Transformers

It seems to be common consensus that this summer at the cineplex has sucked.......hard. Spider-Man 3, Pirates 3, and Shrek 3 formed a money-making trilogy.....of suck. What summer SHOULD be is spectacle after spectacle of pure popcorn entertainment that makes one so happy to go to the movies that they don't care about concession prices. That hasn't been the case at all this year. Until now......it is with great relief (and a little confusion...) that I say Thank God for Michael Bay and Transformers.
Usually viewed as some kind of cinematic Antichrist, Michael Bay is undeniably a lot of things that make for a "summer movie director." He's flashy, bombastic, loves to blow stuff up, and doesn't seem to think anything is too over-the-top. Often, this is a bad thing (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island), but can sometimes transcend into some kind of accidental brilliance (The Rock). So, he's the right guy for giant robots smashing up cities, right?
For those unlucky to have not been in elementary school during the 80's, arguably the greatest era of toys and cartoons (and toy-cartoons), Transformers were warring factions of alien robots, the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons, who fought and lived on Earth. The movie follows that basic plotline, never forgetting the consequences of giant freaking robots fighting around delicate little humans, which is one of the things that made the old Marvel comic compelling.
Anyway, the plot: A military base in Qatar is attacked by a helicopter that turns into a strange robot that absolutely efffs up an antire army batallion. The government investigates this mysterious attack. Meanwhile, Sam "Spike" Witwicky (Shia LeBouf) stumbles through his awkward teenage existence, crushing on the super-hot Mikeala (Megan Fox), when an odd yellow car he picks (or gets picked by.....) at a used-car lot puts him in the middle of the intergalactic war between the Autobots and Decepticons, etc.
There was a lot that pleasantly surprised me about Transformers. One, was the acting (or some of it, anyway). This movie explained to me why Spielberg has such a boy-crush on Shia LeBouf right now, as he can do the straight-man thing well, demonstrates able comic timing, and does ok in an action setting considering his name isn't Jet Li, Jason Statham, or Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. The voice acting for the Transformers was quite good, especially from original Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen, and Megatron voice Hugo Weaving, who refreshingly DOESN'T evoke Elrond or Mr. Smith. The dialogue and humor in the film (there was a LOT of humor) was caustic and edgy, and made me wonder if Warren Ellis had ghost-written or script-doctored the film. The writers clearly had a lot of love for the franchise, and did an able job of turning the cartoon into a competent sci-fi/action film with plenty of mystery, light romance, and humor. It should go without saying that the CGI was top-notch, and the action sequences do not disappoint. The next film with giant fighting robots/monsters/tacos/whatever really needs to not screw around if they want to top the spectacle of Transformers.
There are properties that I am an avid fan of (*cough, GI JOE, cough*), but Transformers isn't one of them. However, It really took me back to sit in front of a 60 foot screen, listening to Peter Cullen's impossibly bass-y voice recite the opening prologue film. This could have been a glorified toy commercial, but it's more than....ahem, not going to go there. I award Transformers an admirable 14 out 22 on the 22 scale.

Ratatouille

Ratatouille was fabulous. I don't usually give that much away this quickly in my reviews, but I can't help it. Ok, I'll admit I'm probably a little biased. I love the French language and culture, not to mention Paris, and I also think rats are adorable. And I quite enjoy cooking. So for me, this movie experience was ideal.

But though very few may share my interests in France, food, and rodents, Ratatouille is having no problem wriggling its way into the hearts of all audiences. Ratatouille features great characters and a surprisingly engaging plot about a chef rat in Paris. Sounds ridiculous, I know. I thought it was a bit of a stretch myself, but as usual, Pixar has risen to the challenge. Not only that, but it has raised the bar for the animated film. The main character, Remy, is a rat who has a refined palate. An unlucky situation, you can imagine. He's stuck in his rat life with his rat family (who doesn't understand him) and their rat food that admittedly is not going to satisfy the gourmet in many creatures. Remy is frustrated, but doesn't see a way out.

And then, life gives him a little push. Remy's clan encounters an emergency, and partly because of his devotion to cooking, he is separated from them. A sad moment, but an opportunity for his life to change. He winds up in the kitchen of a Parisian five-star restaurant, wanting so badly to watch and take part in the goings-on, but he knows that humans aren't about to welcome a rat in their kitchen (much less hire one) and he values his life too much to linger. As he tries to make his way to the nearest exit, the beckoning aromas are too much. A soup is just sitting there in a pot, with ingredients everywhere! A dash of this, and handful of that, and he's creating a tasty dish that Julia Child herself would approve of. The thing is, he gets seen working his magic by the new trash boy, Linguini, who then gets blamed for messing with the soup. This would mean his job if it weren't for the fact that the soup is excellent! The customers love it, and the head chef (who didn't want Linguini there in the first place) is forced to refrain from firing him. Linguini isn't let off easy, though. He is told that he must duplicate the soup (which he didn't make) in order to keep his job.

Well, you can imagine what happens next. Linguini needs to learn how to make a good soup, and only a rat knows how. Remy wants to cook, but he can only do it with a human's help. They team up so they can both succeed, and though there are a number of humorous kitchen blunders and close calls, they do pretty well.

I won't spoil the rest. Obviously something happens to jeopardize the relationship and everything that Remy and Linguini have worked for. But it's worth watching on your own.

Though I loved the movie, there were a few things about it that I thought could have been better. For example, It was a little slow for me to get into at first. I'm not too sure why, but it only took up until Remy gets separated from his family (which is pretty close to the beginning) for me to get absorbed.

I also thought there were a few questionable plot devices: Why can Remy control Linguini like a puppeteer? Why does chef Gusteau (a figment of his imagination) keep popping up and helping Remy? Can a figment of one's imagination ever be helpful? Ok, you might say, but we're watching a film about a chef rat for crying out loud! Granted. But a film can ask you to adopt a certain premise (which is ridiculous) and as long as you're interested, it doesn't necessarily ruin the movie. To add something else silly which is wholly unconnected with the other crazy premise is in danger of pushing the envelope. I thought that these things came a bit close, but somehow, Pixar makes it work. The relationship between Remy and Linguini as well as the comedy of Linguini being pulled around like a puppet in a kitchen surprisingly ended up working ok.

Rating: 16

Anyway, the point is, Ratatouille is excellent. Had some great laughs, great lessons, and great animation. It might be a little boring for young kids (there's quite a bit of dialogue and cooking), and the themes, including making a difference and doing what you love, might be a bit over their heads. But it's so well done, so sweet, and so funny! I can't wait until it comes out on DVD, or until a friend asks me out to the movies to see it again!

Iconic lines:

"Rat-a-tou-ille. It's like a stew, right? Why do they call it that? If you're gonna name a food, you should give it a name that sounds delicious. Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like 'rat' and 'patootie'. 'Rat-patootie', which does not sound delicious."

"...the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Okay, I think this is about as far as the Pirates franchise can go. The first movie was great and novel, but the second was too chaotic and directionless, and didn’t seem to be about anything important. The third movie is better in the “north is THIS way” department, but honestly, the characters and their idiosyncrasies are growing wearisome, Jack Sparrow aside.

Pirates 3 picks up pretty much exactly where Pirates 2 left off; after a ghoulish and very un-Disney-like opening sequence, that is. It involves several people being hanged on suspicion of piracy, including one boy of about 12. Grim stuff. Sitting behind me was a little boy who couldn’t have been more than 6; I’m no parent, but this isn’t really the type of thing he should be seeing.

What follows is more grimness, as the fun and adventure that the first movie had in spades is virtually gone. Granted, this is a pirate movie, so a certain amount of badness is to be expected, even wanted. But rather than keep the childishness and simplicity of pirates intact, Gore Verbinski makes this look strikingly similar to one of his past films, The Ring, an unmitigated horror film that didn’t produce even a single smile in the audience. Even so, Johnny Depp is able to inject some comedy and light-heartedness, but not too much; just enough. However, he is absent from the first half-hour or so of the film, which makes it pretty hard to get through. That leaves us with Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth (Keira Knightly), and Will (Orlando Bloom) as the centerpieces. Rush is pretty great, but the last two make me want to scream. Bloom and Knightly were fine for their roles in the first movie, but once they both morphed into pirates, they pretty much jumped the shark for me. Knightly especially is simply not right for the role of a pirate, let alone a pirate queen who inspires other pirates to follow her. And we have to face the fact that Bloom is simply not a very good actor. He definitely looked the part for Legolas in Lord of the Rings, but I think Peter Jackson said “well, this guy’s acting chops aren’t so good, so we’ll just have him shoot stuff and speak but little.”

The story doesn’t even wrap up very well. Sure, the current plot thread ends, but a little sloppily. And just what I was hoping wouldn’t happen, happens: they leave it open to a 4^th film. I can see it now. Pirates of the Caribbean: Maybe Money DOES Grow On Trees. But despite all its numerous faults, I did find the movie generally enjoyable while I was watching it. It’s not the type of movie you get up and leave in, despite its near-3-hour runtime. The character of Jack Sparrow is still interesting and engaging, and Johnny Depp completely owns that role, as well as the screen whenever he’s on it. Actually, Depp’s aplomb and virtuosity are what save the movie. Were he not in it, it would be a dismal affair, and not worth my $9.00. As usual, the visuals are quite stunning, and Verbinski’s visual style is ever-present. I loved that style in The Ring, but here it seems a little out of place. It still works in some spots, but I think it would have been better if he had tweaked his approach just a little.

As it stands, Pirates 3 is a decent film, but it closes a trilogy for a franchise that desperately needs to be over. Sadly, the money machine that is Hollywood will try to milk this cash cow till its udders are purple, and long after the audience has moved on. In a sense, the Pirates movies remind me of the Matrix movies; the first one is essential viewing for any breathing human, but you can skip the second two, unless you actually are a pirate or a cyber-messiah.

In short, Pirates 3 is as good as it can be, which is not all that good.

Iconic lines:
"Sorry. I just thought with the Captain issue in doubt, I'd throw my name in for consideration."
"It's pronounced 'egregious.'"

22 Rating: 6

Particle Man

Evan Almighty

Comedies are frequently stupid. We all know and accept this. Frequently, comedies are funny enough to overcome their stupidity, and some comedies are clever enough to use their stupidity to their advantage.

Evan Almighty, however, just misses.

There were several reasons to be optimistic about Evan Almighty. First and foremost: Steve Carell. Carell has gone from third fiddle on The Daily Show to star of NBC's The Office to--following his turn in The 40 Year Old Virgin--a bankable and likable movie star in his own right. And he's backed by a relatively solid supporting cast, including Morgan Freeman, Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham, John Michael Higgins, and John Goodman. Also, Evan Almighty follows in the footsteps of the moderately successful (if not amazing) Bruce Almighty.

There were also warning signs. Among them: mediocre director Tom Shaydac, and a disgusting $175 million price tag (which insures that studio suits will water the comedy down to the lowest common denominator.)

And then, there's the really, really stupid premise. Bruce Almighty had a pretty solid premise; namely, what if an ordinary man were given divine powers (and responsibilities)? In contrast, Evan Almighty has a really stupid premise; namely, what if God asked an ordinary guy to grow a long white beard and build an ark? (God's been around awhile, so it's understandable that he'd run out of fresh ideas.)

I suppose it's possible that a skilled writer or director could turn that craptastic premise into a serviceable plot, but that does not happen at all here. There are gads of unanswered questions, among them: Why must Steve Carell wear a robe and grow a beard in order to build an ark? And why doesn't he just tell his wife why he's building an ark, rather than committing the cardinal movie sin of needlessly withholding information to artificially increase drama?

There are more examples, but they require a SPOILER ALERT.

Why does God create a full-blown local flood in order to achieve only the terribly modest goal of blocking some anti-environmental legislation? And since the flood is terribly local--affecting only a small Washington D.C. neighborhood--why the hell do animals indigenous to Africa (lions, elephants, etc.) need to be on the ark? Did they just want to enjoy a nifty water ride? If that's the case, why don't they just go to Splash Mountain?

****End of SPOILER ALERT****

You can live with these abject stupidities if the movie is either particularly funny or particularly insightful, but Evan Almighty is neither.

It does have its funny moments, but it relies too much on sight gags and physical comedy, most notoriously a tiresome minute-long montage consisting of nothing but Steve Carell injuring himself in various ways whilst building the ark.

And in the insight category, it fails miserably. It trots out the same tired message of a workaholic father learning to spend time with his family, and even does this half-heartedly. And its view of God is positively inane, portraying the Ground of All Being as little more than an uncreative, needlessly specific, poorly planning trickster. He's kind of like the Greek god Pan, but a version Pan that sucks.

I also need to point out the shoddy character development, especially with Carell's three kids. Wicked Little Critta watched the movie with me, and as we were discussing it afterwards were were trying to remember his children's names. We failed, but we decided it didn't matter: They were just generic kids.

Aside from its moderate humor, this movie has two saving graces. The first is Steve Carell, who even in a thankless role such as this manages to be kind of fun to watch. And the second is the fact that the movie doesn't take itself too seriously.

Mixed all together, it amounts to a -1. It's perhaps the most unambitious $175 million movie ever made, but the laid-back attitude that damns it also manages to save it just a bit.

Man on Fire

I think I'm getting old. There have been a bunch of signs: I can reflect on how similar to my mother I'm becoming, I used the phrase "you're getting so big!" to a younger person yesterday, and I'm actually willing to discuss politics on occasion. These are things that three years ago I would have rolled my eyes at in any context. But now I feel like an old person is taking over, I've been possessed by the spirit of the aged. The film Man on Fire seemed to me to be another sign of the times, because I realized after I watched it that it is a movie I would have enjoyed in days past, but now have outgrown.

I didn't have very high hopes for this movie in the first place. It was recommended to me by a friend who tends to have very different movie taste than me, and I've never really loved Denzel Washington or Dakota Fanning. Plus, the title is just audacious enough to annoy me.

Anyway, the movie was long and intense. The opening scenes are aggressively done and immediately pull for an emotional response: we see snatches of innocent people being kidnapped in Mexico while upsetting statistics flash before our eyes. From then on, it doesn't let up. Dakota Fanning plays Pita, the daughter of a Mexican industrialist Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and American Lisa Ramos (Radha Mitchell). Because kidnapping is so prevalent there, (we're told 24 occurrences within a six day period) it is important for certain people, mainly rich and/or white, to have bodyguards to protect themselves. Unfortunately, the Ramos family can't afford a good one because of debt, but Samuel Ramos is willing to hire anyone to keep up appearances.

At the same time, John Creasy (Denzel Washington) meets up with friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) in Mexico City. He's pretty washed up, doesn't have anything or anyone, and drinks. A lot. We're informed that he used to be a very dangerous person in his prime, and would have made an exceptional bodyguard, but he's out of practice and can't put down the bottle. When people need money, though, they'll sign up for anything. He's desperate for employment, and the Ramos family is desperate for protection.

Creasy is determined to stay detached from the family, and shoots down Pita's attempts at beginning a friendship. It doesn't take long, however, for Pita's sweetness, care for Creasy, and genuine likability to break through, and soon a strong bond forms. The large, drunken assasin befriends the mature-yet-friendly schoolgirl. Since he is more emotionally involved, he now starts to take his job more seriously. But as the back of the DVD case will tell you, they're still in for some trouble.

Regardless of their relationship and Creasy's protection, Pita is kidnapped and Creasy is seriously injured in the process. He also gets blamed for involvement by the local authorities. Once he regains his health, he rediscovers his inner too-cool-for-school assassin to get revenge on the local kidnapping ring, and here is the bulk of the movie.

This is my problem with Man on Fire. We hear about a tragic situation in Mexico where innocent people are being taken and killed, putting them and their loved ones through unimaginable suffering. We are introduced to a character who can help, but needs some redemption. And how does he get his redemption? By doing what he does best: killing and torturing. Rayburn, when describing Creasy's talent, equates it with the talent of artist Leonardo da Vinci, saying that Creasy is about to paint his "masterpiece." This analogy made me ill. The film molds our expectations so that the only way any good can come of the situation is if there is bloodshed and pain. The fact that Creasy is once again embracing his assassin lifestyle is totally glorified. The way that he avenges his loss is to kill and hurt people in creative ways meant to make the audience pleased and even make us laugh. I was disgusted. This is the main thing that bothered me about Man on Fire, because I'm getting old, and I can't handle all this violence anymore.

There were other sticking points, however. At almost 2 1/2 hours it's not a short film, and from beginning to end there's no break for the audience. Even in the beginning of the film when the characters are being introduced, the camera work and music gave me a sense of "something's going to happen..." The cinematography was made up of a lot of very fast, short camera shots, filled with flashes of light and some occasional bullet-time work thrown in for good measure. It was well done and interesting, but lasted the entire time. It ran me ragged, and came too close to triggering a seizure for me to enjoy.

I'll go back to my comments about Washington and Fanning. Denzel was very, very good. I haven't seen him in a lot of movies, but I liked him in this one. I understood his character, even his character's contradictions, and it's hard not to get swept up in whatever he's doing. Even if it is dismembering people. Fanning was also very good. My main problem with her is that she always seems way too old--like she always plays the 40-year-old child. There was nothing new here in Man on Fire, but it worked pretty well and wasn't overdone.

Rating: -2

Regardless of the good performances, I didn't really like the movie. Too fast and furious, too violent, and the message it sent about redemption made me feel nauseous. There were definite positives, such as the aforementioned acting, the compelling plot and the caring relationship between Pita and Creasy that changed his life, but the negatives (for me, anyway) far outweighed them. And while I'm thinking about it, the names "Pita" and "Creasy" are a strike against the film as well. That tips the scale in at slightly below zero at a -2.

Spider Man 3

Dear Sam Raimi-
6 years ago, you made the first Spider-Man film. Despite being a dreaded origin story film, it was pretty good, and made boatloads of money. Several years after that, you followed that up with Spider Man 2, one of the definitive films of the superhero/comic book genre. SM2 perfectly captured the pain in Peter Parker's life that he refuses to take the easy way out of, that which makes Spider-Man arguably the greatest comic hero ever. So what the hell happened with Spider-Man 3?
I've gotta say, I didn't think you would screw this one up as badly as you did. The trailers looked good, and the casting was good.....except you, Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire. But more on that later. The premise wasn't too bad: Peter Parker, riding high and ready to pop the question to Mary Jane, takes one blow after the other. First, Harry Osborn (James Franco, who OWNS this movie) assumes the Goblin mantle, and attacks Peter. Then, painful wounds are reopened when Captain Stacy (a completely wasted James Cromwell) tells Peter and his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris, rising way above the material) that his Uncle Ben wasn't killed by a nameless burglar, but by career loser Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), who just happens to gain.....sandy powers through a comic-book BS science nuclear accident. Also adding pressure to poor Peter's life are rival Daily Bugle photog Eddie Brock (a surprisingly impressive Topher Grace), and Mary Jane's career problems, which cause her to act like something that rhymes with "briny switch." Oh, and there's this outer space goo that responds to aggression, and wackiness ensues. Lots of it.
Whew. That's a whole lotta plot. Too much, actually. The two (two? three? three and a half?) villains could have EASILY been split into two separate movies, and benefited from more deeper character depth ala Doctor Octopus in SM2, instead of being given the barest characterization screen-time allowed here. Which is a shame, because both Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church acquitted themselves nicely here. They look like their characters, clearly understood them, and turned in very good performances. There are also some very, very, very poor choices regarding Peter and Mary Jane's characters, namely that they're selfish pricks for all but 5 minutes of the movie. And regarding Tobey? He can't act. When he cries (which is a LOT in this movie, people laugh, and that ain't good. I almost think the movie should have been called Cried-er Man 3. Face it, Sam: You only have the barest understanding of Spider-Man. I can count the number of smart remarks he makes on one hand in three movies, and I'm not convinced after this last outing that Tobey can hack it anymore. I have two words for you: Jake Gyllenhall. Think about it, if they don't fire your sorry ass after this installation. That goes double for Kirsten Dunst, who doesn't look or act like Mary Jane.
There are entertaining bits to SM3, to be sure. The action is kickass, the villains are all great. There is that awesome super-secret hero team-up at the end. But.......

-Peter Parker with Fall Out Boy hair? THAT'S how you demonstrate his dark side coming out? That, and making disco hands at girls? Are you off your (*&%^(*ing rocker?

-The jazz club sequence? You were supposed to be directing Spider-Man, not Plastic Man..........

-5 minutes of screen time for Venom???

This film is worth seeing in the theaters, but.....only just for the spectacle. It's time for you to move on and give this project to somebody who knows what the hell they're doing. Your incredible botch-job on this movie, in my eyes, has taken away any indie cred the Evil Dead movies gave you. Spider-Man 3 gets a 10.......but that score is artifically inflated by the comic-bookiness. Had this been something else, it could have been a 3.

Half Nelson

Half Nelson was critically beloved. It received a 91% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 85% on Metacritic. It inspired critics to describe it with phrases like: "genuinely inspirational," "dramatically absorbing," and "tight direction." It even got a bit of love from the Academy, in the form of a best actor nomination for Ryan Gosling.

Yet, I was underwhelmed.

Half Nelson tells the story of Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling), an inner-city junior high school history teacher who just happens to be addicted to crack. He's an excellent teacher by all accounts--beloved by his students--he just has that one unfortunate habit. As fate would have it, one of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), catches him in the act (in the girls' locker room). Before you know it, the two have molded a chocolate and vanilla friendship around the nougat core of their shared secret.

The friendship leads Dunne to act in some questionable ways. Some are good-hearted, if a bit hypocritical, like pleading with Drey to stay away from an older drug dealer friend of hers. Others are weird and inappropriate, like getting a bit jiggy with her during a school dance. The tenuous relationship continues until the climactic moment when Drey, doing some drug runs for her dealer friend, comes upon Dunne in the midst of a crazy party.

And at the end--spoiler alert?--Dunne seems to have cleaned up his act.

The movie is shot in a very, very understated style. The kind where none of the dialogue is highlighted; it just feels like you're watching the whole movie through security camera footage. This kinda works and kinda doesn't. It gives the movie a "this is an everyday happening" feel, but it also makes it a tad boring.

My bigger beef was with the totally ad hoc redemption at the end. One of the strengths of the movie is that it doesn't fall into the typical arc of someone's drug abuse falling further and further out of control until said person hits rock bottom and cleans up. With Dunne, it's clearly more just a hard-to-break habit. But that makes the final scene utterly bewildering. Let me set it up for you... (SPOILER ALERT)

With no real lead-in, we see Drey and Dunne in Dunne's apartment. The apartment is cleaned up and Dunne has shaved. No words are spoken. Roll credits.

Clearly, the movie wanted to suggest that he had decided to get his life in order at the end. But the last scene felt like it came totally out of left field. The filmmakers knew it had to be there, so they just decided to lump it on at the end.

And, as you might imagine, that sort of ending leaves you, the audience member, with a very distinct feeling of "WTF?"

Which is a bit of a shame, because the movie isn't really that bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. It's a compelling enough story, even if told in a deliberately uncompelling way. And Ryan Gosling did well in his role, though not nearly as well as everyone else seems to think. Shareeka Epps was just as good.

So, where does Half Nelson fall, numerically? The story is a 10, the direction is a -2, and the WTF? ending is a -7. I'll throw one point back on for the solid performances, and the end result is a two.

Also, as a bit of a p.s., the English subtitles on this DVD were absolute crap. Not only were letters capitalized randomly, but certain lines would flash on the screen for about a tenth of a second, allowing you to read almost one full word. All in all, a very frustrating experience.

Shrek 3

Well, I loved Shrek and Shrek 2, so it would stand to reason that I would enjoy the 3^rd installment from my favorite Ogre. However, it now looks more like the fine folks at DreamWorks have run out of fresh ideas. I’m not saying that the movie was bad; it was just alright. I would actually classify it as just above meh.

Let’s look at the story first. Shrek and Fiona are still in Far Far Away. They are filling in for the sick King. However, before the King dies he proclaims Shrek and Fiona as heirs to the throne, and states that there exists only one other person who could inherit the throne: Arthur. So Shrek, Donkey, and Puss go off to find this heir. Fiona however, has to stay at the castle to fend off a coup by Prince Charming with the help of several other fairy tale princesses. She also has to attend a baby shower—her own! That’s right folks, there will soon be the pitter patter of little ogre feet heard ’round the castle. So Shrek sets off to find this heir with the knowledge that he is going to become a father. They meet some other characters along the way, including Lancelot, the high school bully, and Merlin, a crazy, out-of-practice wizard.

There’s the plot. I was very excited to see the movie, but while there were some funny parts, it was not what I expected. Personally, I think they should have stopped after Shrek 2. I know that, as long as the Shrek franchise continues to make money, DreamWorks will continue to make them. However, I suggest that they use some of the money made from the third movie to hire new writers for the fourth installment (which I hear is in the making).

Now that I’m writing this review I find myself wishing that the movie was worse, so I would have more to elaborate on. Unfortunately, I can’t make that happen, so as it stands the movie receives a 5. I was disappointed by Shrek 3, but I guess we all have to deal with disappointment sooner or later.

The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter

Altamont. People who study music history know that word as signifying one of the darkest points it contains. For those not so learned, the Altamont Free Concert took place on December 6^th, 1969, and featured such acts as the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The movie that was filmed during it (and the subsequent American Rolling Stones tour) reveals a turbulent time of chaos, drugs, violence, and ultimately, death. Gimme Shelter is a haunting and disturbing film, and also one of the best documentaries ever made.

I’m not a huge fan of the Rolling Stones, but I recognize and appreciate the very important role they play in the development of popular music. Thankfully, this concert film contains performances of only songs I like, so I was never tempted to hit the search button. It starts out innocently enough, as indeed the filmmakers thought the entire film would be. They had no idea at the time that it would escalate to such horrific circumstances. It’s punctuated at random times with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts in a video studio watching rough cuts of the film. Even then, you can see it on Watts’ face. He’s saying, “This is not what we had planned for at all.”

The movie features some nice performances, with “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women” being standouts. Honestly, though, they are somewhat separate from the main thrust of the film, which is the Altamont incident. The concert itself was fraught with problems before it even took place. It suffered from two forced venue changes, the last one being three days before the concert was scheduled to go on. When the Rolling Stones revealed that they would be the headlining act, Golden Gate Park backed out, fearing a repeat of the crowd control problems that plagued Woodstock less than a year earlier. It was changed to Sears Point Raceway, but they backed out due to film distribution rights, since the Stones would be filming a concert movie at the event. So it finally settled at the last minute on Altamont, and things finally seemed to be going well.

The biggest mistake the Rolling Stones made, clearly, is hiring the Hell’s Angels to do security. The Rolling Stones had heard that the Grateful Dead (who were supposed to play on the Altamont bill) had hired the Hell’s Angels to work security for them multiple times before, and it had worked out well. It was ill-fated, though. One, there weren’t enough of them to handle the 300,000 strong crowd. Two, the agreement the concert promoters had with them was incredibly flimsy, being little more than “if you show up and keep people away from the generators, we’ll give you free beer.” Three, these were civilians, not professional security people. Four, they’re a biker gang. Does this not bode well to anyone else? They weren’t there to police the crowd (and consequentially, no one was), but obviously the Hell’s Angels clashing with a bunch of hippies will cause problems. The promoters and the Stones themselves should have realized this is one belligerent bunch. Even Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane got knocked unconscious when he tried to help a concert-goer that was getting the crap kicked out of him by a Hell’s Angel.

After viewing this film, I have concluded that Mick Jagger is (or was at the time) just a fun-loving guy who’s into love and sex, not violence. He was a true proponent of the simple-minded phrase “make love, not war.” When things were going wrong at Altamont, he met the mood first with his usual joviality, and then with child-like horror. When the deadly debacle was over, his reaction was one of sadness, not of anger, as can be seen from his somber rendition of “Under My Thumb.”

The event ended with the murder of one Meredith Hunter, an 18 year-old African-American who was packing a long-barreled revolver. He was stabbed five times by a Hell’s Angel, presumably in self defense, and died at the concert. The worst part of it: the murder was caught on film by multiple cameras.

To many people, Altamont is the anti-Woodstock. Woodstock represented, as the posters say, “love, peace, and music.” Altamont, which was held just months later, and was unofficially promoted as “Woodstock West,” proves that the rosy glow associated with the hippie generation wasn’t completely real. Or if it was, it wasn’t strong enough to win out over humanity’s curse of self-destruction. Altamont truly represents the death of the 60s and the dismantling of what the flower children stood for; Gimme Shelter captures it in harrowing and unflinching detail. The film ends with concert-goers walking back to their cars on the morning after Altamont, all somehow different. The sound is the Stones’ live version of “Gimme Shelter,” which eerily captures the “death of the 60s” thing with its sense of impending apocalypse. Funny thing is, that song was released just a few days before Altamont happened. Maybe they sensed it coming.

Iconic Lines:
(none)

22 Rating: 14

Particle Man

Déjà Vu (a guest review by Number Three)

Do you want the quick and dirty on what Déjà Vu is about and whether or not you’ll like it? Then the quickest and most accurate way I can describe it is “Memento meets Man on Fire.” In said film you have a sort of Nolan-esque story flow married with the action/thriller genre that Tony Scott has deftly mastered with both Will Smith in Enemy of the State and Denzel Washington in Man on Fire. And once again the man on fire, Denzel, has teamed up with Scott for Déjà Vu, but with the added twist of some time-flow funkiness.

At this point it should pretty much be obvious to yourself whether or not you’ll like the movie. Did you like Enemy of the State or Man on Fire? Then you’ll like it. Did you like Memento or The Prestige? Then you’ll like it. Did you like all four? Then you’ll love it.

So here’s the basic plot: A terrorist explosion happens on a ferry boat killing over 500 peeps. ATF agent Doug Carlin comes coolly striding in on the scene with all the great slow-mo black-bro mojo camera tow and starts investigating. As he begins to uncover the plot, some higher up investigators - including the dead weight that is Val Kilmer (who appears to have gained weight) – are impressed with his investigative skills, so they hire him to help find the baddie who blew up the boat. It turns out that Val and his boys have some slick equipment called “Snow White” which I won’t give too much away about other than to say that they can look in real time at anything anywhere (provided they have a good signal) except for this: what they are looking at is always exactly 4 days and some hours in the past. This allows them to try and track down the bad man by casing the area before the explosion happened. Then the fun begins. Denzel decides that he might be able to prevent the disaster after discovering a unique sort of connection to the four-days-gone-by time flow. Add in an effective woman plot device and you’ve got a great action/thriller story that emerges.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Geeze, I’ve had enough time travel movies already!” But, no, you really haven’t. Because, you see, in most of those movies people go back in time and start changing the future and all that. But in this movie, there is an ominous inevitability that makes things happen as they have to happen, because they happened. You want things to change as you’re watching, but somehow things always turn out the way they turned out. So it remains to be seen whether or not the disaster is averted. I’ll let you watch for yourself.

There are some fresh and cool ways that the storywriters make use of the whole time thing, and Tony Scott effortlessly injects action and tension into those apparatuses. For example, there’s the whole car chase sequence where Denzel is trying to follow the killer, except he’s following him in the four days ago feed because he is moving out of range of their signal. So he’s trying to chase the guy down who isn’t there anymore in the present, and the traffic is totally different, and OH MY GOSH WATCH OUT FOR THAT TRUCK! I don’t want to give all the mechanics of that scene away, but let’s just say that the whole Nolan/Scott thing works.

So do yourself a favor and watch Déjà Vu. So do yourself a favor and watch Déjà Vu.

Number Three’s Score:
Mouthspeak (impact of dialog): +10
Watchfeel (impact of visuals): +18
Mouthfeel (overall watchability): +14

Number Three

Night at the Museum

Night at the Museum is supposed to be a fantastical romp through an imaginary world in which the creatures and characters that populate the American Museum of Natural History come to life at night. Unfortunately, it’s no more interesting than spending a night in the museum actually would be.

The plot centers around Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), a failurish divorced father who takes a job as the night guard at the Museum of Natural History because otherwise he’ll be evicted from his apartment and denied access to his cookie-cutter-cute son. And as you know, once there he has to deal with everything from a skeletal T-Rex with canine tendencies to a borderline sadistic capuchin monkey.

The idea is a good one—though a bit of a rip-off of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. But the execution is dreadful. Nearly everyone involved with this movie—from the director on down—seemed to be giving about 35% effort. The idea seemed to be: “You know, if we make a family movie that’s chock full of star power, market it aggressively, and release around Christmas, we’ll make money no matter how sloppy it is.” The depressing thing is that they’re right. Museum made $250 million, a lucrative return even on the substantial $110 million they spent making the movie.

But enough financial talk, let’s discuss why this movie sucked.

The script is poor beyond belief. Comic actors can only be comic actors if they have any comic lines to deliver—or at least comic situations to get in. But there’s not a lot to work with here. The script was penned by Reno 911’s Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (who also teamed up for such beloved films as Herbie Fully Loaded and Let’s Go to Prison). Either the pair have a hard time being funny in a PG setting, or their comic sensibilities clashed with that of the actors. Whatever it was, I can count the laugh-out-loud moments in this movie on one finger.

But there are worse problems than that, such as laziness with continuity: Stiller stays up all night for his shift, then spends the entire next day researching. Rather than, I don’t know, passing out the moment he gets home. He then goes to work the next night, never betraying a hint of tiredness. (Another complaint: Night at the Museum is actually several nights.)

There are also moments of severe stupidity—the two most flagrant are caveman-related. On his second night of work, Stiller is prepared, and there’s a montage wherein he neutralizes a bunch of potential problems before they start. One of the things he does is find the now-living caveman display in the midst of their quest to create fire—and gives them a lighter. Never does he consider the fact that that this is completely retarded. Honestly, the cavemen weren’t even a problem the first night, why would he just give them fire?

Inevitably, one of the cavemen sets his hair on fire, and Stiller has to jump in with a fire extinguisher. This makes a big mess of foam in the display and, in the commotion, one of the cavemen escapes. The next morning, the museum’s curator (Ricky Gervais) chides Stiller for the mess in the display, but completely ignores the fact that there is a caveman missing. I mean, come on.

The actors clearly know that they’re dealing with substandard material, and mail in their performances accordingly. There’s a lot of comic talent involved here, so that’s a lot of mailing.

Stiller kind of tries, but he never gets out of second gear, and that’s nearly enough. Robin Williams is completely wasted as a pretty bad Teddy Roosevelt impersonator. Owen Wilson knows he's acting for kids, and hams it up accordingly (and obnoxiously). Poor Ricky Gervais looks like he has no idea what his character is supposed to be. Dick Van Dyke, as former night guard Cecil, holds up admirably for a short while, but eventually succumbs to the ridiculousness surrounding him. Mickey Rooney might actually be the pick of the litter here. He isn't given much to do as Cecil's pugnacious sidekick Gus, but he at least seems to be having some fun with it. The same can't be said for the rest of the cast.

If there is a saving grace to this movie, it's that it is legitimately family-friendly. There's not much cussing and a total absence of sex talk (save for one fairly veiled Brokeback Mountain
reference). And the movie does manage to teach kids a bit about history, which is something. Though the history is predictably truncated, such as when Roosevelt rides up and quotes (without citing) Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, saying, "Some men are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them." Which, of course, totally leaves out that irrelevant middle part: "Some achieve greatness."

Needless to say, Night at the Museum does not achieve greatness. It struggles to even achieve mediocrity. Sometimes I'll have days at work when I think, "I'm beat and I'm bored. I'm just going to do the minimum required of me and then call it a day." So I can't really chide the people involved in Night at the Museum too much for having the same thoughts, but I can warn you against tasting the fruits of their lack of effort. And I can give the movie a stern shake of the head and a -4.

Brick

When a movie does something or is something that hasn’t been done before or didn’t exist before, I can appreciate it without actually liking it. Fortunately, Brick succeeds on both counts, though one much more than the other. One of the practices of college writing classes everywhere is taking the model of a story that already exists and transporting the setting. If the script for Brick was a college project, it would probably earn a B+.

The model is a hard-boiled detective story, and the setting it’s transported to is a high school. The hero remains largely the same, except he doesn’t have the convenient occupation of detective. The motivation is almost the same; originally it’s money turning to revenge, and here it’s friendship turning to revenge. Overall, the transportation works wonderfully well. There are a few things that didn’t translate very well, like the party Brendan goes to in the first half-hour of the film, and the fact that only the “adult” in the story seems to have any parents. However, I’ve seen some setting changes that worked horribly, so this seems pretty good by comparison.

The movie opens up on what so many hard-boiled stories open up on: a dead body. Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the main character, is staring at it contemplatively. We then back-track one day, to an arm with a blue bracelet (the same blue bracelet the body had on) slipping a note into Brendan’s locker at school. No explaining, no exposition. The filmmaker chooses a voyeuristic approach with the camera angles, and we feel a bit like we are intruding. Brendan gets a call from Emily (Emilie de Ravin), an old flame, and she’s in trouble. He spends the rest of the day trying to track her down. Brendan is the archetypical detective; brooding, sardonic, a loner, and tough as nails. He’s definitely not above violence when it’s called for, but he’s also much too smart to get into a scuffle when a well-placed word will do just as well. He’s also the second smartest kid in school. He’s helped out from time to time by the first smartest, a bespectacled kid nicknamed The Brain (Matt O’Leary). Brendan visits and has run-ins with various people on his quest for information, like school drama queen and former girlfriend Kara (Meagan Good), upper-class hostess Laura (Nora Zehetner), and stoner Dode (Noah Segan), who happens to be Emily’s current flame. Also in the mix are drug lord The Pin (Lukas Haas) and his toady, the belligerent Tug (Noah Fleiss).

Brendan still cares for Emily, and that leads him to get way too involved in affairs that start out as none of his business. The plot kind of lost me at one point, as it was a little too twisty for me to completely follow it. The dialogue is brilliant throughout, and the screenplay controls the plot with a mature pacing. The best part is, though, that the director obviously loves the hard-boiled detective story, and it definitely shows with this movie. His drawing on classical sources seems like interpretation rather than ripping off, and we as the audience are treated to a movie that’s at once haunting, mystical, and visceral. It also proves that a movie doesn’t have to have even a single shot of special effects or CGI to be beautiful. Brick reveals competence in the craft of movie-making, as well as the ability to piece together an intriguing (if very confusing) story.

Iconic Lines:
“Throw one at me if you want, hash-head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, so that puts me six up on the lot of you.”
“There’s a thesaurus in the library. ‘Yeah’ is under Y. Go ahead, I’ll wait.”
“Come to see the show?”

22 Rating: 8

Particle Man

Hot Fuzz (Dr. Worm)

Ever wonder why comedies are so rarely sharply directed? Typically, comedy directors will just set up a single camera and allow the comedy-supplying actors to prance around. There doesn't seem to be much of a reason for this, aside from laziness. "Let Will Ferrell make his money," the directors shrug, "I'll just sit behind the camera and laugh."

Fortunately, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the minds behind Hot Fuzz and 2004's enjoyable Shaun of the Dead, buck this trend. Hot Fuzz, like Shaun of the Dead, is a comedy and a parody, but it also stands up without having to lean on either of those crutches.

As Stormy Pinkness detailed, Hot Fuzz is about Nicholas Angel, London's top cop who gets transferred to somnolent Sandford to prevent him from making his colleagues look any worse. Pegg deserves special praise for his portrayal of Sgt. Angel, a fastidious rule-abider. Played by a lesser actor, he could come off seeming more than a bit persnickety. Pegg, however, makes sure that Angel's devotion to the rulebook comes from sincere concern for society, rather than a desire to be an overgrown safety patrol.

Getting back to the plot briefly, it goes on as Pinkness described: Angel teams with an inept cop named Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), and the two investigate a series of accidents which begin seeming more and more conspicuous. Eventually, ridiculousness ensues. The movie is a comedy, and, because it is funny, it succeeds. But it succeeds for more reasons than just this.

First, it's a perfect parody. Which is rare; parodies frequently simply lazily recreate some of the more obvious characteristics of the parodee (if you will). If you've ever seen Saturday Night Live, you know what I'm talking about. But Hot Fuzz clearly loves the subject matter it's poking fun at (just as Shaun of the Dead did), so the end result is that the movie is just as much an homage as it is a parody.

Furthermore, it's more than just a great comedy or a great parody; it's also a great movie in its own right. It features well-developed characters. It boasts a sharp, snappy screenplay. It contains original and effective cinematography. As simple as it sounds, the people involved in creating this movie clearly cared about making a really good movie. And, as a result, they made a really good movie.

There's not much not to like about this movie. It does get pretty ridiculous toward the end, so if you've got a mental ailment that causes you to have seizures if you see something unrealistic, maybe skip this one. Also, there's a bit more gore than you might expect, so if you've got a weak stomach, be prepared to close your eyes at certain points. Other than that, there's no reason not to see this movie. After all, it is a 14.

Hot Fuzz (Stormy Pinkness)

Hot Fuzz was a different sort of experience for me. After seeing it in the theaters I was impressed by the movie, but not to an overwhelming extent. However, as I continued to think about the movie, my opinion of it improved. But first, let’s look at what Hot Fuzz is.
Nicholas Angel is a top cop in London. He does everything he can to make sure every lawbreaker pays the price. While he is excellent at his job, his excellence reflects badly on the other officers in London. So, in an effort to make themselves look better, they give Nick a promotion that reassigns him to a quiet little village, Sandford, where the greatest problem seems to be a MIA swan. Nicholas also gets stuck with a new partner who really is not quite on top of his game. After a few fatal accidents happen in the town, Nicholas becomes convinced that these were not accidents, but murders.
Obviously, Hot Fuzz is a dark comedy. Or at least that’s how it was billed when I went to see it. Also, it’s British, which can take some getting used to. I thought that was my problem: Sometimes I find British comedy funny and sometimes I don’t. So this was the reason in my mind that I was bored for the first part of the movie. However, I think what it came down to was the fact that I wanted to see some shooting and some action and didn’t want to sit through the exposition to set up the action. Now that I am in a different mood, and thinking back on the movie, it was not boring at all.
I have been thinking about this movie for two weeks, which is a good accomplishment for the movie, or really anything that can hold my attention span longer than a minute. I have also been thinking of how to try to describe this film and the only word I can think of is “ridiculous.” While this trait is not always a good thing, in this case it was. This movie was ridiculously entertaining and enlightening. It taught you that things are not always as they appear, and in a hilarious way, of course. All of the actors were great, from the sinister shop owner played by Timothy Dalton, to the bumbling sidekick portrayed by Nick Frost.
Immediately after I saw this movie I was asked to give it a rating. At the time, I gave it a 12. However, after further thought, I think I need to bump its rating up to a 15. It was funny and entertaining and, once again, delightfully ridiculous.

Babette's Feast (a guest review by Number Three)

I’m a sucker for a good foreign film. And one such reason is because a surprising number of foreign films serve as the primary influence for several Hollywood offerings. It’s always a surprise though when I accidentally discover a hidden movie that just so happens to be a great influence on some popular American movie that we’ve all seen.

So here’s what Babette’s Feast is about. Let’s play a little game and see if you can guess what popular movie was influenced by it.

An unlikely person stumbles upon a happy, if overly dispassionate town and changes their pattern of thought to accept and enjoy the pleasures of this world instead of denying them through the use of food.

Have you figured it out yet? You’re right, it’s Chocolat. Now let me just say that I liked Chocolat and I don’t mind that it ripped off Babette’s Feast. They are both good movies and they are both set in very different times and places, but boy are they alike when you consider the basic aspects of the story and message.

The only problem with foreign films, though, is that they often feel a bit foreign. That is to say, I am a product of Hollywood, and so while I greatly appreciate foreign films, there will always be some element of the culture that just doesn’t fully translate into my full and utter enjoyment. Thus, Chocolat is a bit easier to watch for an American I think, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Babette’s Feast anyway, because it will serve as an intriguing education on film influence and it will also delight you and make you very hungry for a good French restaurant afterwards.

Here’s the basic storyline: There is a somewhat remote and fairly provincial Danish village on the seacoast that is quite happy. They are all very good and very dedicated Papists…and that’s important. Two nice young ladies live a life of service beside their pastor father and give up the prospect of marriage so that they might dedicate themselves to the service of the village. They find contentment and joy in their service, but there is probably a tinge of regret too. Fast forward many, many years. Papa is dead and the village tarries on, doing their best to live up to the pastor’s preaching and exhortations about living the good Christian life. Along comes Babette, a French woman who has some connection to an earlier and rather amusing character. She has been forced to flee France over the turmoil of the times and finds a home with the now two old ladies who never married.

She serves humbly for over a decade and one day learns that she has won 10,000 francs from a lottery ticket that a friend back home had renewed for her every year. To show her appreciation she makes a feast for the village, who because of their philosophy, somehow think it would be un-Christian to enjoy it. Oh but the food is good! Babette teaches them a little something about enjoying the things of this earth through her food. Here the viewer can probably fine-tune the message to their tastes, pun intended. I would say, excess is not good, but neither is trying not to find joy in the things that are meant to bring us joy. Well, the movie is a joy to watch, especially with a fine Bordeaux and a lovely meal in hand.

Number Three’s Score:
Mouthspeak (impact of dialog): +10
Watchfeel (impact of visuals): +16
Mouthfeel (overall watchability): +14

Number Three

Snatch

Some movies bring you up to a higher level of understanding. Some movies touch your soul with the depth of their characters, ideas, or visual acrobatics. And some movies make you think really hard and examine yourself in a way you didn’t before. Snatch falls into none of these categories; it just makes you laugh.

Here’s the condition, though: it can’t make everyone laugh. There are some folks who will find the particular brand of comedy in Snatch to be completely unappealing. To really appreciate it, you need to forget all of your morals, hang-ups, and sensitivities for two hours. Make no mistake; Snatch doesn’t have a single redeeming character in it. That’s not the point. The point is simply to entertain you through presenting a wide array of characters that are so ridiculous, so over-the-top, and so not like real people that you can only laugh at their antics. And once you realize that fact, I think you’ll find that this is one of the funniest movies ever.

The plot of Snatch centers around two simultaneous stories. The first is of a stolen 86-karet diamond, and all the people trying to get their hands on it. The second is of an unlicensed boxing promoter (and his partner) and his debt to an unscrupulous gangster. The fact that it’s a British film, and that all the major characters in it are British (save two, an American and an Uzbekistani), really adds to the other-worldly-ness and catharsis of the comedy.

The plot is started rolling by Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro), when he holds up a Jewish precious stone storehouse and steals a diamond the size of a fist. A Russian named Boris the Blade (aka Boris the Bullet Dodger) recruits Vinny and Sol, two black jewelers, to steal the diamond for him. They prove to be blazingly incompetent, but through sheer luck, they end up with the diamond. At the same time, the American whom Franky stole the diamond for, Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina), comes to London to get the diamond from Franky, who doesn’t have it because Vinny and Sol stole it, who in turn gave it to Boris. Avi hires Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) to track down Boris. Add to this a dog that likes to swallow non-edible objects and the fun just never stops. When Avi comes back to the states and a customs officer asks him if he has anything to declare, he responds, “yeah, don’t go to England!” Confused yet? That’s just one plot thread.

The other involves boxing promoter\penny arcade manager Turkish (Jason Statham), who has a fight coming up for boxing manager and gangster Brick Top (Alan Ford). Brick Top is not burdened by any type of morality, feeds men he has killed to pigs, and gets his jollies off of torturing dogs (in Britain, the only man worse than a pedophile is one who tortures dogs). Turkish sends his partner Tommy to buy a caravan (trailer mobile home) for him off a fast-talking gypsy named Mickey (Brad Pitt). Mickey cheats him, then offers to settle the debt by fighting with Gorgeous George (the man Tommy brought with him to see Mickey, and the boxer in Turkish’s upcoming fight). To Tommy’s surprise and dismay, Gorgeous George loses (and is hospitalized). Turkish decides to solve his dilemma of having lost Gorgeous by replacing him with Mickey, and agrees to buy Mickey’s mother a caravan if he will do the fight. Brick Top reluctantly agrees, but insists Mickey take a fall in the fourth round. Mickey, however, knocks his opponent out in the first round, screwing Brick Top. Deciding he wants to use Mickey again in the fight that will make back the money he lost, Brick Top motivates Mickey through dastardly means, but Mickey screws him again, and has a surprise in store for him. Turkish and Tommy are caught in the middle of all this, and through ridiculous circumstance, receive a windfall at the very end of the movie. If you’re still not confused, I’m very impressed. And don’t worry; the stories are connected in various places.

The acting is pretty good, but the focus is not on the acting. Standing out is Brad Pitt. He’s the most famous face in Snatch, but he doesn’t have the spotlight at all. His performance is insanely good, especially his accent-work (hint: I don’t mean British). The cinematography is pretty stylish and sharp, and the dialogue is among the smartest and most quick-witted out there. And if you have even a hint of Anglophile in you, this movie will send you into a sputtering incoherence of joy.

Obviously, Snatch is about very bad people and what happens to them. In an existential twist, what happens to them isn’t ruled by any over-riding morality, but instead by random chance. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes it’s neither. The fact that the people involved in the story are people we don’t care about at all is one of the strengths of the movie, actually. Things come at them from left field, and some of them are deliciously goofy and unbelievable. Some results are bad, yes, but the characters never really get their comeuppance (except the ones who die). That fact can be viewed as tragic and unjust from one point of view, or hysterical from another. Personally, I choose the latter, and to really appreciate this movie, I think you have to.

Iconic lines (or exchanges):
“Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.”

Turkish: “We’ve lost Gorgeous George.”
Brick Top: “You’re gonna have to repeat that.”
Turkish: “We’ve lost Gorgeous George.”
Brick Top: “Well, where’d you lose him? It’s not like he’s a set of f***ing car keys.”

“Find my friend a nice Jewish doctor!”

22 Rating: 18

Particle Man

Grindhouse

Greetings, TMBC-keteers! I was hoping to get this review of Grindhouse written and up on Friday, but you know how life is. Better late than never, right? And for those of you who were wondering why the latest joint from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez turned in such a mediocre performance at the box-office this weeked, I'm going to shed some light on that, but, not in the way you expect.
As you've all read or heard, I'm sure, Grindhouse is a loving tribute to the low-rent type of cinema that you would see in the inner city, if at all. The bread and butter of the genre were various exploitation films, horror flicks, spaghetti westerns, etc. Robert Rodriguez's portion of the double feature, Planet Terror, is a mash-up of every zombie movie and R-rated action movie you've ever seen. Tarantino's portion, Death Proof, is an odd mix of car movie, slasher film, and women's lib riff. Both films have been artificially aged, with added crackles and print damage, and with "missing reels" at "inopportune" moments. Plus, there are fake trailers from the likes of Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright, and Eli Roth!
I should note that I saw Grindhouse in the best possible circumstances: in a crowded theater, two days before the official release date, on a Wednesday evening. While there were a few jokes that went over the heads of the crowd, they were pretty tuned in, for the most part.
Planet Terror revolves around a zombifying virus that has origins too bizarre to recount (and spoil...) here. Pulled together to combat this menace are El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), a diminutive bad-ass with mysterious origins, Cherry (Rose McGowan), a former stripper who gets her leg gnawed off by the zombies, which turns out to be their mistake....Doctor Block (Marley Shelton), an anesthesiologist who becomes more and more unhinged throughout the film. Also appearing are Michael Biehn as the hard-assed sheriff, Tom Savini as the eventually doomed sheriff's assistant, Josh Brolin as Doctor Block's sinister husband, etc. PT is extremely well cast with actors who understand the material, and treat it with the appropriate performances (or lack thereof). It functioned as less of a parody for me, and more of a kick-ass, WAY over-the-top horror-comedy in the vein of Evil Dead II or Return of the Living Dead. Of the two features, PT is vastly superior to DP, and an extremely worthy follow-up to Sin City for Rodriguez.
Death Proof is the story of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a psychotic movie stuntman who stalks and murders young women with his special "death-proof" car. It's tough for me to go into this section without using heavy spoilage, but I have to say that I was disappointed. I thought that Kill Bill Vol 2 was the best film QT had ever done, and DP was a mostly slow, EXTREMELY talky piece that was mostly a homage to the old grindhouse films tangentially. All the elements are there, but DP is like a QT film disguised as a grindhouse film. There is some stunning stuntwork from Kiwi stuntwoman and former Xena double Zoe Bell (playing herself in a great debut performance), and a long car chase towards the end of the film that more or less makes up for the talking, talking, and more talking. DP is definitely the My Dinner With Andre of the grindhouse set.
And the fake trailers? Glorious. Completely glorious. So glorious, I can't spoil them for you. Oddly enough, the only real nudity in the film is in two of the trailers. I will say this, though: Grindhouse gets a point shaved off of this review for not including the transcendant Hobo With a Shotgun trailer with it. You can YouTube HWAS, and I recommend you do.
What's the bad? There really isn't much bad that I found with GH, but the running time of 3 hours and 11 minutes definitely explains a thing or two about it's poor box-office performance. I would consider that a plus though, as the film is supposed to be a double-feature. That, and it might confuse people as to whether it's supposed to be funny, scary, or both. For those more sensitive audience members, most of PT, and bits of DP are insanely gory. I don't even want to contemplate how many times the damn thing went before the Puritanical MPAA. Consider yourself warned. But, if you were going to see it anyway, you're probably aware of that.
If it seems like I don't have a lot to say about Grindhouse......I don't. But you shouldn't consider that a bad thing. It delivers exactly what it promises to, with some breakout performances from Freddy Hernandez and Zoe Bell, and lots of solid performances from older actors, like Kurt Russell's creepily hilarious Stuntman Mike. I would give Death Proof a 10 and Planet Terror a 16. Add a few points from the fake trailers, and Grindhouse gets a solid 16 out of 22. I hope to see you at the "grindhouse," but I probably won't if you fall in step with the rest of America, which seems to consider Ice Cube and 3D Disney better entertainment. Boo, America.........

300 (Particle Man)

Previously, Frank Miller gave us Sin City, an experience so amped-up and over-exaggerated that, while it doesn’t really hold water from an objective standpoint, was one wild ride while it was being viewed. Now we have 300, also from the deranged and ingenious mind of Frank Miller. Miller actually had little to do with the movie, unlike Sin City, where Robert Rodriguez gave him a co-director credit even though he never once manned a camera. But the Miller-ness is still intact, and 300 simply oozes style and drama.

Director Zack Snyder, whose only previous feature film was the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead (I didn’t see it myself, but I hear it was pretty terrifying), creates a story that’s hammy, over-dramatic, and one-dimensional, exactly like it should be. This is a comic book, people. If you’re looking for realism, watch C-SPAN.

It’s clear that Snyder understands the source material, because he evokes the right mood from the very first frame. It’s over the top, yes, but that’s definitely not a problem. In fact, I would have more of a problem with the movie if it were subtle and under-handed. Subtle it is not, but it’s very smart and self-aware. It knows it’s based on a graphic novel, and expects you to as well. Likewise, it expects you to check your pre-conceived notions about what a “normal” movie should look like at the door. The visual style is very stark and in-your-face, but also beautiful in its own way.

Now for the plot. Historically based (kinda…), 300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC. The Persian army was marching across the land, plowing over everyone who didn’t bow the knee. Sparta, and its King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), were definitely not ones to bow the knee to anyone. When Persia sends an emissary to tell Leonidas what’s what, he quickly gets a vision of just who he’s dealing with, but not long before he dies a horrible death. The Persian army of millions is on its way when 300 Spartans, lead by King Leonidas himself, block their path at a critical point. It’s a narrow passage through the mountains, such that the insurmountable numbers of the enemy become meaningless.

Meanwhile, Gorgo (Lena Headey), Queen of Sparta, is left to rally support for her king, and faces some political intrigue at home. The relationship between Gorgo and Leonidus is fascinating. As strong, courageous, and unflinching as Leonidus is, Gorgo matches him in every area. She gives him good counsel when he needs it, and believes in him and what he stands for, because she stands for that herself. Even so, she’s not butch or man-like, though her most attractive (non-physical) features are male in nature. Really, she every man’s dream: a masculine person in a smokin’ hot female body. She’s a woman of incredible beauty and grace, and is even a little vulnerable. In the midst of that, however, she’s strong and solid, unyielding to her cause. The most memorable moment in the film is when Leonidas and Gorgo see each other for the last time, and no words are spoken to one from the other. Yet volumes are said with just their exchanged looks.

LOTR fans will get a treat by seeing David Wenham again, as a one-eyed soldier with a gift for words and spinning tales. Other than that (and the king and queen), however, there are no stand-out performances. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is just as he should be, exotic and other-worldly. A Quasimodo-like character (Andrew Tiernan) is really just a catalyst for the plot moving forward, and I feel that more could have been done with his character if the actor had made some different choices. The one over-the-top element to the movie that really distracted me from the experience was the inordinate amount of super-dramatic pauses it had. By the fourth time it had one, I was just saying, “that’ll do, pig, that’ll do.”

300 generally duplicates the experience of Sin City and every other comic book movie worth its salt, in that I bought into it during its runtime. That element is essential to comic book movies; it has to have the ability to make you suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy it. 300 succeeds most of the time, though it sometimes lets its stylization run away with it. Even so, it’s a very fun ride, which is what any ridiculously stylized movie should be.

Iconic lines:
“Spartans! Enjoy your breakfast, for tonight we dine in hell!"

22 Rating: 13

Particle Man

300 (Dr. Worm)

There's nothing subtle about 300. Look at the poster to the left here. See how it features a chiseled guy screaming in the rain? See how the title kind of looks like it was created by a blood splatter? See how there's a lightning bolt in the background, just for awesomeness sake? This poster tells you pretty much everything you need to know about 300. It's chock full of chiseled guys, blood, and--yes--awesomeness.

It's also the first movie of 2007 to make an imprint on the greater public consciousness, and for that, it deserves a deeper look.

The story of this film is rather simple: 300 Spartan soldiers must fight off a million-strong Persian horde. So it's your classic underdog story. But it's also the story of the Spartans defending their way of life against the Persians. So it's a classic "fight for your motherland" story. And in 300, the Spartans say all the right things about freedom and all men being created equal (in a bit of a stretch of historical accuracy), while the Persians are characterized as trembling in fear before their god-king Xerxes. So it's also a classic good vs. evil story.

These plot lines are developed, in large part, at the expense of nuance. But, honestly, that doesn't really matter. This is not a nuance movie. This is an adrenaline movie. This is a drums-pounding-electric-guitar-grinding-guys-yelling-and-killing movie. There's not a whole lot of room for nuance in the plot.

Fortunately, there's plenty of nuance in the visuals, which are stunning. The entire film has a marbleish feel to it, heightening the sense that these mythic heroes are ancient Greek statues come to life. And director Zack Snyder makes some really interesting choices with the fight scenes. At a couple points, he alternated between slowing down and then speeding up the action as the Greeks mowed through Persian after Persian--I found this to be a particularly effective technique (in fact the technique, and the movie in general, reminded me a bit of the video game Dynasty Warriors).

And like video games, 300 seems like it will appeal predominantly to male audiences. I don't want to generalize, but war movies with gratuitous battle sequences have historically been appreciated more by males than by females. Also, the main character, King Leonidas, is certainly a man's man; he's the kind of guy who'd sooner die than genuflect to another man--a character trait that sets the plot of the movie in action. Furthermore, there's only one one meaningful female character in the film, and not only is she admired mainly for her male characteristics (and hotness), she also bears the unfortunate name of Queen Gorgo. Other than her, it's pretty much all beefcake ... so, on second thought, maybe this film will appeal to females after all.

One person who should appeal to everyone is Gerard Butler, who plays King Leonidas. Butler's performance is strong and stable, and he's just thoughtful enough that you don't write off Leonidas as an arrogant jerk whose aversion to diplomacy brings his country to war. I will say, however, I was a bit confused as to why Leonidas and several of the other Spartans had Scottish accents. Maybe they were going for the Braveheart synergy effect (and in fact, one could certainly appreciate 300 as a poor man's Braveheart). Alongside Butler, Lena Heady does a competent job as Queen Gordo, Dominic West doesn't stretch but doesn't fail as the corrupt statesman Theron, and David Wenham is rather enjoyable as the silver-tongued soldier (and narrator) Dilios.

It should also be noted that this movie has attracted some attention for its perceived political messages. Iranians, for one, were incensed at how their ancestors (the Persians) are depicted. And several have noted that George W. Bush probably isn't disappointed to see such a positive portrayal of a leader who brings his country to war--despite objections--because he believes it's the right thing. (One writer went so far as to say the president "is going to blow a load in his pants when he sees this movie.") These are all interesting discussions, but they're out of place in a movie review. So check out our sister blog, I Should Be Allowed to Think, which was created just for topics like these.

All things considered, 300 is an enjoyable, visually arresting film that's a bit short on depth. That's good enough to earn it a 10.