Solo all rolled into one… it’s just packaged in an older box for this movie.
Syriana
June 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Syriana is one of the most complex movies I’ve seen in awhile, I really wanted a Prima guide to help me with the first 45 minutes! This isn’t really a complaint, the issues brought up are quite complex so it’s fitting that the movie itself mirror this.
Syriana is about the oil industry, from the workers in the field who become disenchanted at various points, to the Arab cultures, to the political moves behind the scenes that keep the crude flowing, to the analysts and advisers, all the way to the politicians and federal workers who keep the “best interests” of the country in mind when doing their jobs. And it covers all of this in about 2 hours.
Did I mention that it’s complex?
The story centers around one main event, the purchase of oiling rights in Kazakhstan by Killen, a small oil company and the subsequent purchase of that company by a large oil company, Connex. How did Killen get those rights? Did it bribe someone? Was Connex in on the deal from the beginning? Should the U.S. Government allow this purchase? At the same time one of the large Gulf States signs a deal to provide oil to China, possibly causing a disruption in the U.S. supply and at the very least giving China a good foothold in energy. Should the leader of that country have done that? Did the CIA know it was going to happen and not prevent it? Did it try? Should it have?
Hell, I give up.
The point of Syriana isn’t the story, it’s the ideas behind the story. Our dependency on oil is obvious, and we get a large percentage of our oil from regions that we may find politically distasteful. The question is do we care or not. As long as we get what we need is it any of our concern regarding the internal politics of those countries?
Syriana succeeds in raising these questions in a thoughtful way that doesn’t shove the liberal interpretation of the facts down our throats. Unfortunately the movie is so convoluted that it’s hard to follow and many people watching it on DVD will just hit stop before making it halfway through. If I hadn’t needed to write a review, I might have been one of those people. I’m glad I stuck around though as it is a subject worth some thought, they just need more explosions. And a few bikinis wouldn’t have hurt either.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
June 15, 2006 | Leave a Comment
When The Exorcism of Emily Rose first hit theaters, the buzz was rather lukewarm. I think this was due, in large part, to bad marketing as opposed to bad filmmaking. Viewing the trailer and the TV commercials would lead most people to believe that this was a horror flick in the vein of The Exorcist and other demonic possession themed movies.
Not so! While there certainly are some very disturbing scenes in the movie, they are all presented in past tense at the trial of the catholic priest accused of negligent homicide in the death of a young girl he tried to exorcise demons from.
Indeed, the trial itself is the heart of the movie and, as such, it’s much closer to being a pure drama than a spook movie. To that end, director Scott Derrickson had some top-notch people to work with. Both Linney and Wilkinson have previous oscar nominations and they both put in some very fine performances here. Linney plays Erin Bruner, the reluctant and agnostic defense attorney who gets pressured into taking the case in order to make full partner at her firm. Wilkinson plays Father Moore, a faithful and pious priest who was in the wrong evil place at the wrong evil time and whose actions (inactions?) may have resulted in the young girl’s death.
His presumed victim is the namesake of the movie, Emily Rose, and played to great effect by relative newcomer Jennifer Carpenter. It’s too early to tell yet what her acting range is, but I can tell you that she does “terrified” and “demonic” both QUITE well.
I have to admit that I’m a sucker for a good courtroom. I think I’ve watched every single episode of Law & Order at least twice, in fact. And as a courtroom movie, Emily is pretty darn good. I could have done without some of the cliche’ scenes between Bruner and her cliche’ schmuck of a boss, and some of the courtroom procedural stuff was off a bit, but nothing detracts too much from the quality of the performances and the unusual story.
In short, if you view this thinking you’re getting a good christian-themed horror flick, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re in the mood for some good popcorn-munching courtroom action, then this is your flick.
The Omen (2006)
June 12, 2006 | Leave a Comment
When doing a remake of a movie there’s a line you shouldn’t cross, a point where you are just copying the movie instead of doing an actual remake. The Omen crosses that line and does a piss poor job of it in the process.
If you’ve never seen the original, then you need to stop reading this review as I’m going to refer to plot points and don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Consider this a spoiler warning.
One of the interesting things about the original version of The Omen is that it’s more of a drama than a horror movie. There’s very little in the way of special effects, and the “horror” really comes from your imagination, and that will be based on the degree in which you believe in the material the story gets it’s ideas from (the Book of Revelation.) There’s not one single “gotcha!” moment in the original movie, you’ll never be startled or wonder if something is sitting behind your couch. Apparently the director of this remake doesn’t think that highly of today’s movie goers and has thrown in several “gotchas!” to remind you that you’re supposed to be watching something scary. He mostly does this in quick flashes of memory, or in a dream sequence, but at least once changed the original story just a tad so that you get a startle.
At least that change made some sense, most of the time it seems a change was made just for the sake of making a change. In the original Robert Thorn is promoted to the Ambassador to England, in this one his boss is promoted to that spot and he’s made the Assistant to the Ambassador. Doesn’t last long though as his boss meets a fiery end at 6:06:06 one evening in traffic. Yep, they changed the story just so they could work in another death and the numbers again. Another more subtle change is when they come back from trying to take Damien to church. In the original it’s Robert who suggests that perhaps something isn’t quite right about Damien, this time it’s the mom that makes that suggestion. Considering good old dad gets stuck with trying to clean up at the end of the movie it makes much more sense to have him start doubting early on, especially considering he’s the only one that knows Damien is adopted.
Even with all the little changes in the story, it feels like they had a TV cart and DVD player on the set each day and the director would have everyone watch the original scene before doing the shoot and would just say, “do that.” This remake is completely uninspired and it’s obvious that everyone was just phoning it in. I liked Liev Schreiber as Robert Thorn, but everyone else kinda sucked.
One last thing is Damien himself. In the original he was oblivious to what was going on around him, people died and monkeys got pissed, but while he was a bit cold he never seemed to be “in” on what was going on. Not so this time around, he’s most definitely involved in what’s happening. The prime example is his mothers fall from the upstairs hallway. In the first movie he’s riding a tricycle around his room, head down just having a good time. His nanny opens the door to the hallway and he just rides out still having a good time. He’s not watching where he’s going and bumps his mom, causing her fall. This time around Damien is standing on his Razor scooter staring at his nanny.. after a bit of eye contact, he scoots his way out of his room, down the hall and aims directly for his mother. There’s no doubt at all that he did it on purpose.
This is a major change from the original and completely ruins the ending of the movie when he turns to look at the camera and gives just the slightest smile. The first time around you suddenly get hit with the idea that this little 5-year old kid *knows* what’s going on and really is evil! With the remake it’s just a “duh!” moment and that’s it. No chills, no creepy feeling, just annoyance at some really bad directorial decisions.
I didn’t like this version at all. It’s not unwatchable so I’ll refrain from giving it a 1-star rating, but I highly suggest that you skip it and rent the 1976 version. You’ll be much happier.
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
June 9, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Let me start off by stating the obvious; Sarah Silverman can’t sing. She can write good lyrics, but with a couple of exceptions she should stay away from the microphone when she’s not talking.
Jesus is Magic is a multimedia forum for Sarah to showcase her talents, and fortunately it’s mostly filled with her stand up routine. It starts off with a skit.. mildly funny.. then she sings.. horrible.. then the stand up begins and all is well. Seriously, don’t bail at the beginning no matter how much you want to.
Sarah has a dry wit about her that you’ll either love or hate, and most of you will love her. She doesn’t shy away from any subject, be it 9/11, racism or her dead grandmother. If you’ve seen The Aristocrats you know what to expect.
Except for the singing. If you make it past the opening song you have about 4 more to sit through, 2 of which are pretty good. I like her song “you’re gonna die soon” (sung to a group of elderly people in a nursing home) and the closing number in her encore, but the others just suck.
The name of this DVD comes from one of her jokes where she talks about possibly having kids and raising them in a mixed religion family since she’s Jewish and her boyfriend is Catholic. It’s simple, you just explain to the child that mommy is one of the chosen people, and daddy believes that Jesus is magic. Ya know, cause he turned water into wine… and stuff.
If you’re offended by that, you really don’t want to watch this DVD.
Cars
June 9, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Boogity Boogity Boogity! It’s time to race! And it’s also time to slow down and smell the roses. Time to learn about life; about the importance of friends and family. Time to learn that winning isn’t everything. And time to fall in love with the girl..er..Porsche of your dreams.
Not exactly guy stuff is it? Well, what did ya expect from a G-rated Pixar & Disney movie anyway? You should have expected a solid family-friendly movie that will entertain you for a while and that’s exactly that you’d get. Cars is the story of Lightning McQueen, a young rookie driver in the Piston Cup race series who is on the verge of being the first rookie to ever win the season championship. But something funny happens on the way to the big race. He ends up in the sleepy (and nearly dead) town of Radiator Springs.
From here, it is obvious that the young, cocky loner will come of age and be changed into a better person..er..car. He will learn a long-kept secret of one of the town elders, he will befriend a local yokel, and he will fall in love. *yawn*
But this is ok, because we know it’s coming and we expect it. And we are willing to put up with it to get to the laughs and to make the kids (yes, the ones that made you take them to see this) happy. Speaking of laughs, they are plentiful but the pace slows down too much in places and they characters get serious too often for the meter to peg. Still, though, there are some very creative gags and a couple of priceless moments.
The animation is exceptionally well rendered, too. Every scene is given an incredible amount of color and detail. So much so, in fact, that it’s difficult to take it all in as you watch it.
One pleasant surprise was the number of cameos from the sports & racing world. If you’re paying attention, you’ll hear the voices of Richard & Lynda Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, Michael Schumacher, and Mario Andretti. They all do a fine job - especially Darrel Waltrip who sounds even MORE unhinged than he usually does at the start of a NASCAR race.
So, for good family fun that a guy can enjoy, you can do a LOT worse. If you do go, however, be prepared to be in a “Chuck E. Cheese” like sea of kids. The screening I was at was composed of about 85% kids. Most were well behaved, but 3 or 4…were not. Take a couple of those Motrin horse pills and quaff a couple shots of scotch before going in to prevent walking out with a migraine. I wish I’d done that myself now.
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Blood & Gore Car Chases T&A Chuckles |
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