Tag: review

Watchmen is a movie. And it’s a comic book, or in a more haughty phrase, a graphic novel. It’s one hell of film though.

It’s an adaptation of one of the most revered comic books. It sticks to it very much. There’s a lot of talking. Not much action which is funny for a comic book movie. Yet, it was trying to capture what the comic book was all about.

Who was a hero? Rorschach, looking for the killer, but is too indebted to his honor system and world of good-bad, black-white, is done pretty well. The Comedian is plenty fascistic. The Night Owl finds himself grows from sad sack to kick ass. Dr. Manhattan and his blue organ blow shit up. Silk Spectre is pretty bad ass herself. Ozymandias is effeminate and cruel.

It’s a good movie I’ll admit, but I am a geek at heart.

The music was incongruous. It got in the way because it wasn’t period.

4 of 5 stars.

Selfish acts of self deception happen throughout The Wrestler. They are performed by Mickey Rourke in another come back role as the eponymous wrestler. These acts affect the woman he likes a lot and the daughter he doesn’t know. Rourke after a near death experience tries to fade away into a ignominious retirement reconciling with his daughter and falling into the arms of an old stripper, but it’s not him.

He can’t be what is not him. A lover? A father? An employee? Not at all, for the siren song of the square ring calls. He wants to be good, because he’s so lonely. Life outside the glorious and somewhat non-glamorous wrestling circuit beats him down. He was never meant to be anything but “The Ram” head-butting his way through his opponents. The ring makes him happy and any attempt to distance himself from it is just as fatal as returning to it. Lead a sad existence behind the deli counter or bask in adulation on the top turnbuckle? He must choose.

I liked this movie a lot for the wrestling. It reminded me of the days of the NWA and WWF when the wrestling federations were more regional and the stars battled with the nobodies. In the end, everyone is a nobody.

Rourke is good, but Marisa Tomei is fearless. She struts her stuff in a way that I don’t think any actress has done in a long while. It helps that she has a kickin’ body. These two ground a decent story and they’re diverging paths make it a little sad. Love may conquer all, but a “ram jam” always wins out.
4 of 5 stars.

Defiance is about a group of Russian jews that hid out in the forest during WWII defying Hitler’s extermination scheme.

I don’t have too much to say on this movie.

Watch it because it tells some sort of historical tale of heroes doing things to make it through terrible times. Don’t watch it because it is non-descript and will leave your memory once you leave the theatre.

3 of 5 stars.

I must apologize as to how late this post on Gran Torino has been. It’s not like I didn’t know what to say, and it’s not like I forgot. I’ve just not gotten around to writing up my thoughts on this film. Yet, I’ve seen another movie since then, and my queue of movie reviews must be serviced, so here comes the Gran Torino review as seen from a few weeks back.

Clint Eastwood takes his Dirty Harry character to its end: living in the run down neighborhood surrounded by dirty foreigners. He just hates everyone. How do you know? He says it constantly. “Get off my lawn!” His catchphrase in this movie. It’s just like Grandpa Simpson.

Eastwood finally learns to like some of the dirty foreigners when he helps the Hmong family avoid a bunch of Hmong roughnecks. He watches out for the kid and the sister before he helps them finally be free of their problem.

They couldn’t act. Neither could Eastwood. It wasn’t a great movie. It was serviceable. I don’t ever want to see it again though.

2 of 5 stars.

The Spirit is a boring movie, because it does most of the storytelling via dialogue. That’s amazing considering the stylistics that Frank Miller, the director, infused on the screen. He’s trying to recapture his Sin City with a dash of 300. Of course The Spirit isn’t his comic, but the eponymous Eisner award nominee, Will Eisnter. Did Miller do well in doing the story in his style? No.

It is a fascinating movie in the worst way. How did they blow this one?

First, I could care less about The Spirit. The 30s isn’t a time that is intriguing at the moment especially in these dull economic times, but a superhero ain’t even better. Second, once again with the stilted dialogue. I read it on the page, it sounds much better in my head, and it’s not as lame as it is being said on screen. Third, who the hell is The Spirit? Gabriel Macht? I don’t even know how to spell his name. For all I know he could be the dude who played the rocketeer. Finally, too much CG green screen. Sadly, it don’t look cool anymore.

One thing about the movie though, it’s got an all star cast (the spirit aside). ScarJo, bad mofo, that latin girl, all couldn’t spark anything with their star power. ScarJo in glasses though and as a Nazi.

Don’t watch this ever.

2 of 5 stars.