Tag: review

Snuck in a movie this weekend. I had almost forgotten. Identity Thief really is that forgettable. It’s like popcorn – light and forgotten. Funny parts and yet plenty of stupid moments.

Melissa McCarthy is a funny gal. She can do physical comedy like no one else. Jason Bateman is her perfect straight man. Together they brought some heart to the film. They complimented each other well.

Unfortunately, the film was rather flat. In an alternate time, it may have been a different movie. Their was two plot threads that came from this alternate universe. The first was a skip tracer chasing after McCarthy’s thief. The second was the Cuban mob after McCarthy. Why either of these were in the film only the original screen writer knows.

The rest of the story outside of these characters was rather nice. Surprising. It also had a heart which you could not see coming from some comedy.

Then you leave the theatre and almost forgot you watched it. We’ll be seeing this on FX soon.

3 of 5 stars.

Django Unchained is Quenton Tarantino’s spaghetti western. In a similar vien as Sergio Leone’s “Man with no name” trilogy, it follows bounty hunters, or as the English translation called them bounty killers. One bounty killer frees the slave, Django, and they go looking for more bounties. After they collect their bounty, they go after Django’s wife in Candieland.

I feel that this one is not as good as Inglorious Basterds. It was not as thrilling. Yet, in some scenes it would get good.

Overall, I don’t think this matches Leone’s spaghetti westerns. It’s just something different.

3 of 5 stars

The Impossible is a true story of a family’s survival of the Southeast Asian Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. The family scattered from the tsunami have to handle the havoc afterwards. That’s when the mother, seriously injured, had to undergo surgery while her kid sits and waits.

This film had the best CG effects I’ve ever seen. I could not believe that they were not in a tsunami. It was good and horrific.

3 of 5 stars.

You know I’ve had problems with Judd Apatow in regards to the length of his movies. They always feel 45 minutes too long. This Is 40 is no exception. You sit there and watch, the plot sort of rambles on and on about married white people’s problems, and you say, “This is a long movie.” IMDb lists the run time at 134 minutes, 2 hours and 14 minutes. Again, I say that comedies should be about 100 to 115 minutes long — laugh hard, laugh for a short time, then get out. Judd Apatow likes to go on and on. Shorten it, good sir, and you just may have something.

This Is 40 focuses on a married couple whose two birthdays occur in December. The wife believes she’s still a young bird. The husband is still a kid but with kids; acting like a kid acting like an adult. They have adult problems: difficult kids, difficult parents, marriage issues, money issues. Everything white people have. Also, most other people. This is forty for real.

The plot meanders quite a bit. Felt a little bit like a french nouvelle vague. One scene to another connected by the slightest thread of following this couple through their birthdays. Sprinkled in is handling the kids, and the parents, and the jobs. It’s just too real. Now there were chuckles to be had, but no guffaws. It’s a serious comedic meditation of getting older. I think we’re not ready for that just yet.

I already know about 40. Mine is different. Would it be the same with a wife and kids? It may be more hilarious.

3 of 5 stars.

The Guilt Trip is the kind of movie you watch with your mom on a lazy Saturday afternoon. It’s not offensive or embarrassing. It is an affirmation that we all love our mom no matter how crazy she makes us.

3 of 5 stars.

I’ve never read Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, so you can imagine my reaction watching the latest film version with Jude Law, Keira Knightly, and some fey guy playing the player. I hadn’t even checked out the wikipedia page.

And so, I wasn’t expecting all the tragedy as this one had. The only thing missing was how did she fall for him.

The conceit of this film was similar to the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. It was a “staged” version of the story. It had a backstage and a proscenium, stage lights and rafters. It was a play, and yet, it was still a movie. It took me few minutes to ignore it all, but it was a strange choice of staging by the director.

3 of 5 stars

I believe Lincoln was misnamed. The movie is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals; The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. As you can see, it wasn’t 100% about Abe Lincoln, but about the team he built to pass The Thirteenth Amendment. So when I walked into the theatre I was expecting a Lincoln biopic. What I got was a thriller, where Lincoln schemed and plotted and politicalled his way to abolishing slavery.

It’s a good piece of American history to watch in this election season. It reminds you that Republicans once had a soul. That we as a nation was so divided that it came to guns and cannons to solve our differences. It reminds you that politics is about being uncompromising in your beliefs, but compromising in your actions; bend don’t break for your beliefs is politics is politics.

We also get to hear two of Lincoln’s greatest speeches: the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. Those words adorn the Lincoln Memorial. You could love him for those words, a Republican. One of the greatest presidents, but one of the most dangerous.

We live in interesting times. Times that come back again. We don’t learn history. We repeat it.

3 of 5 stars.

Bond, Jason Bond. Or is it, Bond, Bruce Bond?

During the latest Bond adventure, Skyfall, you may think you’re in another installment of Jason Bourne: Die Another Day. Then later on you may think that James Bond is Batman. He’s an orphan with a big, big mansion. And a cave underneath! I’m Batman!

I’m not a big Bond fan. I’ve seen them all, because that’s what you have to watch on occasion. But I don’t try to figure it all out. Except, this latest installment was pretty good. Dark like The Dark Knight.

It is the prettiest looking Bond you’ll see, too. Give credit to Roger Deakins for his cinematography. The scene in the skyscraper in Macau was phenomenal.

And we get the Aston Martin to boot.

4 of 5 stars.

“We’ll face it all together at Skyfall.”

I think I should change my movie going approach. I believe I’m gonna have to be like the Seed and not listen to any reviews. I read a review over at The AV Club that mentioned The Incredibles in their review for Wreck It Ralph. I believed that going into the theatre I was going to be treated to as awesome an animated film as The Incredibles. Not really. Good but not great. Perhaps from reading the review and having The Incredibles in mind, my expectations for the film was too high. If I hadn’t read that review, I would not have been disappointed by a decent film.

Wreck It Ralph is about Wreck It Ralph, the villain of a Donkey Kong, Jr. ripoff called, Fix It Felix, Jr. He hates being the villain, because he gets no respect. He decides that being a bad guy is not for him and he wants to be a good guy. To accomplish that he believes that he must win a medal, and the only place to get it is in some other game than Fix It Felix, Jr. So Ralph goes and gets a medal, but also experiences other games especially a Mario Kart ripoff called Sugar Rush. Ralph must earn the respect to be worthy of a medal. He must learn that sometimes being bad is good.

There was plenty to like about Wreck It Ralph. For one thing, a lot of the playful homages to video games were subtle something that a Dreamworks animated film would beat over the audiences heads. You’ll laugh at the 8bit Niceland characters moving like 8bit animated sprites. You’ll want to play that level of Mario Kart that is Sugar Rush. You’ll also like to think that Vanellope Schweetz is Ellie from Up!. And if you stay to through the credits, you’ll hear Jpop in pure unadulterated form: AKB48 singing the theme to the Sugar Rush game. C’mon, Jpop!

Definitely one of the better animated films, but still no The Incredibles.

3 of 5 stars.

The Paperman short, now that’s another story.