It’s Oscar time, so the local theatre has begun it’s one to two week screening of each Best Picture nominee.  Every year I am so grateful to the Oscars and to this theatre for first publicizing these films and second screening them for my convenience.  Crazy Heart is one of those films that I would have never been able to see in the theatre if it weren’t for this annual event.  It’s a small movie with a great cast and fabulous music and I think it deserves all of the attention it has been given.

The film follows Bad Blake, an old school country music star who now plays gigs in small bars and bowling alleys.  He travels around to these gigs in his beat up truck, his own roadie and entourage, and Jeff Bridges portrays him with absolute perfection.  The film opens with Bad arriving at the bowling alley to check out his next gig, then checking into his hotel to finish most of a bottle of whiskey before showing up for his performance.  It’s a sad existence, and I think Bad knows it, but he would never give up playing music and he won’t give up drinking whiskey.  During his travels he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a small town reporter looking for an interview, and she is somehow able to get him to open up to her and gets more questions answered than she meant to ask.  The film follows Bad as he battles his alcoholism, his bruised ego (as he watches his former protege, Tommy Sweet, reach country music star status), and his best friend’s un-asked for wisdom (Wayne, played by Robert Duvall).

I really loved this movie and especially the music.  It reminds me of the country music I listened to when I was a kid and Jeff Bridges is just so charming when he is on stage.  It’s hard not to like a soundtrack put together by T Bone Burnett.   The tone of the film reminded me of The Wrestler in a lot of ways, but the plot is not really similar at all.  And the film held little gems scatter throughout with it’s casting.  A one night stand is played by an actress in Donnie Darko.  Robert Duvall is adorable as Bad’s bar-owning friend, and the best surprise is who was cast to play the part of Tommy Sweet, and how genuine that character turns out to be.  It’s a great movie, made from real quality stuff, and definitely worth your time.  It will probably get to DVD soon, so be sure to check it out.  The soundtrack is worth a listen too.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

When I heard the description of The Blind Side, Sandra Bullock’s newest starring vehicle, it didn’t sound in the least bit appealing.  I have seen my fair share of heart-warming, come-from-behind sports movies (and even volunteered as an extra in Remember the Titans), and didn’t feel any particular pull toward seeing another.  But the media push was nothing if not persistent, and the more I learned about the movie and the family it is based upon, the more I was drawn to it.  Based on the bestselling book written by Michael Lewis in 2006, the movie follows the Touhys, middle class Republicans, Ole Miss Alumni, and charitable Christians.

Michel Oher was a high school senior with nowhere to sleep when Leigh Anne Touhy saw him walking down the road in the rain.  She invites him home, and as the movie unfolds one day leads to another until Michel becomes a member of the family.  The two perfect biological children, over-achieving daughter Collins and spitfire son S.J., accept him as their sibling like ducks take to water, with only the slightest hint of conflict with schoolmates.  The movie is funny, and captures Michael’s gradual relaxation into his new life well.  I liked that it did not flinch away from the extreme measures taken by Michael and the Touhys to qualify him for, first high school then college, football.  They aren’t pretending that they did not push him, but they are spinning the process to imply it was all for his own good.

Perhaps it was all for his own good.  But the uneasiness that I felt at their methods was the only thing that balanced out that dreaded overdose of touching moments. Overall, it’s definitely worth seeing and if you’re anything like me, you will stay through the credits to see real life pictures of Oher and his family.  Sandra Bullock is a blast to watch as she bosses around everyone she comes in contact with.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I was a bit wary about seeing this movie, but tried not to let that tinge my massive excitement.  This book was such a huge part of my childhood; it’s images are burned into my brain and the feelings that I had when reading this book come flooding back to me at the thought of those haunting illustrations. After I heard that Maurice Sendak was directly involved in the film adaptation of his beloved 10 sentence childrens’ book and asked director Spike Jonze to “make it his own”, I was hooked and determined to be there opening weekend.

I was there opening weekend.  The delay in this review is due to my overall disappointment.  I wanted the feeling of dread and excitement that I got from the book.  Instead I got feelings of depression and melancholy with occasional moments of terror lite.  The monsters have been given names and personalities, many of which fit their appearance perfectly. What I liked about the film was the visual aspect.  It was beautifully translated from the page to the screen, and Jonze’s insistence that the monsters remain actors in costume definitely pays off.  Due to technical issues, the costumes remain in the movie, but the faces of the monsters are animated. And I was impressed by the voice cast involved in the film, including James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, and Paul Dano.

I thought the movie would be more hopeful and fun.  It ended up being a look at what it’s like to be a child and the turmoil experienced through growing up at the mercy of the adults around you.  Max runs off to discover that his best traits can be balanced against his worst in an effort to live with the ones he loves.  The movie was touching, but it’s not a childrens’ movie.  It’s a movie about being a child, and that’s an important distinction.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

This movie had a lot of potential but it went in a completely different direction. I had it in my head from the commercials that this was a movie where aliens come to Earth and want nothing to do with us, but we will not let them leave. Completely goes against any alien movie ever made, that I can think of. That is not what the movie ended up being about, it was mostly about a character who was tasked with leading an eviction against a group of aliens and to help relocate them to another area. Then the movie just kind of goes off on its own in some weird plot you never expected.

The movie starts out in a documentary style, which wouldn’t have been bad if it didn’t last half an hour, everything is explained as to how to the aliens came to the planet and it gives you a glimpse at the things that have happened over the twenty year period that they have been on Earth. The aliens, nicknamed Prawns, have been given a patch of land, District 9, which over time becomes a slum and becomes a nuisance to the locals of Johannesburg, South Africa. Things get so bad that the government decides to move the entire group of aliens, more than a million, and they contract Multi-National United to orchestrate the process.

Wikus van der Merwe (yes I got that off IMDB) works for Multi-National United and is designated to supervise the team and get the aliens moved to their new location. His character is goofy and a little over the top. He annoyed me the whole first half of this movie. As he is inspecting the houses for weapons, and other restricted alien items, he is sprayed in the face with an alien liquid. The movie continues being lame for a bit longer and then takes off.

The second half of this movie is pretty entertaining. Documentary style has finally ended and it goes into decent movie mode. This movie has plenty of action in the second half and it pretty entertaining. I was unable to truly like this movie because of the first half. It was just so boring. The second half really picks up but just doesn’t do enough to make it worth while.

I know it is late and all, but don’t waste your money. I would wait for a “rent one get one free” coupon or something, don’t even see it in the $2 movie. Catch it on TNT in a couple of years.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I didn’t give a lot of thought towards this movie when I heard about it. “Ah, just another romantic comedy with the chick from Grey’s Anatomy”. My wife wants to see it, so whatever, and we go. It was actually good. I enjoyed the movie the whole way through. Katherine Heigl handles comedy very well and Gerard Butler did a great job of pulling off the “typical male” role.

The movie is about Abby (Katherine Heigl), a producer of a morning television show that is torn between good ratings or good content. Abby is against going to new lows to get the viewers and tries hard to keep things tasteful. When the ratings plummet the boss brings in Mike (Gerard Butler), the host of a public access show titled The Ugly Truth. These two characters clash from the beginning but Abby finds that Mike may have the knowledge she needs to land the dream guy.

Typical story, the two hate each other then they become friends while she pursues another guy and then they find out they really like each other. LAME! Not really, they keep it interesting with Abby and Mike’s one liners and crude humor. They take it to the edge but don’t take it too far to where it is uncomfortable, well… there was that one time.

Not a lot to this movie, simple story, lots of humor, and worth the watch. Can’t say go see it in theaters unless you need a date movie. I consider it a rental (Netflix) or something for HBO.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I’ll start by saying that I have read the book, but I read it quite a long time ago. So I didn’t get bogged down in the bits that were missing (at first).  The movie was visually stunning, opening with scenes of wizarding evil literally shaking up the non-wizarding world. The movie jumps right in, as it has more ground to cover than it possibly can.  Dumbledore arrives, grabs Harry up, and spirits him away.  Yep, we’re denied our traditional run in with the Dursleys.  We’ll frown for a few seconds and move on.

Dumbledore uses Harry as a bargaining chip to entice a very important Potions teacher back to Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn.  In order to complete the maneuver, Snape finally gets his wish to teach Defense of the Dark Arts, but also enters into an Unbreakable Vow with Mama Malfoy to help Dracoy complete his mystery mission. Harry, Ron, and Hermione jump right  back into their classes, and due to a last minute change, Harry has to borrow a Potions text book which claims to be the property of the Half Blood Prince. Interesting little mystery right? Well, it gets completely pushed to the back burner so we can watch Harry follow Draco around the castle. Dumbledore breaks out the pensieve and we get to see the great wizard’s first meeting with Tom Riddle. Dumbledore then charges Harry with recovering a vital memory from Professor Slughorn.

It ends up that a lot of story was left on the cutting room floor.  The identity of the Half Blood Prince was such a huge let-down.  For it to be the title of the movie I think more attention should have been paid to the book, the owner, and set up how the Half Blood Prince’s motivations will play out in the remaining story. There’s a lot of talk about the kids becoming adolescents and exploring romance, but Harry is practically ignored while Ron gets the lion’s share of the attention (I was really looking forward to Harry’s story line).  I have to say in the end that with all the trimming done, the movie still came in at a healthy 153 minutes (that felt like no time at all). A lot happened, the pacing was great,  and overall it was just a fantastic  movie.  I can’t wait for the last installments that are currently set for release in 2010.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

What can I say? It was good. Just not that good.

The movie was based on the life of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), and follows him as he breaks people out of jail, robs banks, and evades the (soon to be) FBI. Christian Bale plays Melvin Pervis, the top agent for the Bureau, who is sent to bring in Dillinger. The movie follows Dillinger’s relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) from beginning to end, when they met until the time he died (1933 – 1934).

I already knew the Dillinger story when I went to see this, so there was nothing too overly interesting about the movie. They don’t really show too much of what Dillinger actually did. You see about three very short bank robberies, a shoot out at the Little Bohemia Lodge, and the rest is talk. The movie was more focused on him as a person than him as a bank robber. I really wasn’t expecting the movie to be so mellow. I think they could have done better.  Give it about five years and there will be a remake.

I hated the way they shot this movie. It looked like someone grabbed up a Sony Handycam and followed around a bunch of guys dressed up as gangsters. It was shot with the exact same camera that they used for Benjamin Button (I thought it was interesting that someone actually kept up with that information). It had this weird look to it when there was a lot of motion. Like the made for TV movies that you see with the bad camera panning. The shoot-out at the Little Bohemia was the worst. All that was missing was the director strapping a camera to the top of the gun while they were running through the woods.

Christian Bale and Johnny Depp did good work with the characters. Usually Christian Bale over acts, but he did well as Melvin Pervis. There were some lines that Depp had where I was waiting for Ricki Lake to jump out and start singing a song from Cry Baby. I think they picked the right guy to play Dillinger. Depp really played the Dillinger character how I thought it should have been done.

Overall the movie was good, just not what I was looking for. Transformers was better in my opinion. I say, wait for this to come to DVD or catch it on HBO. Not worth the price of a ticket these days, so I feel ripped off that I actually bought popcorn and a drink for this one. I needed the popcorn though; I needed something to keep me occupied since the movie felt like it would never end.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

The first Transformers movie was great, so I had high hopes for the sequel. I was let down a bit. The commercials and publicity of this second movie had me very excited and I may have set my expectations a little too high. I was expecting one of the best movies of the year from Transformers but this just wasn’t it.

The movie follows up with Sam (Shia LaBeouf) going away to college and trying out a long distance relationship with Mikaela (Megan Fox). The Autobots have stayed on Earth and are working with the U.S. military to remove the remaining Decepticons from the planet. Sam finds a piece of the Alspark in his jacket and it embeds some ancient language into his brain. The Decepticons want the information in his mind, and Sam has to decipher the language before the Decepticons kill him for it. I think the problem with the Autobots is that when they need something done, they give it to the smallest guy on the team. “We have to get this to the other side of the desert”. “Give it to Sam, he’s fast”. Yes, give it to the guy who can’t defend himself against huge robots and probably should have died running around in the desert with a leather jacket on.

The first fifteen to thirty minutes of this movie is crap. I went to see this movie for the action, not the humor. You can barely make it a few minutes without something funny being said or done. Once again, a movie that tries too hard to be funny. After about thirty minutes of never ending comedy it actually gets back to what it was supposed to be, action packed. They throw in the normal one liners you would expect and the rest of the movie is pretty good. The action is pretty steady throughout the movie and they don’t overdo the humor much in the rest of the movie. The storyline is pretty weak and it just feels like they came up with the plot by drawing it out of a hat. They might as well have had a meteor hurling towards Earth and the Autobots had to drill to 8,000 feet to blow it up with a nuke. I guess they wouldn’t have needed Shia LaBeouf or Megan Fox for that though.

I think you have to see this movie in theaters, if the movie is average on the big screen it will be close to poor on your mediocre sound system and 52″ LCD.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

I needed a movie that was fun, and this was it.  It did a great job at being just a fun movie.

The movie is about  a group of guys going out to Vegas for a bachelor party.   They mistakenly take the soon-to-be brother-in-law of the groom, Alan.  So they start out the night by taking a shot on the roof of their hotel and the next thing you know, they wake up with the hotel room a wreck.  And there is a tiger in the bathroom.

From where the guys wake up until the end of the movie is hilarious.  To be honest, I went to see it because I wanted to see all this crazy stuff happen with that baby strapped to the guy’s chest.  That didn’t happen – the baby wasn’t in the movie more than fifteen to twenty minutes.  But that didn’t take away from the movie since it was hilarious most of the time. Alan (Zach Galifianakis) made this movie; if it wasn’t for his character it would have been a bust.

I can’t say go see this in theatres, but it is definitely a fun movie to watch.  So if you have nothing better to do, go see it.  It is not the summer’s biggest movie,  but it is exactly what it was meant to be.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites

Where should I begin?  Do you already have an expectation of what this movie will be?  I certainly thought that I did.  Sam Raimi returns to horror with his latest film, Drag Me to Hell.  It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?  I did not go into this with high expectations at all.  To be honest, most horror movies are a disappointment, relying far too much on disgusting mutilation and forgetting that building suspense is far scarier.

The  premise of the film is extremely simple.  Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan  officer angling for a big promotion in her bank branch, and in order to show her boss that she can make difficult choices that are in the best interest of the bank, she denies a mortgage extension to an old woman.  An old gypsy woman.  Poor Christine just didn’t realize what a bad decision this was, and the gypsy woman curses her, calling a demon to torture Christine for three days.  After the third day, the demon will be back for her soul, which will be taken to Hell for all eternity.  Christine and her boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), enlist the help of a seer to try and save her soul.

So, I can’t believe it, but I had so much fun watching this movie.  It was terrifying.  I dreaded the next time the demon would show up.  It was disgusting.  I had to look away from some of the creepy, crawly images used to disturb. Finally, it was hysterical.  The biggest surprise to me was that it was so funny, and on so many different levels.  Sometimes I laughed out of shock, sometimes because there was a genuine joke.  The film is so well balanced, that everything flows beautifully, from suspense to terror to absurd and back again.  This movie is definitely worth your time.  Go see it in the theatre and go see it with friends.

Rating:  

Submit this

Hide Sites