Jumper

broderic on February 19, 2008

Jumper tries to establish a science fiction realm that could be plausible. Yet, it fails to even establish a coherent story. It’s a sad showing by The Bourne Identity’s, Doug Liman. It’s as if he took this job for the money. He unexpertly relies on the flash of the jump effects to hide the lazy development of the plot. It’s got big holes in its logic: how did the Paladins defeat jumpers when there was no means to control electricity to contain them back in the day? Doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t make sense that Liman can be so lackadaisical in this movie’s execution. He always seems to be prepared. Perhaps not this time around. What’s he doing next that got him distracted from this venture?

Diane Lane is in this one too. Another stinker.

2 of 5 stars.

Updating Movie Queues

broderic on February 6, 2008

Every year for Oscar month, TCM hosts “31 Days of Oscars.” They show many films each one a recipient of an Academy Award nomination.

It sounds like lots of good movies, but in practice not so much. There’s plenty of head scratchers out there. Check the list. It’ll make you wonder how did this get nominated. That tradition lives on til today.

There’s still plenty of gems to choose from though. If you’ve got the time, catch a few. Or at least set your Tivo.

Untraceable

broderic on February 4, 2008

Untraceable is a thriller that tries to make a statement about our media obsession with junk. It tries to equate our fixation for torture porn and sick and disgusting websites with the depravity of a serial killer. It tries to make us, the audience, culpable for the rottenness of society. It doesn’t do it very well.

What it has going for it was Diane Lane. She’s still a hottie in my book, but this movie seems to be one were she’s just in it for the money. I think everyone in it was.

Diane Lane plays an FBI agent (does the fbi hire nothing but hotties) in the cyber crime department. She tracks down the miscreants who use the internet for illegal activities like credit theft and solicitation of minors. She is given a lead for a web site that is set up to deliver torture by the amount of people who view its pages. It starts with a kitten and ends up with several human victims. All for the people who view the site.

Needless to say the site was untraceable and hard to find the owner or where it was being broadcast from. Yet, they do find the perp. And save the day. The final shot is of the sites stats slowly dropping.

It’s not a very good film. Everything was telegraphed. Everything. “Here’s a present.” “Use morse code.” “I downloaded a video game from a friend.” You could spot that from a mile away.

2 of 5 stars.

Adventures From My Netflix Queue: This is England

broderic on February 1, 2008

Toots and the Maytals’s 54-46 Was My Number opens the film, This is England, playing over news reel footage of the turmoil and strife of Britain in the 80s during Maggie Thatcher’s reign. And that song hooked me.

The film is a semi-autobiographical story from the writer and director, Shane Meadows. It’s about a young english lad, Shaun, growing up without a father who had just died in the Falkland War. His father is replaced by a band of skinheads who become a surrogate family for him. They make him a skinhead. They are not the kind of skinheads that we are used to today. Woody, the leader, is compassionate. He takes Shaun under his wing, shows him respect, shows others respect, and preaches unity for all in his clan. Of course this is broken up.

Combo, just released from the pen, shows up preaching National Front ideology. Quickly the movie devolves to showing the nazi punk skinheads. Shaun must choose between Combo or Woody, hate or compassion. He sides with Combo, but soon realizes the mistake. Yet, Combo, for all his hate has a side that realizes what he misses the most and why it has made him susceptible to National Front rhetoric. It goes back to the father figure. He missed out on it, and it makes him a bleak, void needing something to fill it up.

So was Shaun. Woody tried to guide him away from Combo’s ways, but he had to find out for himself what depths Combo would sink to. That means being caught up in a horrendous beat down of an immigrant fellow skinhead/rude boy, Milky, who had expressed the truth to both Shaun and Combo of the good of a father figure.

While not expressly awesome as a film, I found that I liked it. The soundtrack I want to get. Including that Toots song it had some other ska that’s fun to hear. The young actor playing Shaun, Thomas Turgoose, gives a decent performance in a first role. But it is Joseph Gilgun as Woody as the kind hearted skinhead and Stephen Graham’s, frightening but sad, Combo, that makes it.

An early scene in the film has Shaun playing on the beach. Of course, as a coming of age movie, I thought that the film should end with him on the beach, looking into the camera a la Antoine Doniel. Damned if it didn’t end up like that.

One thing, I couldn’t find the English subtitles on the disc. Their English accents are tough to make out. I think I have to see this again to fully understand what they’re saying.

4 of 5 stars

Swede!!

broderic on January 31, 2008

In a comment on marge’s blog and also in my review, I predicted that someone was going to insert their own selves into the action going on in Cloverfield and by doing, would make a more enjoyable film (at least for me).

They would take the conceit of the movie and recreate it for themselves and their friends. It will go on YouTube and people will judge it as its own creation.

They’ll swede it.

Hunh?

It’s the concept of filming an already released movie in your own interpretation with whatever you have on hand. That don’t sound right.

Just visit the site for Michel Gondry’s upcoming flick Be Kind Rewind and you’ll get the gist of Sweding. Once their compare this sweding with the original (click the original first!!).

I laughed at the original and I can’t wait to see this.

Cloverfield

broderic on January 28, 2008

I don’t know if the hype of Cloverfield turned me against it right from the start or if it’s just something I don’t like. I do know that it made me sick. Even forewarned and sitting two rows from the back, I got a headache watching it. I wasn’t nauseous but maybe should’ve been. The shaky-cam effect meant to put us there but also made me sick.

The movie is a purported tape from some guys camera documenting his going away party and the monster attack on New York City. It’s a home video and like your typical home video, you want to forward to the good parts. The establishing scenes at the party and at the dude’s apartment I wish I could’ve fast forwarded through. Then when the monster attack was unleashed, I wish I could’ve fast forwarded through them as well.

The monster was the big secret in selling the movie. What was it? What does it look like? Under my headache when it showed up, I was underwhelmed. At first it was Cthulu. Then it was Dr. Zoidberg. Finally, in all it’s glory in the money shot of the movie, it was those landstriders from The Dark Crystal. Admittedly, I was nursing my headache so I might be wrong in my descriptions.

Anyway, all through Cloverfield I found it similar to the Korean monster film, The Host. I wasn’t fond of that film as well.

I think that when they do Cloverfield 2, it should be from the perspective of the army. And it should be a conventional film. That way we can find out what happened in the end. Also, I predict that a film will show up on youtube splicing some random dudes into the action. It would look just as real and perhaps be an even better story.

2 of 5 stars.

27 Dresses

broderic on January 27, 2008

There are some movies that I want to see, but need someone else to suggest it so that I can honestly say, “I wasn’t the one who said we should watch it.” And under my breath, I sigh, relieved that my secret wasn’t found out. Most of the time, these movies are romantic comedies. It’s inexplainable as to why I can watch movies from this genre knowing all the while that the majority of them are just pablum.

Last Sunday, my mom wanted to watch 27 Dresses. With wanting to catch the pretty Katherine Heigl on screen, I agreed. At least, I didn’t suggest it.

It’s the standard romantic comedy fair.

Girl loves the right boy who’s completely unattainable for her and the wrong fit (Ed Burns whose eco-friendly businessman I can’t ever imagine acting the way he does).

Girl meets the wrong boy who’s the right fit. She argues with the wrong-right-fit boy and they are steadily drawn to each other. This mutual attraction blossoms to full on passion after drunk karaoke. The wrong-right-fit boy breaks her heart over a little misunderstanding (okay. a bigger misunderstanding), but the right-wrong-fit boy doesn’t do it for her either. She’s really in love with the wrong-right-fit boy. They express their feelings towards each other in the end.

Also, in the plot was the sister who stole right-wrong-fit boy away. And the quirky sidekick who’s name in the script should be Judy Greer as this actress has cornered the market for this type of role. The sister is played by Malin Akerman who makes a living being the so-called hottie, but isn’t anywhere near good to look at. Give me Heigl any day.

Simple. It adheres to the romantic comedy conventions that you know this would be better seen on cable, on TBS, during next summer.

Yet, it wasn’t all that bad. No matter how dumb the setup is or how much of a cliche the movie gets, it was saved by James Marsden. The last year seemed to be Josh Brolin’s year in film, but I would argue that Marsden makes for a strong claim for Best Film year 2007. If Brolin is the drama guy, Marsden is the goto comic, sappy, hunk. He’s charming in this film, finally getting a chance to play the lead and win the girl. That big ol’ smile of his helps make his cynical wedding reviewer melt Heigl’s heart. Maybe this will be his year. Hurray for cyclops!

This was the better of the two movies that I watched that day. At least it didn’t make me sick.

3 of 5 stars.

Mudder? Use another ‘r.’

broderic on January 27, 2008

Once again I catch the matinee showing of a Hitchcock film at the Charles. This time it’s Suspicion with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. My original review still stands.

Waking up early for a Saturday then catching the noon matinee has been fun to do. One of these times we’ll have to make it a party. Eat a big breakfast. Drink lots of coffee. Then catch the showing completely wired and ready for some fun. The most likely film for this fun is North by Northwest. That silly film of mistaken identity would go well with chocolate chip pancakes, eggs and sausage links.

Mmm. I can’t wait.

Now I have to find the place that serves those pancakes.

Manderlay, Xanadu, and Fort Awesome

broderic on January 22, 2008

It’s saturday, and the Seed and I sitting in the dinner having breakfast. It’s bacon, eggs, coffee, and corn beef hash. We wonder if this will upset our stomach or make us have to use the bathroom before seeing the Hitchcock flick, Rebecca, down at the Charles. It’s from 1940 with Joan Fontaine and Sir Lawrence Olivier, and it’s an early Hitchcock from his move to Hollywood.

Joan Fontaine plays the second Mrs. de Winter married to Olivier’s Maxim de Winter brooding over the recent death of his wife. She stops him from jumping to his death in Monte Carlo. They meet cute later on and begin a romance. She falls for him, because of his worldly airs. She was as meek as a librarian, and she desperately needs him. He accepts her love, brings her to Manderlay, and lets her run the house. At Manderlay, she meets the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers who adored Mrs. de Winters I and loathes the second Mrs. de Winters. They test their strength of wills until the second Mrs. de Winters, defeated, makes it known that she’s now boss of the house. She overcomes Mrs. Danvers, learns of the reason for the first Mrs. de Winters death, and lives to relieve her husband of the guilt he felt over her death.

Joan Fontaine is cute in this one. She’s always cute (I find her irresistable in her next Hitchcock role in Suscpicion). I feel that she’s the ur-Hitchcock blonde, the original that gives meaning to the rest. She’s unlike the rest of the blondes in Hitchock’s oevre. She’s somewhat different because of her mousiness. I describe her as a librarian more so in Suspicion with her glasses. It’s something to think about as she’s occupies the place of Hitchcock blondes like Buffalo Bill’s original victim close to giving an insight to the director.

I didn’t think too much of this film when I saw it on DVD. Good but not as awesome as the director’s best. I think the ambiance of the Charles makes a difference in the viewing experience. You see it with lots of people. It becomes fun. And the film becomes even more better. I want to see more Hitchcock at the Charles.

4 of 5 stars.