“Nice to meet you, Andrea Planbee.”

broderic on September 19, 2010

Easy A is the 2010’s Mean Girls. Emma Stone is Lindsay Lohan — same chubbiness, same red hair, same throaty voice. Let’s hope she doesn’t flush her career down the tubes with drinking and drugs. If she looses 15 lbs, it’s the first sign of impending celebrity implosion.

The movie’s plot centers around Stone’s character, Olive, as she makes herself out to be the school skank after a lie she told was warped by the grapevine. This riles up the geeks to hit her up for some of that lying action. She does and they gain some notoriety. Then the school prayer group takes it upon themselves to get her kicked out school. Then the school mascot was always in love with her. Then the school guidance counselor, the school’s coolest teacher, and a weird hairy chrisitan showed up to add another plot thread. This is just to say that there were a lot of plotlines in this movie.

The writers of the movie played a lot off of 80s teen comedies: Say Anything, Can’t Buy Me Love, The Breakfast Club. It tries to bring all those into play. So it was quite something with all these plotlines. It should’ve just settled itself as Mean Girls.

2 of 5 stars.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

broderic on August 17, 2010

Sadly, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came in 5th place in the box office with approximately $10 million. It was Scott Pilgrim versus The Expendables, but turned out to be no contest. Mr. Pilgrm got his but kicked by several old action movie stars. This dismal performance shouldn’t stop you from catching a very, unique movie. If you see it before it leaves your local cinema, you’ll be treated to whimsical tale of love and music and video games.

Ahh, the video game. Scott Pilgrim must fight his way through the seven exes of Romona Flowers before he wins her heart. Just like a video game each is a battle. But these aren’t the video games of today with their super awesome graphics, 64 fps, first person shooter, it’s your Sega Genesis side scroller Double Dragon, Virtua Fighter. Low res man.

But at heart is the love story. It’s sweet and tender, seemingly emo. Plus, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and her big eyes was suitably cast as the girl. Michael Cera wasn’t, IMHO. He’s too whiny for this part. I would’ve loved to have seen someone else play Scott Pilgrim. I keep seeing Futurama’s Phillip J Fry as the guy. Someone who’s slack but burly, a Joseph Gordon-Levitt type. I guess I’m tired of Michael Cera being the go to emo slacker dude.

This movie as I had tweeted will end up being great to watch on DVD just like Speed Racer. Whimsical.

4 of 5 stars.

Adventures From My NetFlix Queue: Fantastic Mr. Fox

broderic on August 12, 2010

I really don’t have much to say about the latest DVD I received in the mail from NetFlix, Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I need to. The movie is good. It is a Wes Anderson movie through and through. The triptychs, the kid, the heists, the plans: it’s all Wes Anderson.

Why I decided to write a post about the movie is that Roald Dahl wrote the book was married to Patricia Neal who sadly died over the past weekend. Very coincidental if I do say so myself. She acted in The Day the Earth Stood Still and A Face In the Crowd. Watch those movies, because I liked them myself.

Things to think about while watching Inception

broderic on July 17, 2010

I really wanted to say this in my Inception review, but forgot before I hit the post button.

This movie will remind you that Nolan’s best film was the playfully, inventive Memento.
I got a vibe of Jacob’s Ladder — where and when is all this happening.
I also got a vibe of Flatliners — they come back.
Nolan likes to work with Cillian Murphy.
He also loves Michael Caine, but then again who doesn’t?
Seeing Ellen Page made me wonder about my car being ticketed.
I thought Ellen Page was gonna be the new Neo.
Why couldn’t Ellen Page have constructed awesome things on the fly?
How come Ellen Page was dramatically underused? Or was she overvalued?
Was that The Pin?
“I am a cypher, a cypher wrapped in an enigma… smothered in secret sauce.”
The movie caps a funny week of weird, strange dreams — earthquake!

Inception

broderic on July 17, 2010

I am preternaturally disposed to not liking Christopher Nolan movies. I don’t know why but a lot his work rubs me the wrong way. I feel that he’s too showy: a wink and a nod to how neat all this film working, the writing, the directing, the acting, is great — acknowledge it. So I approached watching his latest “greatness,” Inception, with trepidation.

Right from the start he didn’t disappoint. There were scenes with lots of talking, exposition, saying rather than doing. It was all too verbose for me. I wanted some action. If I don’t get some action, I’m going to get up and go.

Then the heist began, the trippy shit started happening, and Inception became a much better movie. I realized all that early speechifying helped explain how the heist would work, but all that speechifying just made for a boring movie. It’s as if Hitchcock explained his McGuffins.

I really liked the latter half of the movie. As the heist unfolded, I sat right up in my seat and enjoyed the convoluted structure to the action. It was very inventive and a neat fantasy.

I think I could see this again. Something I thought I wouldn’t say for a Christopher Nolan film.

4 of 5 stars

Predators

broderic on July 11, 2010

Predators is the perfect summer movie. Good, but not great. Bad, but not awful. Mediocre.

It dove right into its premise right off the bat like people falling out of planes. It kept moving forward introducing each character/predator victim. They were all archetypes — the sniper, the heavy machine gunner, the shiv wielding con. Every character ripped their roles from a character class in a video game. But the movie kept going forward not stopping for people dying or even plotting. It’s predators hunting human — the dangerous game. That’s the plot in a nutshell and a summary of what to expect from the movie. That’s it, but the job was completed successfully.

3 of 5 stars.

Toy Story 3

broderic on July 10, 2010

After releasing the very lyrical movies, Up and Wall-E, Pixar returns to the movie franchise that put them on the map. Excuse me, I don’t understand the appeal of the Toy Story franchise. I may be a simpleton and one of the few that didn’t find Toy Story 3 as another Pixar knock-out, blockbuster hit. My low opinion of the Toy Story franchise has biased me into not paying proper respect to the movies. I just can’t understand it.

RottenTomatoes.com has Toy Story 3 at 99%. I may have seen a different movie. Wait a second while I go read some of the blurbs there.

Okay, I’m back. While it does top the tomato meter, a lot of the blurbs give it decent coverage following in the previous movies’ greatness yet also acknowledging the formality of this final installment.

The movie doesn’t wow me like the other Pixar films. Even the ones I don’t regard highly, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille, I can find something to like. The Toy Story movies I find nada. Does this make me soulless?

What I find wrong with the Toy Story franchise is that they’re routine. Maybe the first installment might be a groundbreaker, but the rest I find unappealing. Yes, I know that their stories reflect how we grow up but that don’t mean squat to me.

The final movie just wasn’t impressive enough. It’s better than some other animated schlock, but not high in the Pixar patheon.

Most other Pixar movies give me hope that animated films can move beyond the kiddie movie ghetto, but Toy Story is the quintessential kiddie movie at least superficially. It drives me crazy that they don’t make it awesome. There was a point where I was hopeful that Pixar was gonna be brave and make the movie bold, but I knew that it had to have the happy ending.

That being said. The movie is solid story telling. Flawless in execution. Kids will like it many adults as well. Ho-hum.

3 of 5 stars. Plus a meh.

Knight and Day

broderic on June 26, 2010

It’s 1 AM and here I am writing up my thoughts on Knight and Day. This way, when you read my review/thoughts, it’ll keep you away from a very muddled flick. Unless, of course, you like messes.

The commercials don’t convey how messed up this movie is. It looks like a fun ride with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, except it was a movie saddled with a random script and little chemistry between the two protagonists. I was hoping for a fun ride, but got sick as the movie winded its way to its happy ending.

I thought the film was written and produced by Tom Cruise, because of his prominent mugging in the camera. I wanted to see that though. I wanted the jumping on Oprah’s couch Tom Cruise promised by the trailers. I got it but in too high a volume. But he was certainly the best thing going in the movie. “With me. Without me.” Hee hee.

Cameron Diaz has the Cameron Diaz problem: beautiful in one light, ugly in another. She was ugly for most of the time in this one.

There were some good parts — kicking the waiter, a dangling Tom Cruise, but they were parts of the muddled mess.

I think you may want to watch it, but don’t forget I told you its a head scratcher.

2 of 5 stars.

The A-Team

broderic on June 16, 2010

Why do I keep labeling these posts with thoughts on the film I watched as reviews? I don’t think I review them well, but I do do some snarky commentary. On occasion, I do write something resembling a review, but it’s few and far between.

That said, then let’s see what I have to say about The A-Team.

I wasn’t a fan of the original show. Never really watched it religiously because I couldn’t get over the fact that they shot at the bad guys, but never killed anyone. So my expectations are low already. I can’t compare it to some beloved show from my youth, because it isn’t beloved.

It was fun, pure summer movie fun. Lot’s of things blowing up. People dying! People shot. Face macking on some girl. Hannibal scheming. Murdoch crazy, actually lunatic insane crazy. BA being a badass. What more do you need from mindless summer entertainment? Popcorn, too. Then there is the Jessica Biel. Hot. Beautiful legs. Except, she wasn’t needed. A little bit of the love-romantic interest? Not needed. All we need is the plan so that it comes together.

Yup. It does.

3 of 5 stars.