Tag: review

This Means War came out around Valentine’s Day. I only got to watching it today, and while watching, I can see the trappings of why it was released as such. You have lots of action: things blowing up good, guns a’popping, and fists and punches thrown. That would bring in the male demographics. The fact that the men doing the action are the pretty boys, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy, would also bring in the ladies. The female demographic can also settle for it being some kind of love/relationship story. The marketing threads are so apparent for this movie that it is no wonder that they went for the bang on Valentine’s day.

The movie as much as it was marketed for the ladies spends much of the time with Pine and Hardy. They’re good buddies in the CIA after the deadly Jonas Brothers. After a botched (incompetent) opening, one of the Jonas Brothers was dead and the surviving one has vowed revenge. He’ll be important as the third part will have to resolve this part of the story.

Pine and Hardy after that incompetent opening are desk bound. They’re left to wonder about what to do. The slack in the story allows Hardy to go all emo and Pine to go all debonair. Hardy has a kid and an ex who doesn’t want a wimp as a lover. Pine has his fun chasing women. What he doesn’t have is a copy of the bro code. Hardy starts web dating and meets up with Reese Witherspoon’s character. She, as all female leads in rom-coms, is a successful entrepreneur who isn’t successful in her love life and has to rely on her wacky female friend to put up an entry in the internet dating site. Witherspoon and Hardy meet and hit it off, but soon after Pine bumps into her trying the pick her up. She goes out with both.

Pine, no matter how close he’s to Hardy, goes against the bro code once it is revealed that they’re now dating the same girl. He doesn’t yield to Hardy’s emo. He doesn’t respect his buddies choices. Instead he lets his girl-getting ego take over and challenges Hardy to her. Then they both end up using government assets to spy on each other to slow the other’s progress with Reese. Bro code be damned!

Nothing good will come out of a marketing driven movie. I can see all that they threw to attract both males and females to this movie. I couldn’t take it serious. This was a product meant to attract the most movie goers. It’s just that. Guns and love. Everything is nothing.

2 of 5 stars.

I’ve whooped it up at a couple of epic parties like the idiots in Project X. The best one was the 10th Floor around the world party at The U my freshman year. The one that ended up like the house in the movie was another around the world party at The U in my junior year when we demolished our floor and got our RA fired from a job he hadn’t even started yet. Epic parties — you can only handle a few in your life, but if you have an epic party be careful with it and don’t let the party get out of bounds like the one in the movie.

The movie purports to be a chronicle of some geek’s buddies making his 17th birthday day legen— wait for it — dary. The mastermind is an obnoxious New York transplant who keeps complaining about not getting girls like he did in NYC, but you find that hard to believe from a guy hanging out with those losers. There’s the chubby guy who is McLovin’ but not as dorky. Then there’s the birthday boy (I don’t remember any names) who agrees to a smallish party which escalates and escalates until it became legen– wait for it — dary.

One last part of the group was the birthday boy’s childhood friend that was a girl. You know that they should hook up, but childhood friends shouldn’t be a couple. Thought they remind of the anime trope of childhood friend. It could happen. It will happen. That’s how they make this movie not as obnoxious; someone learns something in the end.

The party was epic. If it had been real, it would’ve been truly insane. Hundreds of people. One small neighborhood. Tons of booze. Tons of drugs. Girls. Girls. Girls. A pool. Two DJs. A bouncy castle. A dog. Boobies. High school boobies. Middle school security guards. A taser. Hapless neighbors. Angry drug dealer. A gnome. All of it contributes to the insanity.

I don’t know whether to be scared of how crazy dumb that generation is or to be jealous of not getting to experience anything like that in my crazy dumb days. I missed the boobies.

One thing I noticed is that even though there was beer, liquor, sex, and drugs there were no cigarettes. NO SMOKING! In all that mayhem, there was not one cigarette onscreen. And if there was I missed it.

2 of 5 stars.

Even without the master, Hayao Miyazaki, at the helm, I was going to watch The Secret World of Arrietty because I am a fan of animation and of anime. So I found myself at the local nickelodeon for a Saturday matinée surrounded by a full house of parents and kids. I try to avoid the kiddy matinée, because the restless kids don’t make for a good movie experience. I had to ignore all the fidgeting and the fusty parents, and when I did I had a wonderful time.

Every time I watch a Studio Ghibli film, I am left to wonder how can a male dominated society like the Japanese produce wonderful animated films with realistic female leads. Pixar is just finally finished its first film with a female lead. Disney has its princesses and all that they connote and denote.

3 of 5 stars

The Iron Lady isn’t a sequel to Iron Man. I think I would’ve liked it better if it did feature Margaret Thatcher in an iron suit taking on the Argentinians in the Falkland War. That sounds more entertaining than what this movie ended up being.

Meryl Streep channels Maggie Thatcher. Except at times I was waiting for her to break character and channel Julia Child. It could’ve been a very good movie if I couldn’t tell which character she was playing. The young actress, Alexandra Roach, had the thankless task of playing the young Maggie Thatcher. People will talk about Streep. They should talk a little more about Roach. She won’t get any mention, but Streep will get a nomination. No idea why.

The problem with this film is that it didn’t give an idea of why Thatcher became who she was. Her dad was conservative. Did she get it from her dad? Why? Which part? No idea why she decided things. She just became Maggie Thatcher. The film also doesn’t touch on why she was the leader for that time. What did she do to make England better? The Falkland War? No idea. The film misses out on why she lost the backing of her party. Was she driven? Did she drive too hard? No idea.

At some point, we should understand who Margaret Thatcher was. It was Meryl Streep and that is all I got from the movie.

2 of 5 stars.

I’ve never been so on edge during a movie that had barely any action than I was during Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s a straight up action flick with no action, and yet surprisingly it will have you on the edge of your seat. It reminds me of the 1970s action with no action flicks which is fitting considering its setting, London in the early 70s.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy starts very opaque, fragmented, and hard to follow. The facts as they were: there’s a mole in the British spy agency and it’s up to Gary Oldman to find him. Oldman was retired from the agency because of his mentor’s screw up in his first attempt to find the mole. As his investigation proceeds, it all starts to make sense and the mole gets flushed out. If you don’t see it, you already know who it is.

I liked this movie. So far it’s been nothing but good films this year. Of course this is only the second one.

4 of 5 stars

EDIT: Misspelling! Damn Lion autocorrect!

The Artist has already picked up several Golden Globe nominations and will probably pick up more for the Oscars. You wouldn’t think a silent, black and white movie, in 4:3 aspect would garner this much accolades. You would be wrong. Just watch and try to hate it. You can’t. The packed house at The Charles the afternoon I saw it applauded in the end. It captivates. You won’t have another experience like it in the theatres for ages.

So why did I not warm up to it during the early parts of it? Was it the conceit was very twee? Was it that it felt too cute by half? Was it that I was analyzing it too much for its cinematic references? For its technical feats? For its historic accuracy? For its reasoning for being? For why I wasn’t smitten with it? No idea why I reacted funnily in its early going, but when they referenced Citizen Kane, I perked up and began to enjoy the movie. Then I was wholly charmed once I recognized Bernard Hermann’s score for Vertigo that underscored the rush to love at the end. The music put a big, big smile on my face, and it may have pushed the movie to being the best I’ve seen this year (as short as it has been).

The Artist is about George Valentin, a suave actor in swashbuckling silent films. It is 1927 and talkies are on their way, but Valentin doesn’t want to star in talkies. The audience came to see him rather than hear him. In promoting his latest film, he bumps into Peppy Miller. She gets captured in photos by the paparazzi. She enjoys it so much she auditions for a minor role in a movie. Her career is in bloom. She’s on the way to becoming a star of the early talkies. He’s on his way to becoming a forgotten, forlorn actor. His career fades and brings him to dispair. Only Peppy stands in his way of faded glory.

I’m a big fan of classic cinema, and The Artist was all about the old movies. I saw in the film many other classic movies. There was Singing in the Rain and Citizen Kane. There was L’Illusionniste (I know it’s recent, but I had the same French feeling) and Vertigo. The dog was straight out of the Thin Man series. It doesn’t necessarily harken back to silent movie’s like Hugo did, but it recalls classic early cinema.

Being a silent film, the actors had to mug it. Whereas Jean Dujardin plays the main character as a ham, Bérénice Bejo is sweet and sincere as the woman who falls for The Artist. I can’t express how smitten I was with her. She’s absolutely enchanting to look at in this film. She enhances the watching experience.

I think I can watch this film again.

4 of 5 stars.

I find my reaction to Young Adult similar to how I felt about Bad Teacher, but without the extreme revulsion. I was puzzled by the main character. I couldn’t like her. She was a nasty person, yet I still don’t know if I liked the movie or not.

Young Adult stars Charlize Theron at her most ugliest. Her character was described as a “psycho, prom queen bitch,” which is an appropriate appellation for her. It succinctly describes her personality. She’s believes her life to be stuck in neutral — divorced, work life as an author coming to a sad end. She needs to live, and she chooses to try and relive her past by going back home to small town Minnesota and steal her old boyfriend back. He has a new baby, but that doesn’t stop her. While in town, she bumps into an old classmate played by Patton Oswalt, who was horribly scarred in a bad beating during high school. They make a pair as she finds a person who is as damaged as she is. Eventually, the week at home unravels in a big embarrassing scene. She confronts her ex, and he pities her. She runs to her friend for comfort and finds that she should embrace her bitchiness.

I’m not sure if I should be happy or not that she goes back to being big city girl. She broke the grip of nostalgia, but embraced being bad. She is a psycho prom queen bitch.

Theron makes for the perfect psycho, prom queen, bitch. She can do haughty, that look in her eyes and her ice queen beauty, equates to crazy. Oswalt is his usual alternative, hipster, cool guy, geek guy self. Patrick Wilson as the former boyfriend makes due as a slightly clueless, hickish dude, who loves his wife, but doesn’t know what he got himself into with his former flame.

The film was a Jason Reitman film from a Cody Diablo script. I couldn’t tell. It missed the glib hiptserism of their previous collaboration, Juno.

I can’t say I liked the movie, but I can say I didn’t hate it.

3 of 5 stars