 |
 |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
|
| Articles about Film Review |
| Fletch's Mini Film Review: Tropic Thunder | | 2008-08-27 11:49:00 | | Using the "Mini Film Review" designation this time as a mask and as a way of saying "here are some totally unstructured, poorly tied-together thoughts on Tropic Thunder." Hooray disorganization (double hooray made up words)!* First of all - seeing Tom Cruise having fun and turning off the intense-o-meter is a welcoming, funny change. Whether or not the role itself would be half as funny without Cruise, I leave for you to decide. One thing that was decidedly unfunny, though, was the "wild and carazy" love of hip-hop and dancing. Less offensive than just plain lazy, it showed a real weakness in the film's writing, where it was otherwise strong.* With that said, of course I found Matthew McConnaghey's role to be much more of a career booster and more interesting than Cruise's. It wasn't zany and didn't require that he wear a fat suit, but for a guy that has (despite being talented) become more or less a joke in recent years, it showed that he too could make fun of himself. Though I was sh | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Man on Wire | | 2008-08-25 08:00:00 | | After seeing Man on Wire, I find myself thinking it somewhat ironic (like rain on your wedding day, of course) that this summer has been dominated mostly by two "superhero" films - Iron Man and The Dark Knight. As it turns out, there's a nonfiction superhero movie, and it's playing right now at your local indie theater.Like all superheroes, Phillippe Petit has his flaws. Just as Batman and Spider-Man found themselves in the difficult position of pushing their loved ones away at the expense of their "duty," so too did Petit. Though his is not so much a duty as an obsession (a duty in his eyes, no doubt), the French funambulist saw news of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center being built in the late 60s and knew immediately that his destiny was to tightrope between them. Just as the comic book heroes battles' and secret identities cost them friendships and lovers lost, so too did Petit's fantastic dreams.Having already walked between the modest "towers" of Notre Dame in Paris an | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Dark Knight | | 2008-08-20 15:13:00 | | Let's see...it's the number two film of all time at the box office, every film critic and/or movie blogger in the world has written not just one but probably multiple things about it, I've seen it twice (opening night and again a week later)...and yet here it is a month later and I've yet to write a word about The Dark Knight.Unfortunately, I don't see myself coming up with anything brilliant and/or new to say about the film in the coming days, and I'm sick of seeing this post in draft mode, so what you see is what you get.Here is one reactionary comment, though: immediately upon the film's release, a number of people wondered aloud about its PG-13 rating, wanting to know how a film so violent could not be rated R (if not worse). I'm not sure if I saw the same movie as them. Outside of a gory (non-violent) half-face and a bunch of action that falls in line with other films with the same rating, the only scenes that really stood out for people were a) when the Joker hands a few thugs a | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
|
|
|
| Fletch's Film Review: Henry Poole Is Here | | 2008-08-16 18:08:00 | | By the time you read this, Mrs. Fletch and I will have long since forgotten what it was about. We saw the film in early April after we obtained tickets to a focus group screening. If you haven't attended one, it's basically the same as any other old screening, except that you are asked to fill out a questionnaire at the end ("Please, be brutally honest") and a few folks get to stick around to be part of the intense focus groups as part of a Q & A session.We weren't part of that lucky group (unlucky?), but I've been there before. Years ago, I got to be a part of that group for The Fifth Element (I told them that it was too slapsticky, amongst other things; they obviously didn't listen), and not too long ago, Mrs. Fletch and I were a part of one for Spanglish (ugh). For Henry Poole though, we just watched, wrote and left, and as it stated on the ticket prior to entry, anyone "involved with" movie news and/or reviews was not welcome. Since Movie Reviewing and I are casually dating, I | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Pineapple Express | | 2008-08-14 12:22:00 | | It's serendipitous that Step Brothers and Pineapple Express were released mere weeks apart. Aside from both being branded by the A-word (rhymes with Slapatow), both star a pair of adults playing "man-children."Oh wait - that part is nothing new to the Apatuniverse - they've existed all along. What really groups these two together is that in each we are shown a pair of men who are all too similar, but who aren't friends at the beginning for one reason or another. However, where Brothers was happy with pushing through the emotional connection that the brothers made with light speed ("You like these things? Me too! Let's be best friends now!"), Pineapple shows us the complexity that takes a casual business relationship (James Franco's dealer:Seth Rogen's user) and turns it into the all-too cliched "bromance."Rogen's Dale Denton has never liked the thought of "drug dealer as friend," and it's hard not to blame him. As Go pointed out years before, there are several intricacies to the dealer | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: American Teen | | 2008-08-12 11:39:00 | | "I do want as many people to see it as possible," Burstein said, "and I'm not approaching it with as much of a political agenda as more of an anthropological one. And I want to entertain people, I want to move them in the same way a fiction film would."That quote is from American Teen director Nanette Burnstein in a July 23 interview with the L.A. Times. It's funny that she says that, because that lack of an agenda, or really, of any story to tell, was what struck me the most about Teen. You might be saying, "that's exactly the point of a documentary" - to not have a story, but these days, it's hard to think of any documentary that doesn't either have a hard-line angle or agenda (Michael Moore) or at least document a specific event or set of events.American Teen merely documents. The premise? To follow around a group of five (really four, but more on that later) archetypal high school students - the poster says it all - for their senior year. And so the film flutters about from one to | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
|
|
|
| Fletch's Film Review: Swing Vote | | 2008-08-08 13:27:00 | | Just what is Swing Vote? Is it a satire on the election process and depths that presidential candidates will plunge to in order to win? Is it a character study of a New Mexican loser? Or it it a Capra-esque sap fest about the importance of the little man, giving us all an "I'm important, too!" ego boost?As you might expect, it's kind of all of those things, bouncing merrily from one to the next, being marginally successful at all of them while never excelling (for extended stretches) at any of them.Star Kevin Costner is right at home in the role of Earnest "Bud" Johnson, a small town New Mexican man that enjoys his Buds, fishing and NASCAR. Those who think they saw grown-up children in Step Brothers in the faces of Ferrell and Reilly will get a taste of a more real thing in Swing Vote, seeing the forty-something, divorced Bud get parented by his tween daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll, channeling not Ellen Page as so many have said, but Jena Malone) as he stumbles from bed to whatever e | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Step Brothers | | 2008-08-03 18:22:00 | | I'd like to pay someone, somewhere to conduct an experiment for me. I want to take the audience that I saw Step Brothers with, each and every one of them, and plop them into a theater to watch, say, the Arrested Development movie with me (if and when it comes out). The point of this experiment would be to see if they and I really have that much of a different sense of humor, or if they are just the type of people that laugh at everything.I'm dying to see the results. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not easily made to laugh at a sitcoms or comedic films. I can find things terribly funny and still not laugh a whole lot; a chuckle here and there, sure, but not the laugh out loud guffaws that I hear so often when I head to the theater. I'm not quite sure why this is: am I just too picky or are they just too easily amused? The ratio of them to me would surely suggest the former.Keep in mind that it's not just this film that could fit into this mold. Surely while watching Hot | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Conversation | | 2008-07-30 23:54:00 | | [Note: The Conversation is the LAMB's Movie of the Month. Head on over there to read a number of other takes on the film from literally millions of other bloggers. Maybe even billions. It might take you awhile to read them all, but it's clearly worth your time.]Gene Hackman is said to have more or less reprised his role of Harry Caul, the paranoid "surveillance technician" from The Conversation for 1998's Enemy of the State. The Will Smith-starring, Tony Scott-directing effort is a paranoid action thriller with a star-studded cast and a pulse of about 220. It starts with Smith's Robert Clayton Dean, a hotshot attorney, being the unwitting recipient of some incriminating data that the government (or rather, a few rogue secret ops types) is just dying to get it's hands on. In a very The Net-like fashion, Dean loses pieces of his life - home is tapped, credit bad, you name it.He is eventually directed to a mutual friend name Brill, played by Hackman. Brill, a surveillance expert an | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Mongol | | 2008-07-30 10:05:00 | | Part Gladiator, part 300 and part World History course, Mongol is a slow-moving yet interesting and educational drama about the youth and legacy of Genghis Khan. Telling a 900-year old story with little documented facts to go by, director Sergei Bodrov has constructed a taut, beautiful and sometimes brutal film that more than deserved its place among the Foreign Language Film nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards.Like the results of a miracle weight loss pill that you'd see hocked on TV, your experience with Genghis Khan might have been different than mine, but I think it's fair to say that anyone school in the United States is given a very limited view of 12th century Asia. Unless you specifically took some Asian studies courses in high school or college, you're probably in the same boat I was going into Mongol; my knowledge of Genghis could probably be best summarized as follows: warlord, killed lots of people, ruled Mongolia, was picked up by Bill & Ted for their history repor | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Hancock | | 2008-07-23 14:53:00 | | Most films like Hancock - blockbuster actioners - generally take somewhere in the neighborhood of nine months-one year to complete: three months of pre-production, three months of filming, and three months of post-production/effects work. Hancock technically is no different; filming started in July 2007, and there were re-shoots that too the production through May 2008 (thanks, Wiki). Why then, does the movie feel like it went from idea to finished product in the span of four months?Perhaps it's because the story was around for so long (written in 1996), and was no doubt molested by so many people over the years. Though, if that's the case - and it has to be - then why are there so damn many holes in the story?Hancock starts off good enough - a novel idea about a fallen superhero and his push towards redemption. There's probably a 24 episode sitcom's worth of material to be pulled from it, and the film begins well, with a child waking up the drunken Hancock, directing him to a situatio | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Mamma Mia Film Review | | 2008-07-21 02:25:54 | | Got a guilty pleasure for ABBA, musicals and the middle-aged gettin’ it on? Then Mamma Mia is a film for you.
If you’re still blissfully ignorant of the story line, let me enlighten you. There’s a girl and her mother living on a Greek island. In an effort to discover who her father is, the girl [...] | | By: London Frequently | | |
| | Fletch's Mini Film Review: War, Inc. | | 2008-07-15 10:40:00 | | John Cusack stars in this political satire about - stop me if you've heard this one before - an assassin struggling with the morals (or lack thereof) of his profession who meets up with a vivacious brunette who helps him change his ways. Sister Joan co-stars as his assistant, as does Dan Aykroyd and a number of black suits and skinny black ties.Joan and/or a number of others involved may wish to call this the unofficial or spiritual sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank, but I'd have preferred that they had just made a different film. That's not to say that War, Inc. is bad - it's not. It is, however, distracting, in an film that's just different enough in tone and target from Grosse, to share so many elements with the "original."Along the way, prepare yourself to either nod in agreement or shake your head in anger at the message dealt, depending on your political persuasion. There are laughs to be found, for sure, particularly from an audibly unrecognizable Ben Kingsley and from some clever k | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army | | 2008-07-12 02:31:00 | | Where so many before have gone wrong, Hellboy II gets it right. Then again, it borrows quite a bit from some of the great ones that came before, so...more on that later.
Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army is that rarest of beasts: the sequel that bests its predecessor. By no means does that mean that the original was bad, but is a testament to all the places where II goes right. | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Wanted | | 2008-07-10 16:16:00 | | Note: for this review, I'm going to channel my allergies into the ability to type coherent sentences. It's a power that my father had, and now I have it. I will use it to rid the world of typos and misspellings. With great power comes great responsibility.
Note two: I realize that note one won't make a lick of sense if you haven't seen Wanted. Sorry about that. I've still honing my powers as we | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Mini Film Review: The Promotion | | 2008-07-07 12:29:00 | | Steve Conrad's The Promotion is the Alexander Payne film that Payne never made. Only, had he, it would have most likely been a better film than The Promotion ended up being.
The Promotion has all the ingredients of your typical Payne film (Election, About Schmidt, Citizen Ruth): voice-over narration, quirky characters, Midwest setting (substituting the Chicago suburbs for Payne's usual Omaha), | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Wall*E | | 2008-07-02 01:51:00 | | Derivative, repetitive, and mostly boring, Wall*E has to be considered the most overhyped, overrated piece of garbage (pun intended) of the new millennium. Tugging at your heartstrings with Louis Armstrong, Hello, Dolly and shades of R2-D2 is no way to make a modern masterpiece, much less one swathed in eco-morals and romance between inanimate objects.
Ah, who am I kidding? (You, hopefully.) | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Get Smart | | 2008-06-25 17:35:00 | | Adam over at Counting Down the Hours recently learned that a review of his had been blurbed recently for an Australian newspaper. Despite the fact that he has in-roads to this based on some of the places he submits his reviews, this makes me jealous. So, in the hopes of getting myself noticed by Warner Brothers (Get Smart's distributor), I hereby present some potential blurbs I've specially | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Incredible Hulk | | 2008-06-19 15:40:00 | | (Note: spoilers abound. Enter at your own risk.)
Why......?
...is it that every time Bruce attempts to contact Mr. Blue, Mr. Blue is right there on the computer, ready and willing to type 200 wpm, save for the one time that Bruce and Betty require him not to be at his computer (when they visit him and oh-so-coincidentally meet him outside)?
...does Betty plead for Banner/Hulk to stop choking | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Fall | | 2008-06-16 12:10:00 | | The Fall has an interesting lineage. It was adapted from a 1981 Bulgarian film titled Yo Ho Ho by a trio of screenwriters - Tarsem (who also directed) from India, Nico Soultanakis (whom I can only assume is from Greece), and American Dan Gilroy. Gilroy's twin brother John is a film editor and his older brother Tony is the writer/director of Michael Clayton. The film stars American Lee Pace (TV's Pushing Daisies) and Catinca Untaru, an 11-year old girl discovered by Tarsem in Romania (the film was completed in 2006). On top of all that, it was shot on 26 locations in 18 countries, and is set in both California and in the imagination of the film's lead characters.Exhausting, no?The film clearly shows the effort and heart put into it by the involved players. Eschewing digital effects, Tarsem puts on a dazzling visual show that matches the beauty of his 2000 film The Cell, if not the darkness. Though it is plenty dark at times.The title refers to the actions that have placed the characters | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Roman de Gare | | 2008-06-11 16:21:00 | | It's Sunday night. Outside of The Fall, for which I have yet to write a review, Mrs. Fletch and I hadn't been to the theater much lately at all, both of us unimpressed by the output at the theaters in recent weeks. But we love going (and we love that Harkins popcorn), so I browse through the paper, scouring the ads to see what's playing and when. Unfortunately, we had no interest in seeing the latest releases (Zohan, Panda, SATC, etc.), and many of the indies out we had either already seen or weren't interested in. Three choices remained - movies that we had either not heard of or were painfully unaware of: Jellyfish, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, and Roman de Gare. We read the synopses, checked out the ratings the paper gave them (all about the same, if I recall correctly) and made our decision. Whether I'm becoming a sucker for French films or the quality as of late has been especially high (Paris, je t'aime, 2 Days in Paris, Persepolis, etc.), I'm not sure, but Roman de Gare | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | | 2008-05-28 12:22:00 | | Just yesterday, prior to seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I had a discussion with Anil Usumezbas of The Long Take regarding Spider-Man 3. Having just recently watched the final installment of that trilogy, he was a bit bewildered by the "hypocrisy surrounding the critics and fan circles regarding where they place [the] last chapter," going on to say that "isn’t it the same cheesy romance, one-dimensional drama, cartoonish characters, talentless Tobey Maguire and failed attempts to delve into the complexities of being a superhero?"Though he too didn't care much for Spider-Man 3 (he gave it 5/10 stars; I gave it a "Whatever."), he certainly has a point. As much as I disliked the film, as bloated and dumb as it was, at its core it still shared the same elements of the first two films. It felt like its predecessors. The same can be said for the much maligned Matrix sequels; retarded as it was (I care not that it was intended) to have the series travel in a big c | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Visitor | | 2008-05-08 17:26:00 | | Thomas McCarthy is a busy man. Having worked his way up the acting ranks, from a bit part in Conspiracy Theory to a regular role on Boston Public all the way to supporting turns in such high-class fare as Syriana and Flags of our Fathers, he took his time in becoming a writer/director, but showed considerable promise with the 2003 indie hit The Station Agent.He returns this years with what's setting up to be another indie hit in The Visitor. Clearly showing his past as an actor, The Visitor is an excellent character piece (but misses excellence overall) starring veteran character actor Richard Jenkins (spotlighted recently in this space).Jenkins plays Walter Vale, a lonely widower (is there any other kind onscreen?) teaching at a cushy Connecticut university. The thing is, Walter's not doing too much teaching these days, proffing but one class while spending the rest of his time appearing to be busy and taking piano lessons, a heartfelt reminder of his deceased wife.Some complications | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Iron Man | | 2008-05-05 10:11:00 | | If there's one thing I've learned about myself as it pertains to writing film reviews in the year and a half history of this site, it's that I don't like writing reviews for big blockbusters like Iron Man nearly as much as I enjoy writing about mid-range to small movies. It really has nothing to do with the films themselves or their potential to be critiqued, but rather due to a feeling I get as I mosey around to any number of other reviews for the film on blogs or newspapers or magazines.When something like the first big summer movie is released, there's a very good chance that a number of other bloggers are going to see the movie on its first day out. They are also going to review it, most likely within hours of seeing it (which I rarely can or do). I am also going to read it, though I don't like reading reviews before I write my own. It's entirely of my own doing, and is completely irrational, but there's something about reading so many opinions about a film and my thinking to mysel | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Priceless (Hors de Prix) | | 2008-04-29 10:41:00 | | When you're watching a movie and can't place where you've seen an actor from, is there anything more satisfying than hopping on the computer when you get home and getting the answer? I had another such moment this weekend while/after watching the Audrey Tautou-starring Priceless. Tautou stars as Anna Nicole Smith. Well, not really, but she might as well have been, playing the biggest gold digger this side of the deceased Texas belle (minus the psychological and pharmaceutical issues). Amongst the many men she seduces is an older, balding gentleman with a very prominent nose. I knew I had seen this guy before, but where?So I'm searching his filmography...sure, he's been in a lot of American films, some that I might have even seen, but nothing was clicking. Through the 00s...heading back through the 90s and still nothing. Finally, there it was. Here's a big hint - a picture of the man either in the role I was thinking of or just one where he has the same outfit on:I never would have come | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Smart People | | 2008-04-24 12:08:00 | | Smart People is a piece of cinema seemingly crafted by obtuse individuals. Despite featuring a strong screenplay by greenhorn writer Mark Poirier, the leadership by fellow neophyte director Noam Murro lacks imagination.Dennis Quaid stars as a boorish Victorian English professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. We know he is an insolent soul because he parks his Euro sedan (a Snaab, if I recall) in two spaces. Apparently, his spouse expired some inordinate length of time ago, and he sees this as an opportunity to be cantankerous for his remaining days. Around the time of our introduction, his lazybones con man of an hermano (adopted, by the way) enters the picture, in need of some duckets and perhaps a domicile. Already cohabiting with Quaid's Lawrence Wetherhold is his conformist conservative adolescent daughter, played by Juno's Ellen Page. She is wholly independent, too intelligent for her own good, and altogether miserable, lacking popularity, gentleman callers, and an adequate home l | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | | Fletch's Film Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall | | 2008-04-24 01:32:00 | | You know that post I made a months weeks back where I preemptively declared that "Ellen Page sucks," just so that I'd be ahead of the curve? Let's put it this way - if I put up another that said "Judd Apatow sucks," I'd be about six months behind the pack.It's funny how overexposure can turn the brightest success stories into major annoyances for some. I'll admit - the usage of the phrase "brought to you by the guys from..." isn't the best way to market a movie, but it's used probably because it works pretty well. Unfortunately, it sets up this scenario where every work is compared to the work that was previously "brought to us" by the same makers.So, blogs and message boards and SOCIETY IN GENERAL are currently crammed with opinions ranging from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall is worse than X, but better than Y" to "X makes Sarah Marshall look like Beaches."I realized that for most people (and myself), we aren't sick of Judd Apatow, or of films brought to us in some way, shape or form b | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | | Fletch's Film Review: Street Kings | | 2008-04-17 00:48:00 | | At one point during Street Kings, the character played by Keanu Reeves tells his girlfriend to get away from him, as "everything [he] touches dies." If only Reeves has read that line in the script and heeded the warning.Reeves plays Tom Ludlow, a Vice detective in L.A., the setting and occupation of almost all of director David Ayer's works. Ludlow is a miserable man, trudging through the grind of nabbing villains while his personal angst (and alcoholism) grows, as he's a widower who kind of hates his job. If only he weren't so good at it! Ludlow's boss, Captain Jack Wander (Forrest Whitaker), dotes on his star detective, especially after the strong opening sequence that features Ludlow deep undercover battling some baddies. But when it's revealed that Ludlow might not be completely true blue, as it were, Wander comes to the rescue, using his connections to assist his troubled friend.But there's just more trouble around the corner. Tom's former partner, it seems, has been talking | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Run Fatboy Run | | 2008-04-09 17:09:00 | | I mean no pun intended when I say that Run Fatboy Run starts you off on the wrong foot. You see, when you have a schlub that ditches anyone (much less Thandie Newton) at the altar, it's hard to feel for them later. Granted, the film is about nothing if not redemption and forgiveness, but perhaps a little "get to know ya" before showing the character metaphorically kicking a dog isn't the best way to gain an audience's trust.That, however, is probably the least of Fatboy's problems.Considering the writers behind it, Fatboy should have been a smartly written comedy. Star/writer Simon Pegg and co-writer Michael Ian Black have nothing if not a great track record, including Black's Stella and The State, and Pegg's Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. However, one can't help but think that a sitcom veteran like director David Schwimmer is responsible for making the movie feel so...sitcom-y. It's full of pratfalls and cartoonish characters, and though it's hard to expect full-fleshed characters, i | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Stop-Loss | | 2008-04-08 23:26:00 | | Chances are good that you're not looking for any more Iraq War-themed films, but if you were to look for one that pretty adequately sums up my feelings on the conflict, while still not being a great film, this might be the one.Unlike In the Valley of Elah, which had a firm, unmissable message, Stop-Loss is a bit all over the place. It knows one thing for sure - being stop-lossed sucks - but can't seem to make up its mind (or really even come to any conclusions) in regards to the hows, whys, and shoulds of the ongoing conflict.Ryan Phillippe plays Brandon King, a soldier that, soon after being engaged in a deadly conflict that he led, is sent home to Texas, as his duty is complete. But of course we know that that isn't the case, as he will be called back by Uncle Sam in an effort to keep the area staffed with soldiers.The thing is, he wants no part of going back. He's seen enough, he knows his life is at risk, and he just wants to stay put in America. Instincts take over and soon en | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Horton Hears a Who | | 2008-03-31 10:21:00 | | Unlike most animated tales in which the story leads up to a big fuzzy moral at the end, Horton Hears a Who is all morals, with a story that kind of dances around it. The beauty in this one, though, is that what those life lessons are - what the kids and/or adults are meant to glean from it - is left somewhat open to interpretation.When the titular elephant finds that he is the only one that can hear a community of Whos on "a speck," the reaction from those around him ranges from disbelief to dismay to dissatisfaction to destruction. But what is it, really, that Horton (and Dr. Seuss) is eager to protect, and what is it that the "evil" kangaroo is so eager to be rid of? Is it religion? Unborn babies? Little people? Well, that's up to you.Either way, the film provides a fun ride, and expands to movie form just fine, with a back story given to the Mayor of Whoville and his family that teaches the kiddies some additional lessons (it's okay to be different, etc) along the way. The attempts | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Atonement | | 2008-03-30 18:08:00 | | This is the first of two reviews that I'm posting more of less just for posterity's sake. This first one I've been procrastinating for months now, and the second I feel I would procrastinate for months, so I'll just get that out of the way and put something up shortly for it. These will be very small, and it'd probably be best if we all pretend they just didn't happen (kinda like Verne Troyer).Joe Wright's Atonement starts with a frenzy of sound; the tapping of a typewriter, mirroring the actions of one Briony Tallis, who has resorted to play writing in an effort to escape the doldrums of living in a giant manse with nothing to do but play with her bizarre cousins. She has the mind of a dreamer and is just smart enough to get herself and those she knows in trouble, particularly when she spies something and misinterprets what she's seeing. This imagination is one that will cause a ripple effect of damage to those nearest and dearest to her.Director Joe Wright has a keen eye for vi | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Drillbit Taylor | | 2008-03-24 17:28:00 | | Now, the usual gig here would entail my coming up with some clever tie-in, followed by a straight review of the film at hand. However, I hardly think that's necessary, given the film. In case you're sleeping under a rock (in which case you're probably not sleeping too well), Drillbit Taylor has been (rightfully) compared, by just about everyone, to producer Judd Apatow's production from roughly six months ago, namely Superbad. The only differences are that, aside from having the titular "bodyguard" Taylor (played by known tough guy Owen Wilson), the three high schoolers this go around are a few years younger, and the movie is not as funny (to how much of a degree depends on who you talk to). At this rate, not only is overexposure a potential upcoming hazard, but apparently, with his casts getting younger and his movies not as good, he's also two years away from producing Look Who's Talking 4: Preschool Geeks in Love. I weep for the future.That said, Drillbit probably isn't as bad as yo | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Penelope; Chaos Theory | | 2008-03-17 08:29:00 | | A couple of capsulized reviews to get me caught up...PenelopePenelope is the Tim Burton movie that he never made. Not only is the plot vintage Burton (cursed family gives birth to girl with the snout and ears of a pig), but it co-stars Beetlejuice vet Catherine O'Hara and Sleepy Hollow vet Christina Ricci (rounding out the cast are James McAvoy, Richard Grant, Peter Dinklage, and a bit-parted Reese Witherspoon).Despite the do-gooder fairy tale moralizing (love yourself and others for who they are, kids), the film has its charms and laughs, and McAvoy and Ricci even show some solid chemistry together. The sets, costuming and art direction are vibrant and eye-catching, from Penelope's out-there wardrobe to the imagined metropolis they live in, a mashup of New York, old London and an amusement park. Making my day even more was another solid role for Dinklage, who has established himself as a great character actor, and a hip soundtrack, featuring a tune from one of my favorite bands (De | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Foreign Film Review: All About My Mother | | 2008-03-16 12:12:11 | | Few things are more powerful or influential than a relationship between a mother and a child. A good relationship can be tremendously rewarding and a bad one can leave both of you limping through life. Why is the bond so powerful? Your mother is your first encounter with life, with nourishment, and with survival. All foods, emotions, drinks, and medications a pregnant woman has during pregnancy become the body and mind of the baby. In the womb, everything a mother does directly influences the child she is creating. No wonder a mother's child grows up to scrutinize and evaluate every single move she makes. The child is still thinking that what his or her mother does directly influences their life intensely.Literature and film abound with explorations of just who a mother is. A mother is always an enigma. The 1999 Spanish film "All About My Mother" starring Cecilia Roth and Penelope Cruz explores the intrigue of who a mother really is in a very creative way.The acting is excellent, | | By: Famiss - Women's Success Literature & History | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Bank Job | | 2008-03-08 02:36:00 | | I'm a fan of heist movies. Some, like my wife, might say that I'm a sucker for them, and they (she) would probably be right. They are to me what Jerry Bruckheimer's films must be to millions of people - (somewhat) mindless flicks that manage to entertain regardless of their quality.As for The Bank Job? It is quite possibly the most average movie ever made. Telling the "true" story of a group of Londoners recruited to snatch some loot by the British Secret Service (it's a long story), this film manages to mildly entertain you, but is one that you will most likely forget within hours of watching. There is little-to-no character development (though that's not typically a strong point for this genre, anyway), the heist itself is indubitably straightforward, as is the story, which takes almost no twists and turns. By that account, you might assume that the producers were indeed true to history, but I don't know how much that helps the film.Also missing is just about any sense of style | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: In Bruges | | 2008-03-05 14:29:00 | | Two London-based hitmen head out to do a job. Something goes awry. Their penance? Spend two weeks in Bruges (Belgium), lay low, and await further instruction. Sounds simple enough, right?Not so fast. As it turns out, Ray (Colin Farrell) is not too fond of quaint, sleepy towns lacking in an adequate nightlife (or day life, one could suppose). So there's one problem. Meanwhile, his partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is quite taken with the Belgian hamlet famous for its historic, medieval city center, complete with an impressive bell tower and the Church of the Holy Blood, which is said to have a vial of blood from none other than Jesus himself. And while their tastes for tourist activities may differ, that pales in comparison to the wants and needs of their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), who just insists that the two not make a peep and sit tight until he calls, and should they miss his call...well, that's a whole other story. Let's just say Harry's a bit of an "'orrible c*nt," to use their slan | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Be Kind Rewind | | 2008-02-27 01:03:00 | | I have blinders on, but I'm okay with that.See, despite its faults, I can't help but love Be Kind Rewind, the fifth film from Michel Gondry. Though it lacks the impact of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or the dreaminess and worldliness of The Science of Sleep, Rewind more than makes up for it with innovation, creativity and heart bursting from its dilapidated sleeves. I know, I sound kind of like a Hallmark card. I admit it - there's something about the 45-year old Frenchmen that is infallible to me.The movie starts off slow - Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) are New Jersey ne'er do wells living in a dying city just outside of Manhattan. Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) runs the local video store, and by video, I mean VHS. It's a run-down store on a run-down block in a run-down city, located right across the street from the local junkyard that Jerry inhabits. When Mr. Fletcher leaves town, he entrusts Mike to run the store for him while he's away. Meanwhile, Jerry, who is | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Vantage Point | | 2008-02-24 12:31:00 | | Rashomon. There - it's been said, and I can move on.Anyway, Vantage Point takes a not-so-novel concept - telling a story from several points of view - and really doesn't do much with it. The plot centers on an anti-terrorism summit taking place in Spain, where the U.S. President ("Ashton") is set to speak. On the scene are hundreds of Spaniards, scads of media, the Secret Service, tourists, and of course...terrorists. It's no spoiler to tell you that the President (William Hurt) gets shot, and almost even less of a spoiler to tell you that it's really not the President (POTUS) that gets shot, but his body double.Letting that detail out in the trailer for the film was just the first of many mistakes made by the studio/producers, seeing as how it's one of two big twists in store for the viewer, and really, the bigger of the two. I guess that just goes to show the lack of confidence that was given the picture after the final product was delivered.The film starts out pretty good, putt | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Strange Wilderness | | 2008-02-08 20:42:00 | | Rescue Dawn. Superbad. Supertroopers. God forbid - even Fletch?What do these films have in common, you ask? Well, by virtue of having their stars or co-stars (Steve Zahn, Jonah Hill, Kevin Heffernan and Joe Don Baker, respectively) appearing in Strange Wildnerness, they all feel somewhat tainted to me now (lucky for Ernie Borgnine, The Single Guy was never good to begin with). I can confidently say that Strange Wilderness will be the worst movie I will see this year. I can only hope that you don't make the same mistake, or have already (Wayward Jam from Reel Whore already has, but his take is gentler than mine).The truth is, the films of those that appear in Wilderness (this being a Happy Madison production, Adam Sandler vets Allen Covert and Peter Dante join the ride, as does Justin Long) aren't tainted, but the stars certainly are. I'd say they were selling out, but with the lo-fi, sad production values, I can't imagine the budget for this was much more than a couple hundred b | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Persepolis | | 2008-02-04 11:23:00 | | I walked out of Persepolis wildly disappointed. Shocked. Speechless. I wish I could say it was because I had seen a bad movie. That would be easy.This was much harder.How can such a strong movie end so poorly? Was there a problem with the theater - did the reels get mixed up? A snafu in the editing room? Was it just me?Obviously, I don't want to give away too much about a film, especially the ending, in a review, but to say the film lacks a cohesive ending is putting it gently. Strangely, I'm thinking that it really must be just me, as neither Mrs. Fletch nor any of the (admittedly few) reviews that I've read have made mention of this, which baffles me.But that's probably just due to how highly I thought of everything that came before it. Marjane Satrapi's biographical novel come to life is highly personal yet extremely accessible. Ostensibly her life story up until now, Persepolis walks you through the trials and tribulations of a young Iranian girl, from appoximately age 10 to 35. Sa | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Cloverfield | | 2008-01-30 11:07:00 | | What is left to be said about Cloverfield? I've read probably 20 reviews since it was released a week and a half ago, and they're all right in one form or another. Some have praised it as a visceral moviegoing experience, an allegory for 9/11 and the birth of a new form of cinema. Others have claimed it to be nothing more than an idea, a shell and sham of a movie created by marketers, complete with bad acting, bad judgement by the characters and a frustrating third act.To which I say: yes. Cloverfield is all these things. People are reading too much into it, looking for answers where there lies only more questions, creating a mystery where there isn't really one to be had. But that's the point, of not only being a fan but of being creator J.J. Abrams, right?Just as its cinematic predecessor The Blair Witch Project did with the ghost story, Cloverfield starts as nothing more than a simple (but brilliant) idea: what would a monster movie look like through the eyes of the people running f | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Cassandra's Dream | | 2008-01-27 23:13:00 | | Woody Allen's latest London-based family drama (see Match Point) stars Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as a pair of lower-middle class brothers (because they look so much alike) trying to make their mark on the world. As their mother says, Farrell's Terry is the athletic one and McGregror's Ian is the brains; Ian splits his time between managing his father's restaurant and borrowing Jags from the garage Terry works at to impress the ladies. Ian is constantly chasing pipe dreams, from romancing an actress to investing in California hotels. Terry, meanwhile, is content to be the mechanic he is, provided that he's able to support his gambling problem - he's partial to the dogs and the poker table, and he capable of some mighty streaks, both winning and losing.We first meet up with the brothers just prior to one of Terry's winning streaks, as they prepare to negotiate the purchase of a small boat. After said streak (and a pocketful of pounds), the boat is theirs; it is fittingly named Cass | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Mini Film Review: El Orfanato (The Orphanage) | | 2008-01-21 09:50:00 | | Juan Antonio Bayona's feature debut is a haunting fantasy (the horror label hardly applies) presented by the reigning rey (español for "king," gringos) of haunting fantasies, Guillermo Del Toro. It's punctuated by strong performances by all, and a story sprinkled with a little Never-Neverland dust that lends it some magic, and some very real human concerns (HIV, um, oprhaned children) that lend it some depth. A moody thriller with a great twist, this one should have you thinking about it long after you leave the theater - just don't think about the inevitable American redux starring Sarah Michelle Alba...Fletch's Film Rating:"It's in the hole!" | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: There Will Be Blood | | 2008-01-14 09:33:00 | | How much of what we perceive as great acting comes from our previous knowledge of the actor? Should we be truly shocked that Brits and Australians and the Irish regularly dominate the Academy Award nominations for acting? Would that it could be possible to juxtapose Daniel Day-Lewis with an American in There Will Be Blood - would we feel as strongly about his performance knowing that the accent used isn't much of a stretch?These are but some of the thoughts that ran through my mind after seeing Paul Thomas Anderson's latest. Make no mistake, Daniel Day-Lewis is a force to be reckoned with; I just wonder, if he made eight films in 10 years rather than four, or was from Kansas rather than London, would we think less of his performance? Also, how much influence is thrust upon us by the tales of his immersion into the characters that he plays?Looking as objectively as I can, in the end, the answers I come up with to all these questions tell me that we most likely would feel the same way, that we would be no less impressed by the performances given had they been done in his native tongue (in a manner of speaking) or were done with no preparation. But that's not to say that the media and the facts don't color our perception.It's hard to see that it matters much in this case. Simply put, Day-Lewis owns the screen, whether in a fit of rage or silent as a mouse. He's given plenty of meat to chew on - Daniel Plainview will be compared by many (for years to come) as a character in line with Citizen Kane, all ambition and greed, with no time for the concerns of the common man, and even a distaste for them. There is no end to his determination, and he uses the smallest slight against him, just as Michael Jordan once did, seeing insults where there were none and thus fueling his fire that much more. What's most impressive is that Day-Lewis does not rely upon demonstrative histrionics to show us all this; it's right there in his eyes the entire time.Somewhat unfairly lost | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's (Mini) Film Review: The Savages | | 2008-01-12 16:04:00 | | (Editor's note: this movie really deserves a better review, but it's getting a mini one for a few reasons. First, it's been a couple weeks since I've seen it and I want to get something down before the freshness goes away, and second, I'm getting behind on reviews as other posts pop into my head and I place priority on them. So, I apologize to The Savages for not giving it the review it deserves. I suck. Thank you.)Tamara Jenkins' first feature, 1998's Slums of Beverly Hills was a (great) comedy about a family that was poor financially but rich socially. They might have been forced to move from "luxury" apartment to apartment in and around Beverly Hills in their facade of upper middle class-ness, but their foundation never foundered. They loved and cared for each other, and it showed.With her latest feature (what took so long?), The Savages, we find a family that might have WASPy intellectual children, but they are bankrupt when it comes to family values. Though brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and sister Wendy (Laura Linney) are close, they haven't spoken to their Sun City residing father in years, and their mother (though alive) doesn't seem to be in the picture at all. So imagine their dismay and confusion when the siblings are called to Arizona to look after their dementia-ridden father, who can't take care of himself and doesn't have the means or the know how to get someone else to do it for him. Thus begins a journey that none of them wanted to take, filled with struggles over responsiblity and maturity that even "kids" in their forties aren't ready to handle.It almost goes without saying that the acting is stellar. Neither Linney nor Hoffman seem capable of giving a bad performance at this stage in their careers, and they play quite well with each other, even when they're fighting. Meanwhile, Philip Bosco, as their father Lenny, is alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking.The film is a roller coaster of emotions, finding humor in | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Sweeney Todd | | 2008-01-07 00:21:00 | | Just in case you didn't get enough of Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew and Beatrice the Strange Trix Rabbit, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter and the guy that played Peter Pettigrew are reunited in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. I guess bad things happen when every halfway known British actor ends up with a role in the Harry Potter series - you can't help but have a gang of them in every film set in London.(By the way, Timothy Spall is the guy that plays Peter Pettigrew. Just in case you thought I was slacking.)Anyway, Sweeney Todd. From the moment the credits start, you already feel like you're watching the sequel to Sleepy Hollow, with some of the roles combined and some singing and dancing thrown in just for the hell of it. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just hard to miss. Outside of a few scenes, everything is not just grey, but grrrrrreeeeyy. Though Burton is well-liked and respected by many (myself included), maybe it's time to stop telegraphing emotion via the color palette. At least the screen doesn't turn red when someone gets mad or blue when they're sad. But it's not outside of the realm of possibility.The story is a juicy one - revenge at its most pure, with a naive barber losing his wife and child to a twisted, evil judge (Rickman), then being sent away to prison, adding insult to his injury. He returns with a single purpose - find the judge, kill him and get his daughter (now grown) back. Along the way, he finds that his home is being lived in by a kindred spirit (Bonham Carter) who is more than willing to help him achieve his goals.The casting is excellent across the board, though I had some initial doubts when Sacha Baron Cohen was onscreen sounding a lot like Borat. However, that trepidation wore off and I ended up wishing he had a larger role. Newcomer Ed Sanders steals just about every scene he's in, playing an orphan named Toby who at first works as an assistant to Cohen's Signor Pirelli, only to later cling to Carter's Mrs. Lovett l | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's (Mini) Film Review: Juno | | 2008-01-03 10:49:00 | | At first, you might think you're watching Napoleona Dynamite. There's our heroine Juno, standing in a random yard, staring at some furniture. "It all started with a chair," she says, though that's really neither here nor there. Then the opening credits roll. Cue funky-indie song played over a now-animated Juno, making her way across town with a gallon of Sunny D and some Dynamite-like font showing you the players' names. Follow that with some hipster dialogue, home skillet, then skedaddle on over to Juno's house, where she can use her hamburger phone (is this 1982 or 2007?) to chat up her BFF.Let's just say the first 15 minutes had me worried.Luckily, not long after that quarter-hour mark, the film stops trying to impress you and focuses on its characters and story. Thank god, for there are indeed some great characters (and character actors) here, and the writing and story are bound to pull you in as well. Ellen Page builds on her Hard Candy success as the titular wisecracking (and somewhat wise in general teen), Michael Cera cracks me up by doing things that are probably well-rehearsed but appear innate, and J.K. Simmons does awesome work (as always) as Juno's dad. However, the performance that might shock everyone the most is the one belonging to Jennifer Garner, appearing initially to be some sort of Bride/Mommy-zilla, only to wow not only Juno but the audience as well in a more complex and heartbreaking role. Fletch's Film Rating:"It's in the hole!" | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: National Treasure: Book of Secrets | | 2008-01-02 07:36:00 | | It was New Year's Eve. We wanted to see a movie, but neither Charlie Wilson's War (too...plastic?) nor The Kite Runner (too depressing) seemed like good choices. We wanted to see something silly and dumb, it being a festive night and all. First, we decided to see AVP-R, having thought the first one was decent enough, but after skimming some reviews, we decided against it. The only logical choice left? You guessed it - we would become part of the problem, supporting an evil Nic Cage vehicle.I didn't feel too bad, though; after all, you know what they say about keeping your enemies closer and all that. And I'd done a lot of that recently, having caught bits and pieces of The Wicker Man on cable over the past few weeks. Let me tell you (spoiler!), it's devilish fun watching him do the slow burn then get slowly burned - if only every performance ended that way. But then...Sweet, sweet redemption! We buy our tickets, get our drinks and popcorn, then head to the theater. Wait a sec - theater number six? That's showing P.S, I Love You! National Treasure is playing in theater number one. [Look at our tickets again.] The tickets are indeed for P.S., I Love You. That means that the dude that sold us our tickets pressed the wrong button. That means we didn't support the enemy! Sit on that, Cage!Oh yeah - the film review. Well, it's not like it deserves much analysis. It's enjoyably stupid, much like Transformers was, but you're liable to hurt your brain if you think too much about it. It's actually (wait for it) better than I thought it would be, and in many ways, better than the first movie. Unlike many (stupid) sequels, it doesn't try to wildly outdo itself with more chases or bigger smashes - it relies on its story and characters to keep its appeal. That said, it's more or less the exact same movie over again - and it's not like the first one was all that great to begin with. Sure, treasure hunts are fun, but with so little unchanged, the only reason to see th | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story | | 2007-12-27 07:36:00 | | Overanalysis of a film like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is not only unnecessary but repetitive, as the makers of the film seem to have done enough analysis as it is, mining Ray and Walk the Line practically line by line for material. The funnier thing is that Walk Hard manages to almost be a better movie than either of its sources.No, that's not blasphemy. As great as the performances by Jaime Foxx and Joaquin Phoenix were, the films themselves were solid, honest (at least they felt that way) and, oh yeah, completely by-the-numbers, unimaginative and very VH1-like. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed both of them, but I'll take Walk Hard over either of them any day of the week. That might sound somewhat obvious, as comedies traditionally have a much higher rewatchability factor than dramas (especially depressing ones), but it's a bigger compliment than that.Many are calling Walk Hard a "parody flick" - something that belongs in the category of the Scary/Date/Epic Movies of the world. But as it turns out - that's a tremendous insult, however much you might like any of those movies. I don't know if it can at all or in some part be attributed to budgetary reasons, but Walk Hard feels like a much more professional work than any slapped-together compilation of dumb jokes poking fun at Lord of the Rings or The Blair Witch Project - Hard stays true to its subject matter, not straying (much) for long stretches from its source material. Also, overlooked (in those other flicks) parts of the production such as costumes and makeup shine here - when John C. Reilly's Dewey is a senior citizen, you'd scarcely know that Reilly himself wasn't a septuagenarian. The makeup is just that damn good. An odd thing to laud for a silly comedy, but I was amazed at how much it stood out to me as well.It didn't hurt that the film was pretty damn funny, too. Though it relies heavily on the magical comedic rule of three (or more), even the most repetitious of jokes still play as | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: I Am Legend | | 2007-12-23 15:17:00 | | There's a book-to-film adaptation out in theaters right now that has some people up in arms. It takes place in a world like ours, but not quite. It has an ending that's is alternately seen as confusing and frustrating. It features an animal in one of the main roles.But I reviewed The Golden Compass a few days ago. (Like you didn't see that one coming.)The truth is, there doesn't seem to be nearly as many people upset about the adaptation of I Am Legend as there are about Compass. This could be because either not many people have read the book or because those that have barely remember it (it was first published in 1954). However, I think this is more due to the fact that the movie has almost nothing in common with the book. As I read and have seen, this movie shares its lineage more with Cast Away and 28 Days Later... than it does with the story of a man who hunted vampire-like beings in mid-70s Los Angeles.Not that that should matter much, except maybe to the book's author, Richard Matheson. The film stands up pretty well on its own two feet, thanks largely in part to the charisma of Will Smith. Though he has more to work with than Tom Hanks ever did (who was stuck with only a volleyball to bounce lines off of), Smith is one of the few stars I can think of in today's Hollywood that can not only hold the screen alone (mostly) for 90 minutes, but keep you more than entertained and wanting even more. You heard right - this is the rare blockbuster that left me wishing it was 30 minutes longer; with a 101 minute run time, there were a number of places the filmmakers could have gone with the story or holes that could have been filled.It's not all wine and roses, though. I Am Legend has a number of problems, the most prominent of which is the undercooked yet overdone "infected" humans. With CGI quality echoing that of a PlayStation 2 game, you are immediately taken out of the movie every time they appear on screen. More vexing, though, is their behavio | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Golden Compass | | 2007-12-20 14:14:00 | | Stealing a page from the brilliantly simplistic Review in Haiku, I present to you my Golden Compass review in 17 syllables. RIH is so detailed with it's commitment to simplicity that I am awed. There are but five grades (Awesome, Good, Okay, Bad and Awful) given. The post tags don't exceed two - the year (or decade for pre-2000 films) and the grade. The "reviews" are the obvious 17 syllables, a picture and a grade. That's it, every time. Gimmicky? Sure. But it's awesome, and I only wish I had thought of it first. Anyway, here's The Golden Compass:"Where is double O?No religion ruckus herePolar bear fight rocks."Fletch's Film Rating:"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you." | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: American Gangster | | 2007-12-18 12:03:00 | | (Ed. note: Procrastination tends to build on itself, and that is surely the case here, as I've been sitting on this review for some time now. Fact of the matter is, I don't have a lot of thoughts regarding American Gangster, so take from that what you will.)American Gangster is a good movie. No more, no less, really. Though it has little to do with the film itself, I was bothered by the fact that Russell Crowe and Denzel Wasginhton spend less time onscreen together than DeNiro and Pacino did in Heat - a faux pas that can be blamed on either the media or the marketers. The lack of shared screen time doesn't hurt the film terribly, but it certainly hurts its appeal, as what we instead get is a game of cat-and-mouse, with the bulk of the storytelling focusing on the mouse (Washington), Frank Lucas.Lucas is an interesting choice for a movie character. Though the title and some of the press would have you believe this to be a Scarface-like characterization for the ages, it's really the lack of bravado and violence that sets him apart from your typical mafia-like overlord. Lucas was a professional in almost every sense of the word - smart, calculating and fully aware that showy behavior would put him on the front burner for the cops trying to find out just who was bringing in the large amounts of uncut cocaine to New York - he was the anti-bling before bling was a word. (On a sidenote, Lucas was brilliant with this move, going to Asia to get his supply direct from the source, getting the best product he could provide to his customers while at the same time cutting out the middle man, and therefore his costs.)Contrasting Lucas is Richie Roberts, the detective played by Crowe. While Lucas is the criminal who looks and acts like a businessman, Roberts is the cop who (by virtue of his being uncorrupted) lives his life more like that of an ex-con - hanging with his old-school mafia friends, parading through women and generally being a deadbeat dad and husband (Carla Gugino | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: I'm Not There | | 2007-12-13 09:21:00 | | You might not know this, but I was named after Bob Dylan (see my Blogger profile). As such, it should come as little surprise that I'm a fan of the man's work, though I wouldn't classify myself as a fanatic. That said, imagine my surprise when my parents (whom Mrs. Fletch and I attended the film with on Thanksgiving) understood less of this highly artsy, ambitious, ambiguous film than I did. In case you haven't heard, this is probably one of the strangest "bio-pics" ever made, in that it's entirely about its subject while simultaneously not even mentioning his name or featuring a character by the name of Bob Dylan. Instead, 6 actors portray a "role" that Dylan "played" at one point or another in his life (just like I'm currently playing "quotes" guy).All well and good, and possibly even comprehensible, if that were taken on its own. Unfortunately, that's not the case, as director Todd Haynes complicates matters by jumbling the six (or more?) narratives around each other, leaving | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: No Country for Old Men | | 2007-12-09 16:47:00 | | The reviews are inescapable, and they are overwhelmingly positive. You get it...you've been beaten over the head with it: No Country for Old Men is superfantabulexcellenterrific. Well, yes and no. No Country certainly stands as one of the high points of the Coen brothers career, which certainly says something considering their resume (I'd rank it third probably, after Lebowski and Fargo). That said, it has a giant elephant-in-the-room sized issue that it seems not enough people have a problem with. The way I see it, there are three types of people with three different interpretations of the last act of No Country. The first group is "people who have read the book." I assume this group is small. They most likely "get" what happens. The second group is people like me (and the three people I saw the film with). We openly criticized the finale, questioning a number of the choices made, not to mention trying to interpret certain things. We could be classified as "morons who want ev | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Beowulf | | 2007-11-29 10:49:00 | | I managed to escape having to read Beowulf in high school, but that won't stop me from learning my literature the American way - on the big screen!It's hard to really praise or denounce the film too much. On one hand, it's a smorgasbord of cinematic magic that gets taken for granted these days - I start to feel old when I think that the sights featured in the film are pretty much commonplace for the kiddies out there in the audience. Despite its flaws (more on those later), the movie is pretty breathtaking to see when you disengage yourself from the story or the fact that a naked facsimile of Angelina Jolie is staring you in the face - the level of detail given, especially for closeups and/or frames without much movement, are photo-realistic. Meaning if you were looking at a still, you'd barely be able to tell that this was created by computers. As fancy as many of the special effects you see in films these days are, to this day, there aren't many that would pass that test.On the | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Lions for Lambs; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead | | 2007-11-20 23:46:00 | | A couple short takes so that I can catch up before the holiday:Lions for LambsWhen your in high school (or maybe college), often times, though not often enough, your teachers might bring in a movie to demonstrate a theme or analogy to the current events of the day. Covering the Civil War in history class? Watch Glory. Covering Watergate? How bout All the President's Men? Not coincidentally, the star of that film is the director/co-star of this one, which I might show if I were covering the ongoing war in the Middle East.A bit unfortunately though, the movie feels a bit too much like class, which (as I alluded to with the marketing efforts previously) is probably the chief reason it's failing at the box office. It's preachy. It's lecture-y. It doesn't feature splashy action or much of a plot to speak of, and the sets are sparse, to say the least.But that's a shame, because Robert Redford has a clear message for its audience, and it's a powerful one that gives the film an | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Southland Tales (part I) | | 2007-11-19 10:40:00 | | I normally post my reviews in the order that I see them, partly due to topicality (a review of a two-month old movie has less impact than that of a new release), but mostly because it's freshest in my head right after I see it (obviously). I have to break that trend today.Saw Southland Tales Friday. In case you haven't heard of it/much about it, it's the latest from Donnie Darko writer/director Richard Kelly. It's about...well...It's about a lot of things. It has a lot of characters. It is either one of the best or one of the worst movies that I've ever seen. At the very least, in accordance with the previous sentence, it is amongst the more interesting movies you could see for awhile, and definitely should be seen, for the spectacle of it all if for no other reason.At this point, I'm not even adequately prepared to give it a proper review. I need to see it again and will soon. Until then, if you saw and/or liked Donnie Darko at all (or Brazil or Twelve Monkeys, for starters), I | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Lars and the Real GIrl | | 2007-11-14 10:00:00 | | Or, When Good Actors Make Questionable Choices.I don’t want to give the impression that Lars is a bad film, but I have to wonder if, 15 years from now, will Ryan Gosling see a still from this film, and wonder to himself “WTF was I doing starring opposite a blow-up doll?!?”Oh, that’s right – “Bianca” isn’t a blow-up doll; she’s the 21st century version, a 100-lb. hunk of plastic made to look as real as possible - and she does. That said, this tale of a damaged-almost-beyond-repair young man plays out like one of the best Hallmark made-for-TV movies ever (which I think is both a compliment and an insult).The Swedishly (?) named Lars is a simple guy living in an unspecified northern Midwestern town. He lives in the converted garage next to the house occupied by his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’s wife Karin (Emily Mortimer). Karin, as we learn, is always trying (and failing) to pull Lars out of his shell, and his house, and get him to join them for breakfast or | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Gone Baby Gone | | 2007-11-07 11:18:00 | | I’m sure it’s an unfair comparison, and it may seem blasphemous to some, but I liked Gone Baby Gone more than Mystic River. Maybe it’s a factor of being able to relate more to Casey Affleck than to Sean Penn; or maybe it’s because the Shakespearean melodrama at the end of River was not only a huge turnoff, but the lasting image the film has for me; or maybe it’s just because I think Tim Robbins’ performance was more laughable than laudable (and I’m normally a big fan). What can I say – I’m the same guy that’ll take Casino over GoodFellas any day of the week.I say it’s an unfair comparison because they really are two separate entities, and are directed by two different people at that, but it’s a pretty inescapable one as well. As a reader commented, Dennis Lehan’s novels are not all templates of one another, but these two (at least) do share some commonalities, not only in terms of story (female goes missing form the rough streets of south Boston) but in terms | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Confusions of an Unmarried Couple | | 2007-10-30 15:27:00 | | About a month ago, I was contacted by an independent filmmaker based out of Toronto. His name is Brett Butler (sadly, not the former L.A. Dodger, and gladly, not the annoying-voiced comedienne) and his latest film is the one in the title above. He and his brother Jason have their own production company (http://www.subprod.com/) up there where they've made a few films, all on low budgets.Brett and the gang have been taking Confusions on the festival circuit and have won and/or been nominated for a few awards ("the Audience Choice Award for Best Film at the Indiana University South Bend Video and Film Festival, as well as being nominated for Best Film at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales, and Best Comedy at the Southern Winds Film Festival in Oklahoma). As part of this publicity, I assume they're contacting a number of movie bloggers in an attempt to get some more press. Well, I took him up on the offer and received a screener DVD a few weeks back, finally getting to watch it a co | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Michael Clayton | | 2007-10-24 22:46:00 | | Spending the weekend out of town and coming back to the grind with a 3 day backup of work can really wreak havoc on the whole blogging schedule. (For the record, I went to Puerto Penasco aka Rocky Point to hang out, drink beer, drink tequila, watch the Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert, enjoy yet another sandstorm and sit at the border for close to four and a half hours. At least the sandstorm didn't hit until the day we left.)Anyway, I'm back and am two reviews behind schedule, the first of which, as you can tell from the title of this post, is Michael Clayton. Due to the whole "lots of work, not a lot of time" scenario, I'll attempt to keep them short and sweet, but somehow I know they'll end up being the same length as any other review I've done, thanks in no small part to rambling, incoherent prefaces such as this. On to the review...I read this line in another review of Michael Clayton, but it's good enough that it warrants my blatant stealing and reprinting here (I be | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Darjeeling Limited | | 2007-10-16 00:08:00 | | They say that familiarity breeds contempt.I wouldn't go that far when describing Wes Anderson's fifth feature, The Darjeeling Limited, but I will say that familiarity, with not only Anderson's style but with his repertoire of actors, breeds...well, exactly the feeling that Anderson's films usually give me: nostalgic melancholy (or is that melancholic nostalgia?).This is all a long way of saying two things. First, that, Anderson needs to branch out or change some things up lest he be deemed irrelevant in the near future, and second, that the audience's familiarity with Owen Wilson (and his suicide attempt), star or co-star in four of the five Anderson features, lends a certain sadness to the film, not to mention serving as a giant distraction.Primarily, though, it's that Limited feels as though it's been done before, and by Anderson. Personally, I love the group of actors (and the choice of music Anderson uses) that includes Jason Schwartzman, both Wilson brothers, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, et al, but when so many of them are together (and even sharing some of the same dynamics from the earlier films), Darjeeling is put in a handicap prior to the first frame being shown. Toss in a few slow-motion "meaningful" walking/running scenes set to early punk/Britpop, and you have the recipe for a film that looks a lot like something you've already seen. (However, at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I must add that this outing felt a bit minimalist, almost like Anderson-lite, and could have benefited from more of his signature obsessive attention-to-detail. There are a few instances here, like the father's luggage that is fought over by the three brothers, but that's about it.)Despite the way this must sound, I did enjoy The Darjeeling Limited and would like to see it again. However lacking it may be in originality and story (there isn't much of one), it makes up for it in a number of ways, from the writing to the setting to the likability and charm of its three stars (Brody is a welcome addition, though isn't given much to work with). Additionally, there are some surprises - Wilson's real life events notwithstanding, there is a heavier emphasis on emotion, manifested mostly in an extended sequence involving an out-of-nowhere tragedy and a flashback showing the brothers prior to their estrangement.In the end, though, your familiarity with Anderson's work with probably most reflect your take on Darjeeling. Namely, the more you've seen (and presumably liked), the more disappointed you'll be this time. Conversely, if you're a relative newcomer, you just might notice more than a grizzled veteran would, as we are no doubt somewhat immune to his filmmaking wizardry. And if you never liked his work before? Well, you probably won't like this, either.Fletch's Film Rating:"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you." | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: In the Valley of Elah | | 2007-10-10 00:36:00 | | I wouldn't blame you for not recognizing the face to your left, notwithstanding the title of this post. Tommy Lee Jones wasn't particularly famous in his youth, making his way through guest spots on TV shows all through the 70s (Barnaby Jones, Baretta, Charlie's Angels) until a breakout performance in Coal Miner's Daughter put him on the map (I'm guessing; after all, I was only 4 years old at the time). Still, it was TV work through the 80s as well, though his performance in the epic (and star-studded) Lonesome Dove mini-series in 1989 made him a burgeoning star.Since then, Jones has been a fixture on movie screens, alternating between star turns (The Fugitive, Men in Black) and guest roles (Batman Forever, Natural Born Killers) in a wide variety of genres, playing an even wider array of types. Over the last 15 years, he's garnered a reputation as a modern-day version of an old school Western hero - tough as nails, a man of few words and strong actions. His dry, laconic way of speaking worked well in a straight action pic like The Fugitive and just as well in the black-humor tinged Men in Black series.Despite the rep, the man is capable of diversity; witness his over-the-top performance in one of the only Steven Seagal films worthy of watching (Under Siege), and his turn in the horrific Batman sequel as evidence. In the Valley of Elah provides a much more compelling case, as well as one that ought to be remembered come awards season.Jones stars as Hank Deerfield, a retired Vietnam veteran, husband to Susan Sarandon's Joan and father to two sons, each of who likewise joined the Armed Forces. The film opens with Jones getting a call stating that his formerly deployed-in-Iraq son (whose troop is now stateside) has gone AWOL in the States. As we later learn, Hank and Joan's first son was shot down while serving his country; with this knowledge in tow, Hank takes it upon himself to drive from Tennessee to New Mexico to find his youngest child.From there, the film is equal parts detective show and political commentary. "Inspired" by the actual story of Iraq war veteran Richard Davis and his father Lanny, writer/director Paul Haggis manages to be both subtle and blunt simultaneously in his observations and criticism of not just the current war (as most press surrounding this film will have you believe) but of the Armed Forces in general. The questions asked in the film are mostly ones that can't be spoken without spoiling the story, but suffice it to say that they focus on the psychological drama/trauma of being a soldier, the things that our country asks our soldiers to do, and the ramifications of those actions. By having Jones' character be a Vietnam veteran in the film (Davis was an MP), Haggis is able to put us in the shoes of someone who might be your stereotypical flag-waving patriot, right down to the detailed habits still stuck with the 50-something (shining shoes, neatly making his hotel bed, etc.). That said, a glaring error in the film is what is not spoken: namely, many of the things that are being painted as horrific actions done by Americans soldiers in Iraq are the same types of things that happened in Vietnam. Whereas many might use this film as ammunition against the Bush administration (his voice is heard in the background giving speeches on a few occasions), I saw it as a pointed finger at the military in general. Though actors are often awarded for showy performances, it's often true that the best acting comes with what's not said, and that is entirely the case here. Both Jones and Sarandon (underused but still excellent, and surprise surprise to see Susan in an anti-war film) seem to say fewer words than the minutes they appear onscreen for. Charlize Theron, as a detective who gets a bit too close to the case, is given some of the meatier work, and she is terrific as well. Jason Patric (where ya been?), Josh Brolin, James Franco (in a bit part), That Guy Barry Corbin and a number of lesser-known actors fill out the impressive ensemble cast. (Kudos as well to the 55 year old Frances Fisher for playing a strip club - Kathy Bates and Diane Keaton, eat your hearts out.)Despite a few Scooby-Doo moments in the solving of the case (no doubt embellished to a degree), the detective aspect of the film works, as Jones essentially makes both the local police (Theron included) and the military police look like amateurs. Whereas Haggis' Crash felt contrived with its connections at times, Elah rarely feels anything less than real, and powerful. It's a heartbreaking, depressing, political drama - surely not a popcorn film, but one that should definitely be seen.Fletch's Film Rating:"It's in the hole!" | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Eastern Promises | | 2007-10-04 07:43:00 | | Every once in a while, I'll see a great film that leaves me more or less speechless. This isn't some gasp over how great it is or due to shock or anything, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't leave me overflowing with criticism (in the general sense). This may be a lacking on my part to be able to successfully apply critical thinking to all mediums and articles, or perhaps it's a flaw in the film that it just doesn't give you much material in terms of theme or tone. Or maybe it's just because sometimes I'm content admiring the quiet beauty that comes with watching Patrick Swayze perform martial artsy yoga in Roadhouse.Eastern Promises is one of these films that leaves me lacking a response. To be sure, it's very good, if not great. It demonstrates the power of loyalty, brotherhood, family, motherhood and a myriad of other topics that have been covered by many a mob picture before it. The fresh part this time, as simple as it is, is that it centers on a Russian family that resides in London. That alone is enough to get my attention, as we North Americans can be pounded over the head only so many times by all of the films/TV shows about New York/Chicago/Philly Italian mafia families (or Boston Irish ones, trying to catch up).Separate from that are a number of strong, if quiet, performances given by the cast, with character-actors-trapped-in-star-bodies Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts leading the way. Mortensen is all but unrecognizable as anything but this Russian mobster - Viggo has clearly entered the Daniel Day-Lewis level of acting, in terms of skill and immersion into a character. However, you'll get no "Hoo-ah!" speeches or any other look-at-me moments (you'll get to see plenty of him anyway during the now infamous bathhouse scene); instead, you'll often be forced to pay close attention to what he's saying, lest you miss anything. Outside of the Fredo-ish character played by Vincent Cassel, the silent/dangerous theme stays constant.Since I really have nothing else to add here, let me just say that I thought it was funny that the three main Russian mobster characters were all played by non-Russians. Mortensen is a half-Danish American, Cassel is French, and Armin Mueller-Stahl is German. I'd have to ask a Russian to be sure, but it felt like they all nailed their parts. Weird.For a more in-depth review, I direct you to the entry over at John's Movie Blog. He takes it all serious and stuff. As for me? Maybe next time.Fletch's Film Rating:"It's in the hole!" | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Across the Universe | | 2007-10-02 01:17:00 | | If your 13 year old is struggling in their US History class, Julie Taymor's Across the Universe may just be the film to help him or her out. It's perfect in terms of being a Cliff's Notes educational tool - it's written at a 5th-grade level, it skims the surface of many a major event both political and cultural (Vietnam, MLK, hippies, the British Invasion, Bono), and it's a lot quicker to watch this two-hour flick than it would be to read On the Road or Ken Kesey or something like that.For those unaware, Universe is Taymor's ode/tribute to The Beatles, a wannabe Moulin Rouge-esque musical filled with nothing but songs from the Fab Four. It's also derivative, shallow and somewhat unbearably literal. For the "Hey Jude" number, wouldn't you know it - someone sings directly to a character named Jude. Ditto Prudence. As for Lucy (the female lead's name), I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to be played, only to have to wait until the end credits to hear it (oops, MAJOR spoiler there...). Don't go in looking for subtlety, as it is nowhere to be found - any opportunity for a lyric to be transplanted onto screen is taken advantage of.All of this is not to say I didn't enjoy it - after all, I like to read USA Today every now and then, too. The film starts off slowly, as we are introduced to Jude (dockworker from wouldn't-you-know-it Liverpool) who sings to us about a girl named Lucy he kinda likes. Skip back in time to a gentler era, and the film laboriously introduces us to its major players (Jude, Lucy, her brother Max, a lesbian cheerleader named Prudence, [sexy] Sadie, JoJo [always on the run], etc.). It's not until about 45 minutes in that the pace picks up, as Vietnam, student demonstrations, drugs, and relationships all converge and force the characters into many a crossroad.The musical numbers and their corresponding set pieces vary wildly in quality and impact. Prudence sings to an unnamed cheerleader about her desire to "Hold [Her] Hand" while football players fly through the air in over-choreographed motions. Yawn. Jude croons an abbreviated version of the title track on a subway with some old people. Yawn. Max gets literally pulled into the Army by Uncle Sam and a troop of square-jawed soldiers to the tune of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" - again, literal, but still effective. The remaining highlights are all stolen during cameos by Bono, Eddie Izzard and, most effectively, Joe Cocker, singing "Come Together" while playing 3 roles. At least he didn't have to get by with a little help from his friends.So, should you see this? Well, you've probably already made up your mind based on your level of appreciation for The Beatles. If you like them a lot, Across the Universe is worth checking out, despite its problems. Of course, if you do in fact like them that much, better to just spend some more money and go see Love in Vegas.Fletch's Film Rating:"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you." | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: 2 Days in Paris | | 2007-09-13 01:16:00 | | All this summer, we had been waiting. I was, you might have been, Hollywood and some little (maybe) studio certainly was. Waiting for that one indie to catch fire, to go from making $40,000 one week to $2 million to the next, on the way to grossing $20 or $30 or even $50 million plus. Where has our Napoleon Dynamite been?Well, you can probably see where this is going. Unfortunately, it's no longer summer (except for here in Arizona, where it's still well over 100 degrees every day...but I digress). It's September. Kids back in school, fall TV season shifting into gear and the sports seasons returning/kicking it up a notch. Meanwhile, 2 Days in Paris has barely grossed $2 million total in over a month. For shame.Outside of the much hyped (and deservedly so) Knocked Up and Superbad, this is the funniest movie of the year. Outside of that, it's also the best "romantic comedy" you've seen in the past 20. True, saying a romantic comedy is great is practically an oxymoron these days, but that's exactly why this one is so good.Avoiding the tired cliches of the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses blah blah blah convention, 2 Days in Paris starts us off with a couple two years into their relationship - just at about the time where they've had more than enough time to have gotten to know each other and the idiosyncrasies are just starting to bug the other person. Or maybe they've been bugging the other for awhile now, but will finally be put to the test by a European vacation and subsequent stay with one set of parents. Yet where Meet the Parents failed in oh so many ways, 2 Days in Paris flourishes.It's shot with a handheld camera, and, while this may make some ill (and has been railed upon for overuse in previous films such as the Bourne series), it works here, lending even more reality (and no doubt saving some money from the low budget) to the already real and fresh script, written by director (and star, and editor, and composer) Julie Delpy. This might as well be a documentary of the relationship between Jack (Adam Goldberg; hilarious, annoying, and endearing all at once) and Marion (Delpy; flawed, angry and endearing all at once). Better yet, these are layered, multi-faceted characters, bolstered by the fact that Marion's parents are played by Delpy's real-life parents (Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet).Yet with all the smallness (close-knit cast, tight sets, low budget), this is a BIG film about BIG issues. No knock against Something About Mary, but I doubt anyone walked away having learned something about themselves, their significant others, or the opposite sex. You just might here - and you might pick up some French as well, as the movie's about 70% English to 30% French. Don't let that scare you away.Fletch's Film Rating:"It's in the hole!" | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | | Fletch's Film Review: The Ten | | 2007-09-11 09:15:00 | | There's something to be said for the peaks and valleys of absurdist sketch comedy. Unlike the rote predictability of sketch shows like MadTV and Saturday Night Live, oddball shows like The State, Stella, and Upright Citizen's Brigade seem to either succeed massively or fall flat on their face (oh wait, SNL has fallen flat on their face almost constantly in the last few years).David Wain's The Ten is no different. A humorous take on the Ten Commandments, done anthology-stlye with a 10 minute sketch for each commandment, there's a variance in quality not only between each sketch, but within each sketch, right down to a minute-by-minute basis. On the plus side, though, this is the rare film that significantly picks up steam as it goes, helped by the meandering that the characters do from sketch to sketch. Each story has its own plot and set of main characters, but an ancillary performer in one commandment may turn out to be the star of the next, and vice-versa.Paul Rudd serves as a de-fac | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Death at a Funeral | | 2007-09-05 18:13:00 | | I'm curious as to what the legacy of Frank Oz will be. He sure has had a strange and interesting career, as an actor, puppeteer, voice actor, director and even as a "muppet creative consultant." He's the voice of many cultural icons, from Grover to Bert to Cookie Monster to Miss Piggy and even Fozzie Bear, not to mention a little green guy from the Star Wars movies. He's directed 12 feature films (half of which have been released since 1997) and even they are a varied bunch - he started with (not surprisingly) a Jim Henson production, the Muppets meets Lord of the Rings saga The Dark Crystal. That was followed by another Muppets movie, and that with a still-puppetted Little Shop of Horrors. The next 15 years were filled overwhelmingly with comedies, until 2001's heist flick The Score (though not great, pretty good and definitely worth watching if only to see three of the best actors of the last 50 years in one movie: Brando, DeNiro and Norton). A few years ago, he oversaw the disaster | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Superbad | | 2007-09-04 08:11:00 | | I feel bad for Jason Biggs. And Eddie Kaye Thomas. Well, really, the entire cast and crew of American Pie. Sure, Pie was a big hit and got some good reviews some 10 years ago, but nowhere near the love that Superbad and the King Midas-like Judd Apatow are feeling right now. Don't get me wrong - this isn't to say that I think Superbad is a bad film or a cheap knockoff - not in the least. However, there sure are a lot of similarities between that first pastry-influenced film and the latest hit from the Apatow family. For starters, the Sherminator has offered to kick McLovin's ass.All that said, I enjoyed Superbad quite a bit. As DC Girl @ the Movies pointed out in her review, much like John Hughes, Apatow's films (mind you, Superbad was directed by Greg Mottola and not Apatow, but he produced and has his hands all over the project) have a specific feel or brand all their own. In the near future, the specifics of that brand (raunchy, crass humor mixed with heart) may have to be tweaked in | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Rescue Dawn | | 2007-08-15 17:27:00 | | Dieter Dangler is one strange dude. Growing up in Germany in the 40s, he and his town were subjected to bombing from the Allied forces. Dieter looked through a hole in his roof one day and caught a glimpse of a bomber pilot flying by. Despite this (or, as Rescue Dawn, because of it), Dieter comes to America in his teens with the lone goal of becoming a pilot. As the title of director Werner Herzog's earlier documentary of Dangler states, Little Dieter Needs to Fly.However, not long after Dieter (Christian Bale) gets to fly, he's shot down. Near Vietnam. All alone, he does his best to gets rescued, but in no time flat, he's captured and transferred to a POW camp in nearby Laos. Yet, despite being in a helpless situation, tortured all along, Dieter keeps his spirits high, almost smiling the whole way. He's taking it all in, for better or worse.At the POW camp, he meets a group of prisoners, some of which have been there upwards of two years or more. While not tortured much at the camp, t | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: The Bourne Ultimatum | | 2007-08-07 17:53:00 | | It's times like these that I wish I hadn't started using the "Fletch's Film Review: ___" headline for these reviews, as every review under the sun that I've come across for The Bourne Ultimatum has some terrible pun like "Bourne Again" or "Bourne To Be Wild," while I'm left out of the pun party. Damn it all.Bourne To RunThough I usually like to keep my reviews to myself (meaning, what I thought of the film), I also couldn't help but notice that quite a few of the reviews I'm reading are from people who are tripping over themselves lauding director Paul Greengrass for his directorial style. His use of handheld cameras is said to add realism and immediacy to the action surrounding the former amnesiac, as he (and the audience) cope with the struggles of being confused and anxious and - huh? Greengrass's style (aka "shaky cam") is overdone, overused and overtly nauseating. The use of handheld cameras in moderation can be wildly effective, for the reasons mentioned above. However, u | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Sunshine | | 2007-08-04 09:16:00 | | As evidenced by the box office tally thus far, Danny Boyle's latest film, Sunshine, isn't being seen by hardly anyone. That's a shame, for despite its shortcomings, it's really a film that should be seen on a big screen (the bigger the better).Mind you, the shortcomings are big...but I'll get to those later.The concept is pretty simple and straightforward. A few hundred years into the future (a date is never given, but it's safe to say that it's a long ways off), our sun is dying, and the people of earth come up with a plan - send a team (or two) of astronauts on a suicide mission to "reignite" the big star with a big bomb.It's a great concept, and the execution of the first act is impeccable. The action starts off slow, with the audience learning pieces of the story, of the characters and of their ship, the Icarus II, for the first hour or so. Not enough can really be said about the visuals and concepts that the filmmakers dreamed up, CGI or otherwise - the only real compa | | By: Blog Cabins | | |
| | Fletch's Film Review: Joshua; Waitress; Talk To Me | | 2007-07-31 01:10:00 | | It's time to play catch-up. So, as I've seen three small movies recently, here are three small reviews.JoshuaSam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga (The Departed) and Jacob Kogan star in what might alternately be titled The Omen: Without the Religious Overtones. Kogan plays the 9-year old son of Rockwell and Farmiga, and aside from being generally disturbed already, he's not too thrilled about the new baby in the house. See, his whole life, Josh has been around a near-psychotic mother and a too-consumed-in-o |
|
| | |
